A Price Too High: The Judiciary in Jeopardy

You can pre-order now, A Price Too High: The Judiciary in Jeopardy. A Price Too High, a follow-up to Supreme Chaos, presents Pickering’s personal fight for judicial confirmation. In the book, he reflects on his odyssey through the confirmation debacle and suggests solutions he believes will benefit the nominees of any party, strengthen the independence of the federal judiciary, and fortify our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

Also, now look for updates at the A Price Too High blog.

Democrats attack Southwick on gay issues

At yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee on Leslie Southwick, Democrats attacked the judge for ruling according to Mississippi law simply because they do not agree with the law.

Clarion Ledger: Southwick voted to uphold a decision giving custody of an 8-year-old girl to her father instead of to her bisexual mother. He also joined other judges in a written decision that referred to the mother's "homosexual lifestyle." Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island who presided over Thursday's hearing, said the phrase "is highly associated with a particular point of view that is not favorable to gay rights." Southwick, who at times seemed surprised by the line of questioning, said he followed Mississippi law. In 2001, when the case was active, state law considered homosexuality a moral issue that could influence custody decisions. "It was the stated policy ... regarding homosexuality," Southwick said, adding, "The law is evolving as to the fundamental rights of gay relationships."

Also find the story here.

The story also suggests that some of the opposition is not to Southwick personally but to the matter that President Bush has not nominated a black person for this position. Andy Taggart takes up this matter in his Red/Blue blog at ClarionLedger.com.

As usual, the opposition to this Bush nominee comes from national Democrats and the far-left. In Mississippi, Jere Nash (the blue side of the Red/Blue blog) also hopes Southwick gets confirmed.

Still fighitng the 5th Circuit

Today Leslie Southwick faces the Senate Judiciary Committee as Bush's most recent Mississippi pick to join the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Southwick's pattern has followed that of Pickering's - at first seen as reasonable by all sides and controversial by none - until the far-left special interest groups opposed to him on philosophical and not judicial grounds started smearing him. Here is the story in today's Clarion Ledger. Perhaps the Democrats will let Southwick go through now that this isn't as big of an issue as the past...but they might continue to stall in hopes that a Democrat can make the appointment after 2008 instead.

Washington Post

Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein write "Political Appointees No Longer to Pick Justice Interns" in Saturday's Washington Post.

They say: According to a former deputy chief in the civil rights division, one honors hire was a University of Mississippi law school graduate who had been a clerk for U.S. District Judge Charles W. Pickering Sr. about the time the judge's nomination by President Bush to a federal appeals court provoked opposition by congressional Democrats, who contended that Pickering was hostile to civil rights. A few months after he arrived, that lawyer was given a cash award by the department, after he was the only member of a four-person team in the civil rights division who sided with a Georgia voter-identification law that was later struck down by the courts as discriminatory to minorities, according to two former Justice lawyers.

Their story gains meat and interest by throwing Judge Pickering's name in it, but in reality this person was not a clerk, but an intern who got his position at DoJ without reference from or even knowledge of Judge Pickering.

They say, "According to a former deputy chief in the civil rights division" so the writers didn't get it wrong because presumably that former deputy chief DID tell the Wash Post that information...it just turns out he was wrong; the source provided bad information. Without inside knowledge of the rest of the story, I wonder what else was wrong.

This isn't a defense or criticism of the issue of the story or the person mentioned, just wondering what Judge Pickering had to do with it at all...

Mississippi’s National Day of Prayer

The Clarion Ledger writes: Mississippi’s National Day of Prayer event will be held at noon Thursday on the south steps of the Capitol in Jackson. The theme is “American, Unite in Prayer.”Among some dozen prayer leaders will be retired 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Charles Pickering Sr., Mississippi National Guard Chaplain Tom Fuller and St. Dominic Health Services president Sister Mary Dorothea Sondgeroth. The Belhaven College Choir will sing.

William Carey University

Charles Pickering spoke at the inauguration of Tommy King as President of William Carey University as reported by the Hattiesburg American and the Laurel Leader Call.

Spotlight on race relations at Laurel's FUMC

Laurel Leader Call: "The Laurel First United Methodist Church hoped to shed some light on race relations in Mississippi and Jones County in its 'Journey to the Light' exploration conference on Thursday afternoon. A number of distinguished speakers, including former federal judge Charles Pickering and Laurel Mayor Melvin Mack, spoke on the Civil Rights Movement in its original capacity in the 1950s and 60s, where it is in the present and where it needs to go in the future for true equality to be accomplished." ...more...

Journey to the Light

The Commission on Religion and Race of the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church is hosting “Journey to the Light,” a conference focusing on racial issues, both past and present, Thursday in Laurel. Judge Charles Pickering will be one of the conference speakers. Read more details in the Laurel Leader Call.