MISTER ROBERTS:

D.C. Circuit Judge Gets on Supreme Court Short List (Tony Mauro, 02-22-2005, Legal Times)

John Roberts Jr., the newest judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, was hanging back.

During a typical oral argument last week, colleague Harry Edwards fussed and fumed at the lawyers before him, while David Sentelle tossed out avuncular one-liners in his thick Southern drawl.

But Roberts, the third judge on the panel, was quiet. When he did speak finally, he was barely audible, politely asking a question or two, but never tipping his hand. To anyone watching for the first time, Roberts barely made an impression.

Suddenly, though, a lot of people are talking about this quiet judge, who just turned 50. The fickle spotlight on possible nominees to the Supreme Court if Chief Justice William Rehnquist departs has swung toward Roberts, and seems to be lingering.

In spite of Roberts' quiet manner, his credentials -- former Rehnquist law clerk, deputy solicitor general, top-flight practitioner at Hogan & Hartson and, in the estimation of some, the finest oral advocate before the high court in the last decade -- are speaking for him and winning fans. Add to that a brief 20-month tenure on the court that provides few targets for Democrats, and Roberts is emerging as a top candidate for the high court.

"He is well in the running, and he is superb," says C. Boyden Gray, partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr and chairman of the Committee for Justice, which fights for President George W. Bush's judicial nominees.

"He's a great judge here, but I think we're going to lose him" to the Supreme Court, says a fellow D.C. Circuit judge who asked not to be named.

At a recent discussion before the local chapter of the Corporate Counsel Association, Roberts got considerable mention when a panel of Supreme Court experts was asked to handicap possible nominees.

"I think it will be John Roberts," said Latham & Watkins partner Maureen Mahoney, who is on some lists herself. "He has the brilliance, dedication and temperament to emerge as an intellectual leader of the Court," she said afterward.

Getting to this point has been a long and steady climb for Roberts... [...]

[T]here is one way in which Roberts stands apart from -- and possibly ahead of -- the others. Luttig, with 13 years on the 4th Circuit, and Wilkinson with 20 have written enough opinions that it is easy to chart how conservative they are. McConnell has only two years on the 10th Circuit, but he has a provocative paper trail from his 17 years as a prolific conservative law school professor.

By contrast, Roberts, with 20 months on the D.C. Circuit, has few opinions or other writings that have attracted enemies. As a result, some conservatives have made unflattering comparisons between Roberts and Supreme Court Justice David Souter, whose short stint on the 1st Circuit before being appointed in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush failed to reveal Souter's moderate-to-liberal leanings on some issues.

Yet those who know Roberts say he, unlike Souter, is a reliable conservative who can be counted on to undermine if not immediately overturn liberal landmarks like abortion rights and affirmative action. Indicators of his true stripes cited by friends include: clerking for Rehnquist, membership in the Federalist Society, laboring in the Ronald Reagan White House counsel's office and at the Justice Department into the Bush years, working with Kenneth Starr among others, and even his lunchtime conversations at Hogan & Hartson. "He is as conservative as you can get," one friend puts it. In short, Roberts may combine the stealth appeal of Souter with the unwavering ideology of Scalia and Thomas.

There's your nominee.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 1, 2005 4:08 PM