AP source: Obama interviews Thomas for high court

Source: AP

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – 23 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Thursday interviewed federal appeals court Judge Sidney Thomas of Montana for an opening on the Supreme Court, a person familiar with the conversation told The Associated Press.

The roughly hour-long session at the White House was the first known formal interview that Obama has conducted for the upcoming vacancy on the high court. It is not clear whether Obama has interviewed other candidates in person.

Vice President Joe Biden also interviewed Thomas at the White House in a separate meeting Thursday, said the person familiar with the conversations, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss Obama's private deliberations.

The White House had no comment.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100429/ap_on_go_su_co/us_obama_supreme_court

I thought you meant he was seeking the advice of Clarence Thomas on a Supreme Court pick!

:rofl:

I thought about inserting (Sidney) before Thomas, but I just went with the headline as is.

My apologies for the start I gave you!! :)

to simplify things a bit.

.

go to an Ivy League law school any day.

It would be nice if he'd served on a state level trial court, but one can't have everything.

Thomas, Paez, Tallman (concurring in part, dissenting in part) Nadarajah prevailed on a habeas corpus petition after being detained by DHS for four years, including after he had been granted withholding of removal. See Nadarajah v.
Gonzales, 443 F.3d 1069, 1082-84 (9th Cir. 2006).


http://www.immigrantjustice.org/litigationupdate/9thcircuit/9th-cir-awards-enhanced-eaja-fees-to-nadarajahs-aclu-attorneys.html

But this would be a strange choice. Not just 9th Circuit, but one that seems a bit too topical. Specifically looking at detention and the application of habeas to someone accused of terrorism.

Not that presidents don't sometimes make very long-term appointments for short-term reasons. It's just myopic.

of his decisions.

If you have any other links, post them...thanks.

Source: Associated Press

President Barack Obama on Thursday interviewed federal appeals court Judge Sidney Thomas of Montana for an opening on the Supreme Court, a person familiar with the conversation told The Associated Press.

The roughly hour-long session at the White House was the first known formal interview that Obama has conducted for the upcoming vacancy on the high court. It is not clear whether Obama has interviewed other candidates in person.

Vice President Joe Biden also interviewed Thomas at the White House in a separate meeting Thursday, said the person familiar with the conversations, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss Obama's private deliberations.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/04/29/national/w160937D24.DTL

PO should interview Phelps...I'd actually PAY to be a fly on the wall for that asskicking...:rofl:

Bob Egelko: Juicy record for judge rumored for high court

Sidney Thomas, the latest name floated by the White House as a possible candidate to succeed retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, is a long-shot.

He's a generally liberal judge on the nation's most liberal federal appeals court, the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, and he lacks the obvious White House connections of some of the others on President Obama's reputed short list.

But at least Thomas, whose name surfaced in an Associated Press story earlier this week, has a 15-year judicial record you can comb for clues about what he'd do on the high court, in contrast to the tea leaf-reading that's required for the odds-on favorite, Solicitor General Elena Kagan.

And a juicy record it is, with opinions on strip searches, school uniforms, nuclear plant security and abortion, among other issues.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=61330#ixzz0mY7lewUa

Thomas' dissent said the ruling gives jailers the right to conduct body cavity searches on anyone who might be arrested for a minor offense, "such as violating a leash law or a traffic code," without any reason to suspect that the inmate was concealing contraband.

He also dissented in 2008 when the court ruled 2-1 that public schools can require students to wear uniforms. Thomas said the ruling was at odds with a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1969 that upheld a student's right to wear a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War as long as it didn't disrupt the classroom.

Last year another Ninth Circuit panel ruled 2-1 that the government could rely on the nation's defenses to prevent terrorist attacks from the air on nuclear plants and didn't have to order operators to take additional measures.

Thomas, in dissent, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which had decided not to require additional safety measures, had ignored studies that concluded an airplane strike on a nuclear plant could cause catastrophic damage.