A damn shame that this ass wipe has the gall to keep accepting a salary from the Government.

Welfare is alive and doing well. Thanks for nothing Clarence.

Thomas could not get a job in a Georgia law firm, and this had nothing to do with his race.

Two cases argued today broadly on 6th Amendment right to confront--one of them, Boyer v. Louisana is super important--because it could threaten right to counsel.  That's Boyer v. Louisiana The other gets into what Apprendi means. They are probably going to interpret it narrowly leaving much undecided but the fact the case is there is egregious and abominable.

Analysis of  Boyer: Right to Counsel
http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/01/argument-preview-stick-to-the-speedy-trial-question-presented/

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/boyer-v-louisiana/

Boyer oral argument transcript:

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/11-9953.pdf

Sotomayor's new book is not the ordinary zzzz inducer.  Pretty good, and gets into some real specifics.






-- Modified on 1/14/2013 4:45:49 PM

In fact, often the opposite is true. Lazy judges who have not read the briefs before oral argument frequently waste everyone’s time by asking questions that are covered in the briefs.

         The oral argument is mostly for show. In fact, in the courts of appeal many appeals are decided on the briefs without oral argument. Think of the quality of answer. Most legal issues take days of research and study to decide. When an attorney is asked a question on oral argument that is not covered in his brief, he has to give an on-the-spot answer in the glare of the hottest spotlight. Rarely does the attorney give the same articulate answer he would give if had time to study the question.

        Take the Obamacare oral argument for example. Almost everyone present agrees the Solicitor General did a terrible job defending Obamacare. CNN’s Jeff Tubin called his performance a "trainwreck."
Even worse, the S.G. said the mandate was NOT  a tax, the very theory that saved the law.

The mandate was upheld anyway.

        Sometimes the briefs are bad and the justices feel the need to ask key questions that are not covered in the brief. But, aside from these times, I doubt the judges even have a very clear memory of what was said at oral argument. In most cases, they sit down with the briefs and their law clerk memoranda and make the decision from the writings.

    Justice Thomas may, or may not, be a good judge. But his failure to ask questions at oral argument does not shed any light on this question.

There are some justices that never ask a question.  It has very little to do with anything other than personal style.
A lot of appellate attorneys do not even believe that oral argument has any effect.  
If you go to the Court of Appeal in L.A. on any day that they have oral argument, you will see that at least 60% of the attorneys have waived oral argument in criminal cases.  A little research would be enlightening.  You can find the case on the court's docket and if you click on enough links you will see argument is being waived by attorney who have handled hundreds of appeals, many of them murder cases.  

If you sit through oral argument enough times, you will notice that many justices never ask questions.  

I know some appellate attorneys that jokingly say they practice oral argument talking to brick walls.

If my memorny serves correctly, Douglas asked very few questions.

Whether or not Thomas is qualified in a different question.

However, the fact that justices don't ask questions is as relevant to competancy as the fact that a president may say there are 57 states or a VP may say that during the Crash FDR went to TV.

he still has Anita Hill's craw stuck in his throat..

............to his next outburst. He hasn't spoken in 7 years because if he spoke regularly people would know just what a fool he really is.

There's another perspective .
  Justice Thomas reads and understands the written briefs so well , he has no questions .
 Most loud mouths in all walks of life  are covering up something ,  it isn't wisdom .
 

because of the volume of drug cases in every circuit.  18.5% of Eleventh Circuit appeals get oral argument. Per Curiam opinions give no analysis and are done by scores of staff lawyers who help screen which appeals are considered for oral argument.  Often months of preparation and work on briefs and considerable money are spent only to result in a per curiam.

Judge Arnold in the Eighth Circuit attempted to change this with his opinion in Anastasoff, but it was quickly reversed en banc.

http://www.bc.edu/dam/files/schools/law/lawreviews/journals/bclawr/42_1/02_FMS.htm

Thomas' failure to get a job in an Atlanta law firm had nothing to do with his being the only justice on the Supreme court to ask next to no questions.  It had to do with his pervasive stupidity.

Of course right wing Teabaggers of the type that are now wrecking the Republican party and have it imploding are going to defend Scalia's puppy dog.

Woof Woof.

Maybe you're referencing a state appellate court in California. Because that's sure not the case in the Ninth Circuit.

-- Modified on 1/15/2013 12:05:41 AM

and a very real reason oral argument is waived in so many cases is money - the criminal defendant can barely pay his lawyer as it is and so the lawyer is not interested in doing an oral argument for free.

