The Courts Under Bush

From today's Washington Post: "Although the impact of Bush's judicial appointments is most often noticed at the Supreme Court, it has played out much more frequently and more importantly here and in the nation's 12 other appellate courts." During his presidency, Bush established conservative majorities in 10 of the 12 appellate courts, up from seven when he took over. Democratic judges complain that the appellate conservative judges simply reverse decisions whose social consequences they dislike, without paying much attention to the legal logic. As an example, the Post offers a case where the 6th Circuit's Republican majority overturned a decision by a lower, Democratic court and allowed a man to be convicted on handgun charges, despite the fact that the main witness refused to testify. Tension has run particularly high on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, where liberal and conservative judges have stopped lunching together.