“Consider the decisions out of this circuit that have cost Californians precious time, peace of mind and money the state doesn’t have. There’s the 2009 Ninth Circuit ruling that found overcrowding in California prisons – which are operating at 190 percent capacity because 100 percent capacity means one inmate per cell – impairs prisoners’ right to “constitutionally adequate medical and mental health care.” The court’s remedy? It ordered the release of 40,000 inmates in two years.
Then there’s the Ninth Circuit ruling that put the prison system under receivership and drove up annual health care costs per inmate to $13,778 in 2007-08.
Federal judges repeatedly have overruled murder convictions based on improper jury instructions or inadequate defense because attorneys failed to present evidence about a “difficult childhood.” … Just what is a judge’s obligation to the public, which has to absorb the cost of his decisions? Does he even care?
Goodwin Liu is Obama’s pick and there is little indication from any of his writings that he’d find any differently than the Ninth Circuit already has, so Saunders asks, “Liu … opposed the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts on the grounds that Roberts might prove to be a conservative extremist. Well, the Ninth Circuit already is extreme, on the liberal side. I want to know if Liu wants to right a listing ship or steer it into the drink.”
The answer may come during Liu’s confirmation hearings this week, but given the controversy already surrounding the nominee, and how “far outside the mainstream” Liu’s opinions, it may be a “no”.