Another huge category is prisoner cases. These guys file appeals all the time but there is rarely an oral argument unless the guy is high profile like Jeffrey McDonald.

-- Modified on 1/15/2013 11:00:33 AM

I was talking about state appeals, but in the Ninth Circuit (fed) it is even worse.

In all cases the court sends out a notice of oral argument, asking if you want argument.  Many parties waive at that time.

If the party asks for argument, the court looks at the case and in a large majority the court simply cancels argument, saying the issues are sufficiently framed and the court does not think argument will be of service.

I don't know the practice in the other circuits, but in the 9th most cases are not argued

Finally, you are not correct saying money is a factor.  In CA, if you don't have money the state pays for the appellate attorney and the appellate attorney can bill for oral argument.  In 25 years, I have never heard of an attorney having that part of his claim cut.  In short, it isn't money.   (Again, I don't know about other jurisdictions)

Why in the world would the state pay the appellate costs including oral argument for a non-indigent criminal defendant? No question they would pay for a public defender but you are saying that Johnny Cockran, Robert Shipiro , and Alan Dershoswitz could have billed the state for OJ's appeal if he had been found guilty?

No wonder your state is always broke. Sounds like a lawyer's holiday to me.

The state doesn't pay for non-indigent, but a substantial number are indigent.  Skimming through the docket, probably 85% are appointed. A huge number of people who have private attorneys at trial run throught their money at that level and file as an indigent.  Family money does not count, so even if the family has money the defendant may be indigent, so an attorney will be appointed.

Finally, at that level you are really talking peanuts.  On appeal, probably one percent of the work (at most) is oral argument.  A 6,000 page transcript may take 70 hours to read. The state will allow 1/3 of that for the Statements of Facts, etc.  Then writing a brief may vary from 40 to 200 depending on the number of issues. Motions, etc.  

If you want oral argument, in CA the maximim you can ask for is 30 minutes, and even the private attorneys in civil cases rarely ask for that,  In a huge complex death penalty case in the State Supreme Court you can ask for extra time and maybe get 45 minutes or an hour per side, but that would be a case with a 15,000 page record and a 500 page brief.

Net result, a case of 300 hours may have 20 minutes of oral argument, plus prep time, etc.

OJ wasn't quite broke, because of his NFL pension, but someone like Cochran or Shapiro would never pass up oral argument.  

In short, oral argument is peanuts.

opinions, money paid by the litigants not to mention time spent briefing, and  the emotional investment by attorneys and plaintiffs and defendants in civil cases and the government and defendants in criminal cases gets short shrift. This is a very common criticism of the per curiam system basically driven by the proportion of drug appeals that are clogging the court system because of an antiquated approach to illegal drugs in this country.

And in the 11th Circuit and most circuits a staff of attorneys who are not part of any judges' chambers screen cases.  My figure for about 19% getting oral argument in CA11 is dead on.

I ***never** said money was a factor in which cases got argued.  You conflated or misunderstood.I said considerable money is often invested in the cases and in the federal system FDP is paid for their time at a much reduced rate cf. with a private attorney.  The rules in the Eleventh are also that a proportional representation of private attorneys are appointed to take cases, but those rules are not followed and I can tell you from discussions with judges that they are reluctant to discuss this, and although it should be public information won't list the numbers as to private attorneys appointed.  Everyone knows they are few and far between.

And California's own Janice Rogers Brown formerly of the California Supreme Court and currently on the D.C. Circuit bench and  Clarence Thomas remain the dumbest judges in the federal system.

In my state, the defender system has never been more clusterfucked, with the legislature stealing millions of dollars that was by law ear-marked for the defender system.  To be specific, by law the  state collected $44.6 million in fees and surcharges to fund the state defender system in a law passed by the General Assembly.  The state failed to turned over more than $7 million  to the public defender system keeping the rest.  Defendants languish in jail for years with no attorney or funds for an investigator because no attorney was available to represent them at bond hearings, or appeared ordered by idiot  judges to court as unwilling pro se defendants because the state wouldn't fund attorneys.  


n  This makes a mockery of Justice Ginsburg's opinion in Alabama v. Shelton 5353 U.S. 654  It is one of 3 states where the equation between the legislature and lobbyists is that you get what you pay for. There are no limits currently on lobbying gifts and little record of them and what records there are can easily be gotten around.

-- Modified on 1/15/2013 9:35:29 PM