Kent reports that Judge Ann Williams of the Seventh Circuit is now on the famous short list. I know nothing of Judge Williams' work. But there is reason to believe she would get serious consideration.
As I noted about two weeks ago, the President's strategy will revolve around politics. He faces a mid-term election that could significantly curb his agenda, and right now he's in trouble. Having lost the independents according to numerous polls, his best strategy is to energize and unify the Democratic base without further antagonizing moderate voters.
In my view, Secretary Clinton is the shrewdest choice to fill these criteria, but Judge Williams, to look at her biography, isn't bad. She is black -- the first black appointed to the Seventh Circuit -- and would therefore be looked upon by the White House as likely to energize a core Obama constituency that otherwise might be relatively apathetic in a mid-term. At the same time, she could be portrayed as a moderate, certainly on the issues that concern us here at Crime & Consequences. She spent nine years as an Assistant US Attorney and was appointed to the district bench by President Reagan.
The Chicago Tribune had this report about her today:
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama wants a nominee who understands "how the law affects real people in the real world." To that end, Williams has a somewhat nontraditional resume.
Before she became a lawyer, Williams was a music and third-grade teacher in the inner-city public schools of Detroit. She has an undergraduate degree in elementary education from Wayne State University and a master's in guidance and counseling from the University of Michigan.
Williams attended law school at the University of Notre Dame, where she graduated in 1975. Her entire legal career has been spent in the confines of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago, including a nine-year stint in the U.S. attorney's office, where she served as the Midwest chief of a nationwide narcotics task force.
As I say, I know nothing of Judge Williams' work, but a person who spent nine years in the US Attorney's Office is likely to be skeptical of the frequently heard but almost never truthful complaint that prosecutors are ruthless, thuggish and vindictive. (That is defense lawyer talk roughly meaning, "refuses to give away the store").
I have often had the feeling that visceral distrust of, if not contempt for, the prosecution and the police has played a critical and poisonous role in Supreme Court opinions, including but hardly limited to Miranda. One could hope that a Justice Williams, for whatever her views may be on social issues, would take a more sensible view of what really goes on in the prosecutor's office -- and the kind of people who give up much bigger salaries to work there.
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