[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 51 (Friday, April 19, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3699-S3700]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          PRESIDENT CLINTON'S JUDICIAL NOMINEES SOFT ON CRIME

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today we do remember what happened 1 
year ago in Oklahoma City, a very horrible crime. People are concerned 
about crime in America. People expect the Congress of the United States 
to do something about crime. We have this week taken a giant step by 
passing the antiterrorism bill that the President says he will sign.
  So I rise this morning to talk about crime as the Senator from 
Georgia indicated. The war on drugs has a lot to do with the whole 
subject of crime, but I also want to make some reference to the 
negative effect that this administration has had on the Federal courts.
  I think it is fair to say that President Clinton's judicial 
appointments communicate the President's vision of the kind of America 
that the President would like to have. I do not share his soft-on-crime 
vision. I do not think most Americans do. Mr. President, you can say 
that you are putting all the cops on the streets all you want, but 
unless you appoint Federal judges who will enforce the law and protect 
victims over criminals, all the cops in the world will not make any 
difference.
  In regard to the appointments that the President made, I read with 
amusement in this morning's Washington Post where Vice President Gore 
attempted to defend President Clinton's record on judicial nominations. 
I believe that the Vice President's efforts fall far short. For 
instance, one of his primary arguments is that this administration's 
nominees have enjoyed more support from the American Bar Association 
than the last three administrations. Mr. President, this just goes to 
show how out of touch the Vice President is with the American people 
and with even the President's own appointees.
  President Clinton has a powerful ally in his judicial jihad to 
protect criminals, and that happens to be the American Bar Association, 
because somehow the ABA mysteriously and without input from the 
American people set itself up as the ultimate arbiter of who should or 
should not be a judge. The ABA happens to share the President's own 
frightening vision of criminals' rights over victims' rights.

  We just passed a very fair and balanced antiterrorism bill in this 
body. That bill contained habeas corpus reform, badly needed, to permit 
prisoners just one bite at the apple and to limit that bite in order to 
stop frivolous and successive postconviction appeals that allowed 
people to stay on death row for 10 to 15 years. Vice President Gore 
uses the ABA as a mantle to say that the President's judges are ideal 
appointees. Yet the American Bar Association strongly opposes these 
necessary anticrime provisions that were in the antiterrorism bill.
  Unfortunately, I believe that the current administration has then 
done a disservice to the American people by gathering liberal activists 
from every coffee house and every street corner in America and 
nominating them to some of the most important and influential Federal 
courts in America.
  Few Americans would dispute and few in this body dispute the fact 
that

[[Page S3700]]

in the arena of criminal justice, the legacy of the Earl Warren Supreme 
Court of the 1960's and 1970's has been devastating. Violent criminals 
who have committed heinous, shocking crimes are routinely freed on 
bogus technicalities first invented during the Earl Warren period. We 
are still paying that price. These violent individuals go back out on 
the streets and commit even more crimes and victimizing more people.
  Until the President came on to the scene, I thought that we had 
turned a corner on that sort of Warren Court thinking. I had thought 
there was a broad consensus that law enforcement should not have their 
hands tied by highly technical rules. I had thought that there was a 
broad consensus that serving time in prison for committing crimes 
should be punishment and not a blissful vacation at taxpayers' expense.
  But, Mr. President, I was wrong. President Clinton has sent up a 
number of law professors and liberal activists to sit on the Federal 
bench and impose their preconceived, unrealistic ideas on the rest of 
America. Now, a simple fact of American Government: Bad judges are 
worse than even bad Presidents, because we can vote bad Presidents out 
of office, but we are stuck with bad judges for life. We cannot send 
them back to their coffee houses and street corners. To be honest, the 
Republican-controlled Senate has been somewhat to blame, as we trusted 
the President to do the right thing. But now with this record, Mr. 
President, I think it is time that we start giving judicial nominees 
the scrutiny that they obviously deserve.

