His beliefs are irrelevant.  The only belief that matters is whether his beliefs should matter, and I believe that he believes that his beliefs will not matter.

Therefore he will be a good judge, regardless of his beliefs.

:)

.Ryan wrote: At first I was thinkin hell no, being that he used to be a coroporate lawyer

BTW, corporate lawyers come in all shapes and sizes.  It would be incorrect to conclude that all, or even a large majority, or corporate lawyers are conservative/Republicans.

I think I laughed myself silly watching The Daily Show the night Bush chose Roberts.

"So what are the Democrats saying about the decision?"

"John, the Democrats have been angry over Bush's selection for weeks now"

Paintball is lame.

Zesty -

I didn't read that article, but if your quotes are any indication, the article is a piece of trash, liberally combining incorrect quotes, out-of-context quotes, misconstrued quotes, and unsupported conclusions.

Zesty -

As best I could tell from your post, many of those quotes are from legal opinions that he wrote, and these quotes are twisted out of context.

Example:  -In regards to an endangered species of frog in California- quote,"a hapless toad that, for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California."

The "hapless toad" comment was from a case involving the application of Federal law to what may be a State issue.  The question was whether the Endangered Species Act (Federal law) can apply to a creature that lives only in one state.  The Commerce Clause of the Constution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, but Congress does NOT have the general power to pass laws for intra-state matters.  So the issue at hand in the case was whether this toad counted as "interstate commerce".  Roberts thought that it did not, in part because the toad only lives in California.

So - a very specific and complex legal issue.  There is no cause to conclude that Roberts is against the protection of endangered species - none at all.  He simply favors a more restrictive reading of the Commerce Clause, and he has been pretty consistent about that.  In this particular case it happened to be an environmental issue, but that was happenstance.

The "hapless toad" phrase is a good example of judges who think they are very clever.  US jurisprudence is full of judges using snide comments to make points.  It is unfair to Roberts to infer from this any position on toads.

Similarly:  -Supports torture- when asked about the geneva Convention,"(it) cannot be judicially enforced"....and "does not apply to Al Qaeda and its members."

The application of the Geneva Convention to non-nations is unclear at best, and established law probably favors the position that the Geneva Convention does NOT apply to non-nation actors, any more than it applies to treatment of common criminals.  Roberts argued his legal case (which is not an unusual position), and it would be unfair to conclude that he "supports torture".  Based on my reading I tend to agree that the Geneva Convention does not apply to Al-Qaeda - but I certainly do not approve of the administration's practice of torturing them.  Moreover, you have to remember that Roberts was working for Reagan at the time - his JOB was to support the position of the administration, not to be "fair".

Similar criticisms apply to most/all of the rest of your quotes, at least the ones I could track down.  Generally speaking, they take a position on a legal issue and twist it into a position on a substantive/moral issue.  That isn't fair to any judge.  Judges are supposed to judge based on the law, not based on the facts.  And Roberts has, IMO, shown a very good ability to judge based on law and not facts.

DBibeau855 wrote: Over turned or not, if the case comes up again, to the supreme court, they can overturn it if they want, thats their right. They are supposed to rule by the book, what ever the constitution says. If the court that is in session feels it was a bad decision. Its going to get overturned. No point in complaining about a slow moving train.

Yes and no.

As Roberts noted during his testimony, Roe v. Wade is the established precedent and law of the land.  Yes, the Court has the power to overturn it, but they would not do so lightly.

Roe was not really a case about abortion - abortion was the FACT in question.  The underlying legal principle was one of PRIVACY.  The Court in Roe concluded that the Constitution provides for a constitutional right of privacy - abortion just happens to be an element of that privacy.

If Roe were truly overturned, then there would no longer be a right of privacy.  That would, quite literally, wreak havoc on the law.  The principle of privacy is now deeply entrenched in established law - thousands upon thousands of cases rely upon it to some extent or other.  If privacy were simply removed, it would take decades to sort out what is what, legally speaking.  Overturning Roe would be a very, very, very big deal, mostly for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with abortion.

If the Court addresses abortion, they may limit the application of Roe and privacy as related to abortion, but Roe will never (IMO) be overturned.

TRAVELER wrote: ...they don't like his opposition to "legislating from the bench", which has become widespread in recent years.

While I generally concur with your post, I disagree with the currently popular idea that "legislating from the bench has become widespread in recent years". 

I not aware of any facts to support this claim.  In fact, many of the examples raised by the champions of this claim (Tom DeLay) are patently false and incorrect (Kilo and Schiavo).  The only recent case of which I am aware that might even approach "legislating from the bench" would the the Mass. decision regarding homosexual marriage.  I am not sufficiently familiar with that case to offer specific opinions on that case, but even if that case were "judicial activism", it would pale against examples from history, beginning with Marbury v. Madison.  As I see it, "legislating from the bench" is either not common or not new, depending on your definition.  In either event, the quoted claim in incorrect.

In my experience, "judicial activism" is simply code for "I don't like that decision".

Another sore point is Judge Roberts' dislike at the court's recent willingness to use the decisions in foreign cases as precedent when deciding cases in our own country.  Such practices are patently unconstitutional as the laws of other countries  are not passed by our own legislature within the boundaries defined by our constitution.

I agree that this is a touchy issue, but you are incorrect to say that this practice is unconstitutional.  There is plenty of history in the US of incorporating foreign law - the entire common law of the British Commonwealth was incorporated into US law at the outset of our judicial system.  A British case from 1565 could, theoretically, be valid precedent for a US court today.

Moreover, no implication has been made, to my knowledge, that the Supreme Court is bound by these foreign precedents.  The Court is not even bound by its own precedents, let alone the precedents of other courts.  The Court is bound by the Consitution, and only the Constitution.  All other precedents are advisory.

In some countries bestiality is legal. If our courts are using foreign law as precedent, it could be argued that bestialiy should be made legal in our own country because courts in other countries have found that banning it is a violation of expression, or a violation of their own constitutions.

This is simply not correct.  This does not follow from any position taken by any current Justice.  This is a made-up argument by opponents of using foreign precedent, and it has no value.

The big vote (and the big fight) will come when Sandra Day O'Conner is replaced...

Concur.  That will be interesting.