Chicagoan joins Supreme Court search

Seeing as how the Repubs put two far right wing extremists on the court (Roberts, Alito) during Bush Jr's reign, I hope Obama picks someone who's so far to the left that it makes the Wingnuts heads explode.

That is a great starting point, the center of our great nation, from the economic engine of the midwest, the State of Illinois and the great city of Chicago. Home of our present President, President Obama and a litany of other illustrious Illinoisans, from Senator Everett Dirksen to another great American, President Lincoln.
I am sure Judge Ann Clare Williams will make us, Illinoisans, proud. She was a teacher, so she knows the trials and tribulations of our children, their parents and the difficulties of every day life, here, in present day America.
Good luck, President Obama on your decision, as you know so well, we need more competent Justices on our Supreme Court. Selecting Judge Williams will go a long way in achieving an improved level of competency !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

She's not that bright.

Please nominate Sasha or Malia. The prospect of having them on the court for so many years would trive the TeaKluxKlan bonkers.

Judge Williams is not only bright, but extraordinarily competent, hard-working and well-liked on both sides of the aisle. She'd be superb!

Get your facts straight before casting aspersions.

"She's not that bright."

I agree

"Judge Williams is not only bright, but extraordinarily competent, hard-working and well-liked on both sides of the aisle. She'd be superb!

Get your facts straight before casting aspersions."

Have you appeared before her as an attorney? If not then you don't know what you're talking about.

I have and she is a lightweight.

The world for Obama is lot different than when he named the last justice -- his popularity was up and he had 60 senate votes. This from CNN today:

"A national poll released this week suggests that a majority of Americans expect Obama to appoint a liberal to the Supreme Court, but only one in four wants that to happen."

Still pandering to every special interest group. And proving James G. Watt to be correct for what he said back in the 80s, and the leftists acted all outraged when they heard the truth.

I wish we knew whether the publius post is by Hamilton, Madison, or Jay. Pseudonyms!!!!

Sounds like Voice of Reason is still a little bitter about a case he or she lost before Judge Williams.

Anyone but another Ivy League graduate. there are too many highly competent attorneys who didn't go to Harvard or Yale who would make superb members of the high court.

As an appellate judge Ann Claire Williams affirmed a conviction in the case of US v Connors, 01 CR 326. A habeas corpus petition is now pending in the US Dist Court, 7th Circuit, Northern District of Illinois (US v. Connors, 09 C 1821) to vacate that conviction based on government misconduct which included government forgery of documents and jury tampering. Judge William's inability to protect the constitutional rights of citizens to a fair trial should disqualify her from consideration for the United States Supreme Court.

Williams is not bright and totally screwed up the appeal of the Robert Sorich trial and the concept of "honest services" and public employees. Judge Scalia gave a scathing dissent on the matter and adding this intellectual lightweight, Williams, would be an affront.

Someone with a degree from Wayne State University should not be on the bench of the highest court in the land. She was appointed as an affirmative action hire by Regan and has gotten everywhere due to the color of her skin.(by the way, I am black so don't go there).

Plus, she is a former prosecutor who locked up many brothers. She would become another Clarence Thomas

@DMLawyer: I will be kind and not say vile things about your mother. But, what the hell are you talking about? Please explain how she wasn't qualified to be appointed to the bench by Reagan and Clinton. Please explain why the Senate twice did not see what you have seen. And, what's wrong with "locking up brothers" if they were guilty. Sounds like she was doing her job.

I am tired of everyone, whether left or right, black or white, gay or straight, or whatever, of using emotionalism to defend or promote a position. If Judge Williams is not qualified, please explain so in a rational manner.

And, where is it written in the Constitution that an attendee of Wayne State University cannot serve on the Supreme Court? Please, if you are a lawyer, you sound very jealous.

The level of dialogue in this country is downright frightening. Everyone wants to demean others. Let's see this woman's record and judge it for what it is.

Background:

Big Jim Thompson was Gov. of IL for many years. Jane Carr Thompson was his wife. Big Jim wanted her appointed a district court judge. The bar assocs. gave her bad reviews. So, to spite them, the Repub. establishment got Reagan to appoint Williams instead. Some at the time cynically said the bar groups would rue the day they opposed Jane Carr Thompson because they got her instead.

Then, Clinton was having trouble getting his judges confirmed and he figured: Williams is a pal of Hillary through their childrens charities. So he'll appoint her, since she was originally a Rep. nomination. Clinton figured the Rep controlled Senate would find it difficult to reject a black republican woman. He was right.

