Is Thomas’ silence pensive or disrespectful?

Jan Crawford Greenburg, the ABC News Washington correspondent whose recent book Supreme Conflict examines the Roberts Court, says Justice Clarence Thomas’ much-noted silence on the bench during oral argument reflects one of many ways the justice’s philosophy differs from the other justices.

“Thomas doesn’t see the value” of oral argument, Greenburg told DRI meeting attendees during a panel discussion on the Court. “He likes to do things in a written way and that is just not how the other justices are.”

But former chief Supreme Court clerk Peter Ehrenhaft, who served under Chief Justice Earl Warren, said yesterday that Thomas’ silence isn’t the problem. It’s the way he delivers that silence.  As attorneys zealously argue their cases before the bench and field probing questions from the other justices, Thomas can often be seen leaning far back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling, closing his eyes (we’re sure he’s not napping), or whisper-chatting with his bench neighbor, Justice Stephen Breyer.

“It’s disrespectful,” Ehrenhaft opined.

Hume on presidential linguistic skills

Here is Fox News’ Brit Hume speaking to DRI conference goers on the eloquence of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush:

“If I was in trouble – I mean really bad trouble, and I could have anybody in the world representing me . . . and I say this to a room full of lawyers, I’d want Clinton,” Hume said. “I sort of feel like he could make a jury believe anything.”

As for the current president: “President Bush has had some confrontations with the English language . . . and the English language has won.”

Lawmakers: boost judges’ pay, clean up DOJ

Giving salary boosts to federal judges, ending partisan acrimony in the judicial confirmation process, and cleaning up the Department of Justice are at the top of the agenda of congressional Judiciary Committee members, according to House Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and member Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Conyers and Cornyn, who spoke this morning at DRI’s annual meeting here in Washington, agreed that the low wages offered to federal judges hamper the ability to draw and keep qualified jurists on the bench.

“Notwithstanding life tenure, we should be concerned with the number of judges who are leaving the bench,” Cornyn said, noting that federal judges often watch their clerks leave for law firm jobs with salaries that dwarf their own. And few of those former clerks return to the judiciary, robbing the bench of judges with crucial experience as practicing attorneys.

“Fewer than four out of 10 appointees to the federal bench are lawyers entering for private practice,” Cornyn said, urging bipartisan legislation boosting judicial pay.

Conyers said he has introduced a bill that will boost judges pay, but some lawmakers are wary of ending the current system of linking judicial and legislative pay increases.

“I think what is more troublesome for us on the House side is that many members are not quite comfortable with breaking the link between the compensation of legislators and the compensation of jurists,” Conyers said. “Judges haven’t been receiving so much as cost of living increases. They are lagging far behind.”

(Their thoughts on the politicized nature of the Justice Department and the judicial confirmation process after the jump).

Warren clerk: Brown has little effect today

While the nation’s highest court ruled 53 years ago that separate schools are inherently unequal, a former clerk for the decision’s author said the case has done little to achieve real equality in public schools.

Peter D. Ehrenhaft, who clerked for Chief Justice earl Warren from 1961-62, said that while Warren’s legacy is largely shaped by his 1954 opinion in Brown v. Board of Education, the decision’s impact on public schools was all but eviscerated by a decision decided in 1962, when Ehrenhaft was a clerk: Baker v. Carr.

In that case, the Court held that reapportionment of voting districts was a judiciable issue, and it led to redistricting of state legislative districts that ultimately shifted voting power to the suburbs. 

 “The result of Baker v. Carr has been that suburbanites control the legislatures in most states,” and as such, suburban schools receive more attention and funding from state legislatures, Ehrenhaft said during a lecture hosted by the Columbia University Club of D.C. Thursday night at the Charles Sumner School.

While the legacy of Brown has had the effect of cutting discrimination in other areas, in education, poorer school districts - which tend to have higher minority populations - still lag behind their wealthier suburban counterparts. “For the target – public primary education – [Brown] has not had a significant impact. In fact, it has had the opposite effect of encouraging suburban flight.”

(More after the jump)

Woodward kicks off defense lawyers’ meeting

The folks at DRI – The Voice of The Defense Bar turned to a big name to open its annual meeting here in Washington this morning: Watergate investigative reporter, author, and managing editor of the The Washington Post Bob Woodward.

Woodward seemed at home surrounded by the thousands of attorneys who listened to him give the event’s opening address. He is, after all, the son of an appellate judge, and as such, is full of lawyer jokes.

“Lawyers always have the most meaningful and profound things to say,” Woodward said, “unless you listen carefully.” Chuckles all around.

But he spent most of his time talking about President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. Woodard is currently working on the fourth installment of a series of books examining the president and the war.

Woodward said his reporting uncovered broad evidence of the administration’s lack of consideration of the consequences of war. But he also said despite it all, he believes the president genuinely thought – and still thinks – that invading Iraq was the right thing to do.

“I think he still believes (weapons of mass destruction) were there, and at some point they were shipped off somewhere – to Syria or Iran,” Woodward told the crowd.

He said Bush was driven in part by a sense of idealism, adding that during one of several hours-long interviews, the president told him: “I believe we have a duty to free and liberate people.”

“That idealism accounts in large part for his unwillingness to change course,” Woodward said. “This is how he thinks – the fact that there is resistance to what he is doing convinces him of the need to persist.”

The annual meeting of DRI, a national organization of defense trial lawyers and corporate counsel, lasts through Saturday.