leslie southwick

WASHINGTON (AP) - Judge Leslie Southwick's nomination to a federal appeals court in Mississippi cleared a key hurdle in the Senate Wednesday and headed toward confirmation, despite questions during debate about his racial sensitivity.

The Senate's 62-35 test tally cleared the 60-vote threshold for ending debate and proceeding to a final roll call on confirmation.

The question of whether to send the law professor, judge and Iraq war veteran to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tested a fragile agreement in the Senate to block the president's judicial nominees only in extraordinary circumstances. Some Democratic opponents, backed by the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP Legal Defense fund and the AFL-CIO, said some of Southwick's writings met that standard. But Democrats said they did not have the votes to filibuster, or block, Southwick's nomination.

Southwick's supporters, who include Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the controversy wasn't so much about Southwick as it was about the fact that he is a white man nominated to sit on a court that handles cases in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

The history of the civil rights struggle shadowed Senate debate.

``If he was up for any other circuit, there would be no hesitancy,'' said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. ``This man ought to be judged on the basis of his own record and his own qualifications.''


In June, Senate Republicans threatened a "major meltdown" in the chamber unless Senate Dems cleared the way for Leslie Southwick's confirmation to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Regrettably, the GOP got exactly what it wanted today.

Leslie Southwick's controversial nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was approved by the Senate Wednesday, 59-38, shortly after a bipartisan group of Senators narrowly surpassed a critical 60-vote threshold to avert a filibuster.

The 62-35 vote on the key procedural motion all but assured Southwick's confirmation to the federal appellate bench, as the vote on final passage only required a simple majority.

…Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said the vote helped the Senate duck "serious consequences" for the future of the institution.

There have been quite a few veiled threats of late over the Southwick nomination, with Republicans vowing a full-blown partisan war unless he won Senate approval. In this sense, the good news is the chamber will avoid yet another ugly fight. The bad news is, too many Senate Dems caved (again) and an awful Bush judicial nominee gets a lifetime appointment to a key judicial seat.

For a while, it looked like Dems had the votes to block Southwick in committee, but then Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) let us down. Then, it looked like Dems had the votes to block Southwick on the floor, but that was before Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) let us down, striking some nebulous deal with Republicans, whereby Southwick wins confirmation in exchange for GOP support on some spending bills.

Of all the judicial nominees for Republicans to go to war over, Southwick was the wrong one.

Emily Bazelon's explained a while back that Southwick's confirmation hearings helped highlight what kind of judge he is.

As a judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals for 12 years, Leslie Southwick participated in more than 7,000 cases. Now he is President Bush's nominee for a long-vacant seat on the Fifth Circuit, one of the federal appeals courts. At Southwick's confirmation hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked him to give an example of an unpopular decision he'd made in favor of somebody downtrodden ― a poor person, or a member of a minority group, or someone who'd simply turned to the courts for help. Judge Southwick couldn't name a single one.

The question might sound like a bit of a stunt. But other data show that Judge Southwick's answer fits with his larger record. He has a pattern of voting against workers and the injured and in favor of corporations. According to the advocacy group Alliance for Justice, Southwick voted "against the injured party and in favor of business interests" in 160 of 180 cases that gave rise to a dissent and that involved employment law and injury-based suits for damages. When one judge on a panel dissents in a case, there's an argument it could come out either way, which makes these cases a good measure of how a judge thinks when he's got some legal leeway. In such cases, Judge Southwick almost never favors the rights of workers or people who've suffered discrimination or been harmed by a shoddy product.

And from the NYT's recent editorial urging the Senate to reject Southwick's nomination.

President Bush's latest appeals court nominee, Leslie Southwick, has a disturbing history of insensitivity to blacks and other minority groups. The Senate should reject this nomination and make clear to the White House that it will reject all future nominees who do not meet the high standards of fairness that are essential for such important posts.

A non-negotiable quality for judicial nominees is that they must be committed to equal justice. Judge Southwick, whom President Bush has nominated for a seat on the New Orleans-based United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, repeatedly failed this test as a Mississippi state court judge. […]

When the voters put Democrats in the majority in Congress last fall, they were sending a message that the era of extremism in Washington should come to an end. Senate Democrats can show that they understood this message by rejecting Judge Southwick and insisting on a more moderate nominee, who will respect the rights of all.

On the cloture vote that would have blocked Southwick's confirmation, Republicans ended up with 62 votes, two more than they needed. Among the presidential candidates in the chamber, Obama, Biden, and Clinton voted for the filibuster, Dodd did not vote, and McCain voted with the GOP.
Leslie H. Southwick
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Leslie H. Southwick (born February 10, 1950 in Edinburg, Texas) is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and a former judge of the Mississippi Court of Appeals.