So, she was a second choice both times, but lucky.

I think she is Catholic. I'm going to play identity politics and say the next pick should be a WASP because Stevens is the last WASP left. This country was basically founded by Protestants and very protestant Protestants to boot.

WASP Power!!!

At least half the US population is Protestant. We demand representation!!

She would be the 7th Catholic on the Ct.

I think a Senator could be confirmed without a divisive food fight.

Sheldon Whitehouse , assuming he didn't do a Blair and convert, is as WASP as they come and has political skills necessary to garner majorities. He is probably a little left of Stevens. Perhaps quite a bit left.

no surprise here, she is not white.

I think they are actually Jay Hamilton and Guy Madison, a team of Hollywood screenwriters.

What do they know?

Oh, " camdan ", must be a Republican-Libertarian-T.Bagger, given his/her unusual powers of observation. !! Get on, with your bad self !! What's that got to do with anything !!?
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

The political persuasion of
Ann Williams is not a secret to
me. Every defense attorney
who practiced before her in
criminal cases told me that she was just to the right of
Attila the Hun. What is Obama
thinking? Someone should also look into her Financial
Disclosure Statements from
the 1990s. While a standing
Trustee of Notre Dame, she took money from the school
to pay for trips to Hawaii. One
would also learn that Williams
is her maiden name. She is married to David Stewart.

[quote]
She's not that bright.

Posted by: publius | April 21, 2010 3:12 PM
[/quote]
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AND YOUR PROOF IS ???

Ann Claire Williams is not an intellectual light weight. She is just as deserving as all of the other candidates on Obama's alleged short list. She is prosecution oriented; that's evident from her career. However, I believe that she has matured throughout the years and that she is a very fair judge. All of these commenters who state that she is an "intellectual lightweight" really have an axe to grind; there's no merit to any of those comments. Finally, to the elitist who claimed that a person from Wayne State should not be on the high Court, please go back in your hole. You are a classist, elitist, and an ignorant troll of the most despicable sort. Wayne State is a very respectable school; most people who attend for undergraduate school, like Judge Williams, do so for economic reasons, not because they aren't intellectually capable. Finally, troll, remember that she went to Wayne for undergrad, Michigan for her master's and NOTRE DAME for her law degree. She's more than qualified. Period.

If Barack Obama wanted to do well by this country and appoint a "diverse" candidate, he should appoint Janice Rogers Brown, Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janice_Rogers_Brown That would make my heart sing. She would be no more controversial than Williams - that is, if half of what I see written here is true.

John W, that's not likely to happen.

One of Obama's greatest speeches in the Senate was the one AGAINST the confirmation of Janice Rogers
Brown.

I'm sure anyone interested can pull it up on C-Span's archives. Worth the effort. In it he noted, for example, when the case pits a corporation against the government, she rules for the corporation. When the case pits a corporation or the government against an individual, a natural person, the person loses....

Yes, there was a Gang of 14 or something like that, that agreed to "triage" the Bush nominations and she made the cut.

But you already know that, I suspect, John W.

Naughty boy.

But seriously, In the Know,
Please post some links to some of her best opinions. Or perhaps op eds or articles she has written?

If that's not asking too much?

I must confess the only Chicago judge I know anything about is Judge Posner, admittedly a superstar......

