Five Radicals Approved for Judgeships by Senate Judiciary Committee

Five radicals have been approved for judgeships by the Senate Judiciary Committee, voting along party lines.

The committee held over for a future vote one controversial nominee, Judge Robert Chatigny.  Chatigny unsuccessfully tried to block the execution of a serial murderer and rapist known as the Roadside Strangler based on the ridiculous argument that the murderer’s “sexual sadism” was supposedly a mitigating factor. Chatigny presided over that case as a trial judge even though he had briefly represented the Roadside Strangler, creating an obvious conflict of interest.

Chatigny’s nomination to an appeals court had previously been approved by the committee earlier this year, but it died when the full Senate failed to vote on his nomination due to public opposition. He was then renominated by President Obama, along with other controversial nominees whose nominations had also earlier died in the full Senate, like Edward Chen, Goodwin Liu, Louis Butler, and Jack O’Connell.

The committee rubberstamped Edward Chen, a fervent advocate of racial preferences who unsuccessfully challenged a provision of the California Constitution banning racial discrimination and preferences. Chen also “objected to the singing of ‘America the Beautiful’ at a funeral because of his ‘feelings of ambivalence and cynicism when confronted by appeals to patriotism.'”

It once again approved radical law professor Goodwin Liu, who wrongly thinks that the Constitution requires some forms of welfare. Liu has no experience trying cases at all, even though judges are supposed to have “substantial courtroom and trial experience.” Liu claims that “‘free enterprise, private ownership of property, and limited government” are right-wing concepts and ideological “code words.”

It approved Louis Butler, who was so extreme that he was removed from the Wisconsin Supreme Court by voters in 2008. Until Butler, Wisconsinites hadn’t voted out a state Supreme Court justice since 1967. His empathy for criminals was summed up by his nickname, Loophole Louis.

It rubberstamped John J. “Jack” O’Connell, who used $2.5 million in state-settlement money to pay off a creditor, in an unethical diversion of state funds. Using political influence, he got himself hired to bring a costly and futile paint lawsuit that “achieved nothing, other than waste thousands of hours of attorney time.”