Contents
1 Federal nominations and confirmation
2 Judicial experience and professional career
3 Controversy
4 Education and clerkships
5 Personal
6 Works by Southwick
7 References
8 External links



[edit] Federal nominations and confirmation
Southwick was nominated on January 9, 2007 by President George W. Bush to fill a seat on the Fifth Circuit vacated by Judge Charles W. Pickering, who retired at the end of 2004. Previously, Bush had nominated Mississippi attorney Michael Wallace to that vacancy, but that nomination stalled in the 109th Congress due to opposition from Senate Democrats. Upon the Democratic takeover of Congress in the November 2006 elections, Wallace asked President Bush not to re-nominate him in the 110th Congress.

Finding itself without a nominee to a judgeship that had already sat vacant for two years, the White House turned to Southwick, then a nominee to a position on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. Bush had nominated him on June 9, 2006 to fill a vacancy on that court left by retired judge William H. Barbour, Jr.. Southwick had a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 19, 2006 and was reported favorably to the floor of the Senate by the Committee on September 29, 2006. However, Southwick, like many other judicial nominees, failed to receive a vote by the full Senate before the 109th Congress adjourned for good on December 9, 2006. Pursuant to Senate rules of procedure, his nomination, along with many others, was returned to the President.

The Senate Judiciary Committee of the 110th Congress held a hearing on Southwick's nomination to the Fifth Circuit on May 10, 2007. The hearing was chaired by Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. After intense Democratic opposition, Southwick was reported out of Committee by a 10-9 vote on August 2, 2007. Democratic California Senator Dianne Feinstein voted with the Committee's nine Republicans to send Southwick to the full Senate with a favorable report. Southwick was confirmed by a vote of 59-38 on October 24, 2007. He is the fifth judge nominated by Bush to the Fifth Circuit and confirmed.

Southwick's successive federal nominations, within seven months of each other, though unusual, are not unheard of. For another example of the White House elevating a federal district nominee to a Circuit Court, see Judge Jerome A. Holmes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.


[edit] Judicial experience and professional career
Southwick was elected one of the first ten judges of the Mississippi Court of Appeals in 1994. He remained on the court until the end of 2006 when, with a nomination to a lifetime position in the federal judiciary pending, he did not run for re-election. Southwick was on a leave of absence from the court from August 2004 to January 2006. In 2005, he served in Iraq as a Judge Advocate General with the 155th Brigade Combat Team of the Mississippi Army National Guard.

Southwick was in private practice as an attorney in Jackson, Mississippi from 1977-1989. In 1989, Southwick entered government service as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice Civil Division. There he supervised the one hundred and twenty-five lawyers of the Federal Programs Branch, which defends suits brought against the United States. He also supervised the Office of Consumer Litigation, a twenty-five lawyer division charged with civil and criminal enforcement of federal consumer laws.

Southwick also teaches law as an adjunct professor at the Mississippi College, and he is a member of the American Inns of Court, Charles Clark Chapter.


[edit] Controversy
Southwick's nomination has raised opposition by the People for the American Way[1], the Human Rights Campaign[2], and the Congressional Black Caucus[3] alleging intolerant racial and homophobic views. Two cases chiefly form the basis for the groups' charges.

In the first case, Richmond v. Mississippi Department of Human Services, Southwick joined the majority opinion upholding the decision of the Mississippi Employee Appeals Board to reinstate a white state employee (Richmond) who was fired for a single incident of referring to a black co-worker as a "good ole nigger" outside of the co-worker's presence. When the black co-worker was informed of Richmond's comment, Richmond immediately apologized, and her apology apparently was accepted. Bound by law to affirm a decision of the Appeals Board supported by substantial factual evidence, the court held it had no authority to set aside the findings in this case, even though Richmond's remark was "undoubtedly ill-advised and indicative of a rather remarkable insensitivity."[4]

On writ of certiorari, the Mississippi Supreme Court agreed that "the unique circumstances of this case do not warrant imposition of the ultimate penalty of dismissal." However, the court found the record was insufficient to uphold the Employee Appeals Board's decision that Richmond effectively receive no penalty whatsoever. It decided to remand the case "in order for the board to impose an appropriate penalty less than dismissal, or to make detailed findings as to why no penalty should be imposed."[5]

The second case often cited by Southwick's critics is S.B. v. L.W., an 8-2 decision upholding a chancellor's decision to grant sole custody of an eight year old girl to her father, in part because the mother was a lesbian who had lived with several different partners during the child's life. Southwick joined the majority opinion as well as a concurrence written by Judge Payne which states, in part:

? 33. I do recognize that any adult may choose any activity in which to engage; however, I also am aware that such person is not thereby relieved of the consequences of his or her choice. It is a basic tenet that an individual's exercise of freedom will not also provide an escape of the consequences flowing from the free exercise of such a choice. As with the present situation, the mother may view her decision to participate in a homosexual relationship as an exertion of her perceived right to do so. However, her choice is of significant consequence, as described before in the discussion of our State's policies, in that her rights to custody of her child may be significantly impacted.[6]