SHE'S NEVER EVEN BEEN IN A FACULTY LOUNGE!:

Experience needed? The long history of nonjudge justices.: Nearly half of justices had no prior experience on the bench. (Warren Richey, 10/07/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

John Marshall is widely revered as "the great Chief Justice," but before joining the Supreme Court in 1801 he had never served a day in judicial robes and lost the only case he argued at the high court.

Earl Warren had worked for 18 years as a prosecutor and was three times elected governor of California. But he had no prior judicial experience. Nor did William Rehnquist, Felix Frankfurter, and Louis Brandeis.

The nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has sparked debate over her qualifications. Does she have the intellectual heft and constitutional dexterity necessary for the job? And how does her experience compare to the résumés and stature of prior justices?

"People are still learning about Harriet Miers. Hers was not a name that quickly came off everybody's lips when people [asked] who are the most qualified people for the court," says David Yalof, a political science professor and expert on Supreme Court nominations at the University of Connecticut.

But Professor Yalof adds, "The issue has never been most qualified, the issue is qualified."

As a purely legal matter, there is no coherent argument to be made that a law professor is more qualified to be a justice than is a White House counsel.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 6, 2005 8:31 PM