  We have been lax, in deference to the President. But that needs to 
end given his poor performance of nominating judges intent upon 
protecting criminals over victims' rights. Of course, we in the Senate 
have a right under the Constitution to comment on the direction the 
country is taking and how the courts have played a role in this. So the 
concept of the separation of powers remains untouched and intact and 
alive and well.
  Take a good, hard look at some of the President's more notable 
judges. In the first circuit Judge Sandra Lynch overturned a life 
sentence imposed for a brutal murder. This is a pattern that we see 
over and over again--liberal, soft-on-crime, Clinton judges lending 
convicted felons a hand.
  In the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Guido Calabresi 
dissented from an opinion which denied a prisoner the right to receive 
pornography in his jail cell. This is another theme with Clinton 
judges, making sure that prisoners have all the amenities that they 
want. The logic must be that prison should not be too uncomfortable or 
too difficult.
  In the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge H. Lee Sarokin has 
issued a few zingers. This judge has ruled that prisoners have a 
constitutional right to prevent prison officials from opening and 
inspecting mail. This judge has voted to overturn the death sentences 
of two murderers who brutally ended the lives of two elderly couples.
  In the fourth circuit, Judge Blane Michael argued in a dissenting 
opinion that a criminal who had tried to murder a Federal prosecutor 
could not be found guilty under Federal statute prohibiting the mailing 
of a bomb to Federal officials because the bomb was poorly made and 
unlikely to actually explode. Mr. President, how could this judge have 
done any more to help that criminal?
  In the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, District Judge Robert Parker 
ruled that it was unconstitutional for the police to search for hidden 
marijuana plants by using an infrared device. Mr. President, what more 
could drug dealers ask for to help them?
  In the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Rosemary Barkett 
wrote an opinion granting a hearing for a man who had been convicted of 
setting his former girlfriend's house on fire and killing her two 
children.
  Lest anyone think that the President has seen the errors of his ways 
and will start putting more mainstream judges on the Federal bench, let 
us look at a nonconfirmed nominee to the eleventh circuit. At his 
recent judiciary confirmation hearing, Mr. Stack was asked what he 
thought of the applicable law of search and seizure law relative to the 
now infamous New York case in which Judge Baer initially suppressed 
evidence of millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs.

  Mr. Stack was unable to cite even the most fundamental criminal law 
precedents. In fact, his only comment that he made was that he would 
``applaud the use of all evidence * * * legally obtained in the 
courtroom'' but would not want to ``throw * * * away the constitutional 
guarantees that each of us in America is afforded.'' I do not believe 
this is a response worthy of a Federal circuit court nominee. This is 
unacceptable from a circuit court nominee who is supposed to have the 
necessary credentials and qualifications for appointment to the Federal 
bench.
  Next to the Supreme Court, the Federal court of appeals is the most 
important court in the country. It appears as though Mr. Stack's 
qualifications for the eleventh circuit post has been based solely on 
raising $11 million for President Clinton's 1992 Presidential campaign 
and another $3.4 million for the National Democratic Committee, and not 
on Mr. Stack's legal capacity, his competence, or his temperament. If 
this does not a least give the appearance of buying a Federal court 
seat, I do not know what does.
  In fact, Mr. Stack has little, if no experience, in criminal law or 
practice before the Federal courts. He has no substantive legal 
writings to speak of.

  Further, Mr. Stack was surprisingly ignorant about recent 
developments in the law. Mr. Stack was comfortable telling the Senators 
at his confirmation hearing that he would seek guidance from other 
judges and the Federal Judicial Center if he was not knowledgeable 
about a particular area of law. So I look to him asking Judge Barkett, 
that what she can teach him and mold him about Mr. Stack's views of 
criminal law as a fierce defender of criminals--I think it is clear 
that the American people find this extremely disturbing.
  In conclusion, with Clinton-appointed judges, I think a pattern has 
emerged. In those rare circumstances when Clinton judges believe that 
criminals should go to prison, they certainly want to make sure that 
prison is not too inconvenient. While Clinton judges write on and on 
about the rights of prisoners, they are silent about the rights of 
crime victims. That is why it is so important for the Senate to speak 
out to be the champions of the victims and not of the predators.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa for his 
thoughtful remarks. They were very eloquently presented.
  I yield up to 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Texas.

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