Legal Panel: Roe v. Wade Not "Super-Duper Precedent"

From Cybercast News Service:

(CNSNews.com) - A panel of conservative and libertarian lawyers Monday dismissed the concept that the Roe v. Wade decision is a "super-duper precedent" that should not be re-examined even if Judge Samuel Alito sits on the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I think it's ridiculous for anybody to say that there is some 'super-duper precedent' in Roe v. Wade that is absolutely inviolate," Janet LaRue, chief counsel with Concerned Women for America, said during the discussion, which focused on "Conservative Perspectives on the Alito Nomination."

The Supreme Court "does and should consider its precedents very seriously because we do need stability and predictability in the law," she stated. "However, the truth is that the Supreme Court has reversed itself on numerous occasions."

LaRue pointed to the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation ruling, "when the Supreme Court came to its senses and finally recognized that the very text of the 14th Amendment should make it clear to anybody who can read that separate isn't equal." LaRue said that decision overruled a precedent which had been in place for nearly 60 years.

"Precedent is not as settled as the left would have us believe, especially if they poured the concrete," LaRue added. "It depends on the issue and the court," though LaRue said she considers Roe v. Wade "an embarrassment to the Constitution."

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who served as moderator of the event, noted that the concept of Roe v. Wade as a 'super-duper precedent' was first articulated by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) during his questioning of John Roberts, who was then President Bush's nominee for chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of more than 200 judicial watchdog organizations, said the Supreme Court has made "super-duper errors" that were later reversed.

"The notion of a 'super-duper precedent' suggests that some precedents work their way into other decisions so that when you go after that precedent, you end up moving the foundation of a series of decisions," Miranda said. "It doesn't mean you have to abide by the same error that created so many problems.

"It's not just that Roe was a bad decision, but ultimately, the peace that was supposed to arrive when everyone settled down and accepted this decision has never come," he added.

Instead, the issue of abortion "has contaminated the entire political process, contaminated the entire federal judicial process, even contaminated the nomination of an assistant secretary of state to Foggy Bottom," Miranda said. "All these things are now influenced by a person's views on abortion."

Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs at the libertarian Cato Institute, noted that liberals' respect for precedent is fairly recent: "Now that they have jiggered the Constitution into a shape of their liking, they're all for" letting earlier decisions stand.

"This is purely disingenuous," Pilon said, although he said he expects to hear Democratic senators state that position again and again during the Alito confirmation process.

Miranda said he expects liberals to spend a great deal of time in the hearings discussing the letter Alito wrote in 1985 that stated he did not believe the Constitution protected a right to abortion.

"I view the 1985 statement and how he's handling it a little bit like I view my marriage," Miranda added. "I learned when I got married that my personal views really don't matter much. That's how a judge approaches a decision as well. His personal views don't matter much."

Fitton said he's come to the conclusion that the hearings don't matter much, either.
"I'm beginning to think the only useful thing about the confirmation process is the FBI background check," Fitton said. "At least that assures us that the nominee is ethical and of good character."

"Hearings of the kind we have are a new phenomenon," Pilon said. "Through most of our history, the president sent the name of his nominee up to Capitol Hill and, in some cases, the person was voted on that very day.

"That was all there was to it because they understood the difference between politics and law," Pilon added. "We have lost that distinction."

My Comments:
Just like I seem to have missed that part of the Constitution that mentions abortion, I must have been sleeping during that part of my Con Law class where they discussed "super-duper" precedents.

Perhaps it's a concept borrowed from Scottish law, huh Arlen?