Process of Selecting a Supreme Court Justice, in Brief

Although the process of appointing a Supreme Court Justice is a very good and thorough process, it is also synonymous with partisan politics. The process begins with the President of the United States, who nominates a candidate. This procedure is provided for by the United States Constitution within the Appointment Clause (Article II, Section 2, clause 2). It states that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint…Judges of the Supreme Court.”

Since there are no formal qualifications for a federal judgeship and because the rule of senatorial courtesy is largely inoperative, the President has a much freer hand in naming individuals to the court than in any other nominations. From there the nomination is sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) for consideration. The SJC then takes usually about a month to investigate and vet the nominee, which later results in a SJC hearing where Senators question the nominee about his or her background and qualifications. 

The Senate then debates the nomination. The Senate has a practice, known as filibustering, that allows them to hold unlimited debates, usually used to block a nomination. There is, however, Senate rule (XXII) called “the cloture rule” that enables Senators to end a filibuster. The cloture vote requires the votes of at least three-fifths of all Senators (normally 60 votes). At the conclusion of the debate, the Senators cast their votes and the nomination is confirmed with a simple majority vote (or more than half of the valid votes cast). In the case of a tie the Vice President of the Unites States, who presides over the Senate, casts the deciding vote.

Once selected to the Supreme Court, the appointee can hold the office for the rest of his or her life, barring impeachment or retirement. One recommendation of opponents of this rule is to have a fixed term for all Supreme Court appointees that is less than that time period, say ten years. Knowing the power of the position and how even just one appointee can change laws dramatically, there should be a shorter term for all appointees; ten years would be sufficient and fair. This first recommendation will also help with the second recommendation: seniority on a state court level should be a major consideration for service on the Supreme Court. Experience is usually considered a positive quality, but for several reasons, in this case, experience is seen as a detriment to appointments. 

A major reason for this is that those with many years of statewide court experience yield a long record of controversial cases, which will open the nominee up to more Senate scrutiny during confirmation. Another obstruction tool that the Senate uses, much like the filibuster, is the blue slip policy. This process holds that a nominee’s home-state Senator (nominee of lower federal courts) can use a blue slip to oppose a nomination. If the nominee’s home-state Senator does not return the slip or returns an opposition to the nomination, the nomination will most likely go down in defeat. This policy is something that should be discarded, as it seems to be used at this point only for devious political reasons. That is, if the President does not select the individual preferred by a home-state Senator, the offended home-state Senator can delay or prevent committee action on a judicial nomination for almost any personal, political, or arbitrary reason.

If the consideration on whether or not the nominee is a political activist or not was not held as such a big consideration. It is clear that everyone is somewhat of an activist in their views and ideologies. This should not affect their ability to effectively manage their time on the court. After all, their job is to interpret Constitutional law, and their ideologies are naturally going to come into view. This blocking mechanism is only used as a partisan tool to block an appointee that has different political views than they do.

 

 

Curbside “Couch-Humper” Arrested

A 46-year-old Wisconsin man, Gerald P. Streator, was arrested this month for allegedly having sex with a curbside couch. At 11 p.m. on 3 September 2012, an off-duty Waukesha police officer was jogging on North University Drive near Pebble Valley Road when he spotted an abandoned yellow couch on the curb.

The off-duty officer then claims that he saw Mr. Streator “having sex with an abandoned couch set on a curb, thrusting his hips as if he was having sex with a person,” the report says. The officer approached and yelled “what are you doing,” which allegedly caused Mr. Streator to run away. It was at that point that the officer realized that the assailant was “thrusting it between the couch cushions for sexual gratification.”

The officer chased the couch-humper to an apartment building nearby, where the perpetrator walked upstairs and entered one of the apartments. The officer contacted the police department, reported the incident and discovered Streator’s name. Police returned to the apartment the next day and spoke to Streator’s wife, who told them that her husband had done nothing wrong. Police then visited Streator’s work place and spoke to him there about the alleged incident. Streator denied being out at that time, saying that he had been at home with his wife and had gone to bed around 10:30 p.m.

He will make his initial appearance in court 1 October 2012. 

A Community Braces as Fears of Serial Killer in Bergen County After Third Body Found

There have been no arrests and still unsolved; two murders, one in Teaneck, the other in Palisades Park, both in 2010. The victims were Joan Davis [72] (Teaneck) and Dolores Alliotts [69] (Palisades Park). The crimes were eerily similar: both elderly women, both beaten, stabbed and their homes set on fire. Then in 2011 Robert Cantor, 59-year-old software engineer from Teaneck, NJ was also killed in his home, suffering a gunshot wound prior to the fire being set. I reported on these incidents back then and was among the very first to ask: is there a serial killer in Bergen County? Read HERE and HERE.

Since then, the Cantor murder appears to have been solved. Sui Kam Tung, a New York City man, has since been arrested and charged with murder and arson in the death of Robert Cantor. Authorities depicted the murder as a love triangle turned deadly. Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli stated that Tung allegedly learned that his wife was romantically involved with Cantor back in 2010 and “began a pattern of stalking the victim,” which ultimately and allegedly led to his murder. With that one out of the way, we return to the latest on the possibility of a serial killer in Bergen County.

On 21 March 2011, Prosecutor Molinelli made a public statement asserting that the murders of two Teaneck residents over the last several months are not linked and there is no ongoing threat to the community. Prosecutor Molinelli added, “If authorities believed there was any ongoing threat to Teaneck residents—including a possible serial killer—[they] would have alerted the public immediately.”

That was until a fourth victim, 70 year old Barbara Vernieri, an East Rutherford, NJ widow was found beaten to death, her home set ablaze mid-morning on Friday, 14 September 2012. Prosecutor Molinelli spoke of the complexity of the situation, explaining that Vernieri was a successful real estate broker, therefore, investigators will have to sift through “hundreds of transactions and potential witnesses.” He also insisted that the murders from two years ago had not “gone cold,” and that “Those are still very active investigations.”

Prosecutor Molinelli briefed reporters late Monday, confirming that Vernieri was beaten to death, with blows to her head and upper body and an accelerant was poured on her body, and ignited. He also said that while he cannot exclude Vernieri’s murderer as someone who was responsible for the murders of Ms. Davis and Ms. Alliotts, he claimed that he is also not saying that it is definitively the same person.

The fire at Vernieri’s home, unlike the other deaths, was extinguished quickly, because the tenant who lived upstairs called the police and reported the fire so fast. This may have saved some vital physical evidence, but we won’t know that until police report on it further. Investigators report that they are hopeful they will find evidence to either link or exclude the murders from two years ago.