“John W, that's not likely to happen.”
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Posted by: ornery | April 22, 2010 6:49 PM
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Oooh, ya think? But I can dream, can’t I?
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I realize Obama would never appoint her, and that she would be swimming against the current in the Senate even if he did. (Just envision a striped Bass struggling up a fish ladder to the spawning ground.) But that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t make a good justice. It just means that Obama and the Senate (unfortunately) don’t share her views on the laws and Constitution
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I think she has a bad rap, and you’ve just restated the distorted view of her holdings. Indeed, you have restated Obama’s explicit objections to her service as a judge. In my opinion, however, Obama’s objections are purely partisan and don’t carry much water.
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Brown’s views are strictly Libertarian, which is to say that she takes the view that individual’s have the right to decide for themselves how to govern their lives, and that government needs to keep itself to its task of protecting life, limb, liberty, property and reputation from damage by others - and without inflicting any damage itself. That was precisely the view of those who wrote the Constitution and the laws of the early Republic. Thus, one cannot go very wrong with an interpretation of the laws and Constitution from that viewpoint.
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Of course, Obama’s own views are 180 degrees out. He believes in the progressive vision of a government that exists to proactively take little children …, ehem, I mean the American People by the hand, and to lead them to better lives in a better society (according to his vision) from cradle to grave. The progressive view (and corresponding agendum) places little value on the rights deemed essential and inviolable by the founders, and that’s especially true of the right to possess and freely alienate property without government interference. A good example of that was his vehemently stated position, in the face of the Supreme Court, that First Amendment rights can be made to bow to public interest depending on the identity of the speaker. Brown would never have come to that conclusion. Of course he’s going to vociferously oppose her.
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A few more notes about Obama’s facile but vapid “speech” – as you described it. Obama thought it valuable to point out the identity of the parties who win (e.g. the individual, corporation, or government) as a means of identifying proclivities; as if Brown looked only to an identity, disregarded the facts and law, and simply engaged in result oriented decision-making based on identity. His criticism was blatantly dishonest because he merely assumed the injustice of the decisions from how the statistics lines up, rather than demonstrating the injustice from the reasoning Brown actually employed. The honest road (not taken by Obama) would have been to demonstrate the perversity of her decision-making process from the misapplication of the law to the facts as found. Out in the real world (other than Obama’s, that is), justice depends on the law applied to the facts, and not on identities. Somebody has to lose, and that somebody can be an individual, a corporation or a government, especially if they lost the factual disputes in the trial court below. Without showing a perversion of the process, his accusations were (and are) worthless.
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Obama did identify what he viewed as an inconsistency regarding her views toward “deference” versus “scrutiny” concerning legislative activities. However, he, himself, failed to appreciate (or admit) that different levels of scrutiny of legislative action are appropriate depending on the subject matter of the lawsuit. For example, the Constitution throws its protections around property. Thus, constitutional scrutiny is usually heightened rather than deferential when property is threatened (as was the case in the example he couldn’t understand). Deference is appropriate (in a manner consistent with Brown’s views) when constitutional rights are not involved. I am amazed that Obama, who supposedly taught constitutional law with all of its different rules of scrutiny, entirely missed this distinction. That tells me it was pure demagoguery on his part, rather than an honest critique of her abilities as a judge.
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In the same vein, Obama criticized Brown for not taking a more protective view, and exercising less deference toward legislative pronouncements, when women’s reproductive rights were involved. What Obama failed to state, or perhaps didn’t understand, is that the law in question (e.g. California’s parental consent for abortion law) was constitutional under federal standards (See Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 462 U.S. 416, 439-440 (1983)), and consistent with prior California precedent. Thus, it was not inappropriate to be deferential to the legislature’s judgment with regard to the law because the law had already cleared all relevant constitutional hurdles. This was just more demagoguery on his part, pure and simple.
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I have seen a lot of criticism of Judge Brown, and a lot of it is pure trash. Much of Obama’s criticism of her falls into this category. A person with legal training can read her opinions and see that they are well reasoned and much more nuanced and sensitive than the ham-handed depictions given by her detractors.
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I wish all nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court were like her. Barring that, Draft Alex Kozinski!!

JW, Didn't Janice make a speech where she said she wanted to reinstate Lochner? And thereby give the judges the power to invalidate legislation they didn't like, sucn as wage and hour and child labor laws?

Lochner now lies in the same rubbish heap of history, alongside Plessy v. Ferguson and Dred Scott.

You didn't discuss her Federalist Society speech, did you?

Why not?

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Posted by: ornery | April 23, 2010 10:43 AM
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No, she did not state that she wanted to resurrect Lochner in her Federalist Society speech. You can read the speech here: http://www.communityrights.org/PDFs/4-20-00FedSoc.pdf I defy you to find in it anywhere she said such a thing.
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Her only references to Lochner in that speech was to O.W. Holmes dissent, and to his particular statement that the
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“… Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire.”
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(See page 8 of the speech.) It is only with this statement that she states her vehement disagreement. She did not advocate a return to judicial second-guessing in cases involving economic legislation of the kind in which the Lochner majority indulged.
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So now you see why I didn’t mention her Federalist Society speech. It is irrelevant. It simply doesn’t say what her detractors say it does. In fact, I am actually amazed at the degree to which people have gone to lie about her, and particularly about the claim that she wants to resurrect Lochner.

Hmmm. Was the posted text sanitized?

I have read much different accounts of that outing at the Federalist Society......

I'll have to look into this.....

Geez - I'm reading a Chicago paper for the first time and judging by the posts, Chicagoans are a bunch of crazy, angry, loony leftists, full of hate and rage. What's your problem, or is it the water out there?

Cap, where are you? I'm looking for a retirement spot.....

If you want right wing loony rage and hate, go see the Immigration post , above.

