San Francisco Chronicle

07/24/05

When a great lawyer like John Roberts argues a case, does he do so out of the passion of his own conscience? Or is he merely a hired gun -- a legal soldier of fortune willing to muzzle his own convictions? That may be the key to deciphering the latest Supreme Court nominee, a jurist who has been on the bench for only a couple of years and thus has a slim paper trail of decisions. Within hours of the president naming John Roberts, activists seized upon briefs he signed as former President George Bush's deputy solicitor general -- particularly one contending that Roe vs. Wade 'was wrongly decided and should be overturned' -- to draw conclusions about his thinking. Most legal scholars consider that preposterous...

http://tinyurl.com/cvrpt


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp