Conservative Republican picked for US top court

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In picking John Roberts for the U.S.
Supreme Court, President Bush turned to a solidly conservative
Republican who was regarded as one of the top appellate lawyers
to argue at the high court before he became a judge.

The 50-year-old Roberts, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate,
would replace departing Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who often
cast the decisive vote on the nine-member court, which has been
closely divided between conservative and liberal factions.

Roberts is widely known and admired by conservative
Washington legal insiders, having served in the Republican
administrations of former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George
H.W. Bush.

Before becoming a federal appeals court judge in 2003,
Roberts had argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court in private
practice or as a government lawyer.

He was nominated by Bush for the U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia, which is considered the
nation’s second most influential court after the Supreme Court.
The Senate confirmed Roberts in a voice vote on May 8, 2003.

While on the bench, Roberts has been involved in some
noteworthy cases.

He was part of the three-judge panel that handed the Bush
administration a critical victory last Friday by ruling that
the military tribunals for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, could proceed.

In another opinion, Roberts voted to uphold the arrest and
detention of a 12-year-old girl for eating french fries on a
subway train, though he added, “No one is very happy about the
events that led to this litigation.”

ABORTION DECISION

Roberts argued before the Supreme Court as the principal
deputy solicitor general from 1989 to 1993, during the
presidency of Bush’s father.

In 1990, Roberts signed a brief that stated the first Bush
administration’s belief that the Supreme Court’s historic 1973
decision that legalized abortion should be overturned.

The first President Bush nominated Roberts to a seat on the
appeals court in Washington, but Democrats controlled the
Senate then and never gave him a vote apparently because of
complaints about his record as deputy solicitor general.

Supporters praised Roberts for his record in arguing cases
before the high court.

“Before he was appointed to the bench, he established
himself as the best Supreme Court advocate of his generation,”
said lawyer Gregory Garre, who worked with Roberts at the Hogan
& Hartson law firm in the 1990s.

But critics took a different view.

“At first blush, John Roberts may not appear to be an
ultra-right judicial activist, but his approach to issues of
protecting the rights and freedoms of individual Americans are,
at best, unclear and, in some instances, deeply troubling,”
said Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights.

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1955, Roberts was raised in
Indiana. He graduated from Harvard University in 1976 and from
Harvard Law School in 1979. Roberts served as a law clerk for
Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist from 1980-1981.

Roberts worked as a special assistant to Attorney General
William French Smith at the Justice Department in 1981-1982,
and then in the White House counsel’s office during Reagan’s
presidency.

Roberts lives near Washington in suburban Maryland with his
wife Jane Sullivan Roberts and two children.