Who wants proof that Judge Ann Williams is not very brights? Read this!

1) I know of a case in which Williams did not know that the
presumption of intent for general intent offenses is REBUTTABLE. When a defendant had said that his
evidence would show that he
was completely unconscious
at the time of the offense, her
response was that said evidence was irrelevant.

2) I know of a case in which the defendant's attorneys had
quit because he refused to
plead guilty. They had refused
to prepare a defense for him
so the only rational thing left
to do was to plead guilty.
Instead of asking those attorneys EXACTLY what they had done to prepare for trial, Williams merely PRESUMED that the defendant had fired his attorneys, which allowed the further presumtion that he must have waived his right to
counsel. Then she forced the
defendant to put on his own
defense.

3) I know of a habeas corpus
case of about 1997 in which a
Motion for Recusal had been
submitted as soon as the
Petitioner learned that Williams would be the judge.
The reason being that the
Petitioner had previously
testified by way of affidavit
against Williams before the
US Senate Judiciary Committee when Williams was
originally a nominee for a position on the Court of Appeals about 1992. Instead
of resolving the Motion IMMEDIATELY, Williams
decided the merits of the case, and then held the Motion
For Recusal to be moot.
Incidently, that affidavit was
subsequently sent to the National Archives and placed under seal for 50 years.

What makes Williams DANGEROUS is her ability to
abuse her power while at the
same time playing both sides from the middle until it's too late, when she reveals her true nature.That does not mean she is bright, it means she is
SNEAKY.

Welllllll, JW, I finally found time to look at Janice's speech.

She did, in fact, say she disagreed with Holmes' dissent in Lochner.

That that dissent had troubled her for "a long time". etc. usw. and so forth.

Which means, as language is ordinarily understood, that she agreed with the majority opinion.....

I respectfully urge anyone who may believe that Mrs. Ann Claire Williams would be a good Supreme Court Justice to examine the case United States v. Luis Anthony Perez, 87-CR-354-1. Where in that case the US district Attorney solicited perjured testimony by couching a government witnes to make hand signals and placing the witness on the stand to testify knowing that the witness had answered, according to the agreed upon hand signals that he could not testify, the prosecuter still put the witness to testify. If that issue by it self was bad enough to declare a mistrial Judge Ann Claire Williams questioned all of the jurors who understood Spanish and understood what had taken place in court before there very eyes and ears and eliminated those juror. I believe that was very bias and raices. The defendant should had been entitled to a fair and impartial trial where the jury should had been entitled to hear what the government attorney had done in the case because the asumption is that if this prosecutor did this with this particular witness then he also did it with all other witness.... What is there to say that he did not? He already shown the Court no respect and proven his dishonesty behond a reasonable doubt... But now that it was done thay needed to cover it all up... Sweep it under the rug! And under the rug went the defendant's Constitutional rights with the lame excuse that the evidence was overwelming and the fact that now they needed to protect the government prosecutor as one of their elite members. Moreover, the government Attorney at the time had a confidential Informant who had sodomised and raped one of the defendant's (a minor at the time) but because the defendant was a Cuban Immigrant judge Williams did not want to hear in Court any wrong doing that the government agent's had done like the lead DEA agent Lying in Court. Furthermore, Judge Ann Claire Williams sentence defendant Luis Anthony Perez to serve 20-years of Supervised Release though the defendant was a first time offender on drug charges... And if you examine the way that Judge Ann Claire Williams allowed a Pinkerton Conspiracy Instruction to be applied in the case on vicarious liability to convict defendant Perez on weapon charges that the defendant did not have any knowlege or control of, nor did these weapons meet the nexus element in respect to the crime you go straight ito a comma....That is justice for you in United States in judge Ann Claire Williams Court Room. Before you elect this Judge to the Supreme Court of the United States please keep in mind that this judge would do cart wheels to accomodate the federal goverments agenda regardless of how injust it may be. This judge is entirely for Federal Government exclusively. We need judges that will allow the States to regain their sovereingty back and behold the Federal Government of the United States dressed as a sheep and a peace maker. Don't be fooled it is the Federal Government them selves who are flooding the nation with drugs and blaiming the Colombians and Mexicans.... Any time that you have two Police bodies policing one territory with defferent agendas this fenomenon is always bound to take place. What would you do about that Judge Ann Claire Williams if you were to be elected to the Supreme Court of the United States? I know your answer: Like always safeguard the Federal Governments Agendas and policies nothing more.

Well thank goodness Obama came to his senses and did not appoint this intellectual lightweight to the SCOTUS.