Looking back over all the justices who have served on the Supreme Court of the Unites States I was surprised to see just one from Texas, Tom Clark, and noticed the dearth selected from the southern states. Indeed some states, such as New Mexico and Oklahoma, have never "grown" a Supreme Court justice. Perhaps W can fill one of the future vacancies from the south to join Clarence Thomas and provide a more national Court?

I nominate John Bradley!

What a good choice. I have read that there is a push among some groups to nominate someone who is not currently presiding!

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Originally posted by John Stride:
Looking back over all the justices who have served on the Supreme Court of the Unites States I was surprised to see just one from Texas, Tom Clark, and noticed the dearth selected from the southern states.

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Didn't the South dominate the early court? I mean as in 18th and 19th century . . .

Certainly early justices were seated from south of the Mason-Dixon line, but I am not sure you can say they dominated the bench. Really my point is given the size of the population in some of the states, they deserve better representation on the SCOTUS. New York (16) has had five more justices than the next closest states, Ohio and Massachussetts(9), and from a glance at my list it seems that if you added up the justices from north of the MD line they would overwhelm those from south of it. On another note, by my count, only 31 states have ever been represented on the Court-- leaving some states in the north without a single justice.

Interestingly, if your name is Johnson or Jackson and you sit on the SCOTUS you will share the honor with two others of the same name. Clark or Clarke is next most popular.

[This message was edited by John Stride on 07-13-05 at .]

OK...I probably spent more time on this that it deserved, but I figured we could probably increase our odds of getting a Texas lawyer on the SCOTUS if we could nominate someone named "Clark Johnson" or "Jackson Clarke" or some other variation on the theme. These names seem common enough to me that I figured we probably have several potential candidates on the Bar roster. No such luck. According to the SBOT there is no one named Clark Johnson, Clark Jackson, Jackson Clarke, Johnson Clark, etc. licensed to practice law in the entire state. Go figure.

It's the lunch hour and I am at my desk.

Isn't the internet wonderful? Associate Justice John Bradley and Associate Justice Cathy Cochran both sound great to me. That Stride fellow would be good, too, if he wasn't saving himself for the House of Lords.

[This message was edited by John Rolater on 07-13-05 at .]

I believe Sandra Day O'Connor is an El Paso native.

I believe she is actually from New Mexico or Arizona. She spent her early years on a remote ranch, and moved to El Paso for school prior to high school.

You are partially correct. She did come to El Paso from AZ for school. But, she was actually born in El Paso. The following is from Biography.com.

Jurist, the first female justice of the US Supreme Court, born in El Paso, Texas, USA. She studied law and was admitted to the bar in California, but then took up practice in Arizona, where she became assistant attorney-general (1965�9) and then a state senator. She was a Superior Court judge of Maricopa Co (1974�9) and a judge of the Arizona Court of Appeals (1979�81) before President Reagan named her as the first woman justice of the US Supreme Court in 1981. During her 24 years as U.S. Supreme Court Justice, O'Connor often cast the swing vote on abortion, affirmative action and other hot-button issues. She announced her resignation from the Supreme Court on July 1, 2005.

Judge Cochran would be an excellent choice for Washington, but how many judges from purely criminal courts have ever been appointed? Isn't it more probable that a judge with a civil background would be selected? The almighty dollar, corporate pressure, and special interest groups seem to carry more weight than dealing with crime. Does anyone know if any Supreme Court judges with a primarily criminal background have been picked?

rumors say Clement

http://www.sctnomination.com/blog/archives/2005/07/associate_justi_1.html

Well, John Stride was right, you couldn't get much more civil than Judge Roberts. Still, it sounds as if he will not be an activist, which will generally help us, don't you think?

His judicial conservatism is certainly a point in his favor from our perspective, more or less (remember that it was Justice Scalia who authored Crawford). My only objection to Judge Roberts is that he came from the firm that sued us and the other Panhandle counties in the Tulia task force lawsuit. Hearing the pundits discuss what a golden-boy firm that is brought back really awful memories (or flashbacks, if you prefer).