Adopt A Box O’ Docs Part V: United States v. Woodley And "Byrd" Droppings
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/roberts/
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/roberts/Box47JGRRecessAppointments8.pdf
To all our regular readers, and those hitting us up over this neat little project put forth by Hugh Hewitt, this is the most difficult box we have hit yet. First, there are forty-one pages in it. Second, the first fifteen, or so, pages are photocopies. The writing is incredibly faint, so it was difficult to really read a lot of the pages. But what we can gauge from this particular box is this revolves completely around the Woodley case that was cited in an earlier box we dealt with. (Link to that box below)
http://sydandvaughn.blogspot.com/2005/08/adopt-box-o-docs-part-iv-roberts-on.html
The basic gist of the case is a heroin conviction was overturned because a suit was brought against a sitting judge in the case. The judge was a recess appointee by the president, and it was argued that Walter Heen—the judge in question—was the mitigating factor in the ruling against Janet Woodley. Woodley was found guilty of attempting to smuggle six ounces of heroin into the US from Japan. Heen was the District Court judge that oversaw one of her appeals. The Ninth Circuit Court tossed out the conviction based on the simple fact that Heen was a recess appointment. This makes little sense to us here at the Asylum. It is, perhaps, one of the most asinine reasons for appeal we have ever heard of. It is irrelevant whether Heen was a recess appointee, or a confirmed-by-the-Senate jurist.
Once we hit page sixteen of this box, it dawned on us that the majority of documents in this box revolved around a fight that the Reagan White House had with Sen. Byrd. At the time, Sen. Byrd was the minority leader in the Senate, and had pulled out the Daschle/Reid strategy of blocking or refusing to grant the up-or-down votes to judges and on military promotions. The delay by Byrd and his Democrat cronies was causing a massive backlog in the judiciary; a backlog that was being blamed on the administration rather than the obstructionists in the Senate.
Page 20 of this box has an editorial written by Ed Winston, former managing editor of the Federal Times, where he goes over the recess appointment battle. And, like the typical MSM journalism so prevelent for the last few years, Winston gets it wrong. He claims that the issue at the heart ofis fight was leadership, which he stated the president was failing at that. On the contrary, the fight between Byrd and the White House revolved around exactly what Winston said it didn’t. That being the president’s Constitutional right to make recess appointments when the Senate was out of session. The argument made by Reagan’s critics was that he used the tactic to put radically unfit people into positions within the federal bureaucracy. Based on what I have read about Reagan, and what I know about Reagan, that is patently false. Reagan was the kind of president that didn’t accept people who didn’t do their best. (Yes, we’ll have to excuse him for O’Connor and Kennedy.)
Page twenty-one gives us an interesting overview of the case, in general, but it cites another case we pointed out earlier, United States v. Allocco where the 2nd Circuit Court rejected the idea that a sitting judge that had been recessed had no right to rule on a case. There is also a citation from the Attorney General in 1889 where it was made clear the president had the right to make recess appointments, especially in regard to the federal judiciary. Also, it is reinforced that there is no time frame that is enumerated for the president to issue a recess appointment other than Article I, Section 5, Clause 4 of the Constitution. The time frame cannot begin until after the Senate is in recess of longer than three days.
Page 23 of the pdf offers us the ruling that the 9th Circuit issued, which ruled in a 7-4 decision that the president retained his right to recess judicial appointments. This seems contradictory to their original reasoning in the Woodley case as the conviction was tossed because of a recessed judge. But now, in a Post article dated 15 January 1985, the 9th Circuit Court decides that judicial recess appointments are OK. The conviction was tossed in 1983 when the 9th Circuit Court ruled the president’s power to recess judges was unconstitutional. Two years later, they reversed themselves, coming down on the side of the Constitution. (Anyone know why we at the Asylum refer to this as the 9th "Circus" Court, now?)
The remainder of the box is a lengthy Congressional Record where Sens. Byrd and Dole are discussing and debating the recess appointment power, and those that the president wished to recess because of Sen. Byrd’s flat-out refusal to do his job in the Senate, and give these people their appropo up or down vote. This fight is vaguely reminiscent of what we were going through just a few months ago. But back in Reagan’s day, he used the recess power, as opposed to Pres. Bush being reluctant to use it now.
A quick lesson here: This power doesn’t give the president the power to rule by fiat, or even like a king. We have checks and balances within the Constitution that would call for those recessed to receive a Senate confirmation vote after one year, unless rescinded by the president. Byrd is as inept now as he was then, but he still knows how to play the partisan game. And, in conclusion, there is NOTHING in this box that could reflect badly on Roberts. Aside from a minor steering memo he wrote, there is nothing else here. This box reads more like a history book than anything else, and it’s all about the fight between the White House, and Sen. Byrd, and whether the courts agreed the president had the power to recess jurists.
The Bunny & Publius II
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/roberts/
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/roberts/Box47JGRRecessAppointments8.pdf
To all our regular readers, and those hitting us up over this neat little project put forth by Hugh Hewitt, this is the most difficult box we have hit yet. First, there are forty-one pages in it. Second, the first fifteen, or so, pages are photocopies. The writing is incredibly faint, so it was difficult to really read a lot of the pages. But what we can gauge from this particular box is this revolves completely around the Woodley case that was cited in an earlier box we dealt with. (Link to that box below)
http://sydandvaughn.blogspot.com/2005/08/adopt-box-o-docs-part-iv-roberts-on.html
The basic gist of the case is a heroin conviction was overturned because a suit was brought against a sitting judge in the case. The judge was a recess appointee by the president, and it was argued that Walter Heen—the judge in question—was the mitigating factor in the ruling against Janet Woodley. Woodley was found guilty of attempting to smuggle six ounces of heroin into the US from Japan. Heen was the District Court judge that oversaw one of her appeals. The Ninth Circuit Court tossed out the conviction based on the simple fact that Heen was a recess appointment. This makes little sense to us here at the Asylum. It is, perhaps, one of the most asinine reasons for appeal we have ever heard of. It is irrelevant whether Heen was a recess appointee, or a confirmed-by-the-Senate jurist.
Once we hit page sixteen of this box, it dawned on us that the majority of documents in this box revolved around a fight that the Reagan White House had with Sen. Byrd. At the time, Sen. Byrd was the minority leader in the Senate, and had pulled out the Daschle/Reid strategy of blocking or refusing to grant the up-or-down votes to judges and on military promotions. The delay by Byrd and his Democrat cronies was causing a massive backlog in the judiciary; a backlog that was being blamed on the administration rather than the obstructionists in the Senate.
Page 20 of this box has an editorial written by Ed Winston, former managing editor of the Federal Times, where he goes over the recess appointment battle. And, like the typical MSM journalism so prevelent for the last few years, Winston gets it wrong. He claims that the issue at the heart ofis fight was leadership, which he stated the president was failing at that. On the contrary, the fight between Byrd and the White House revolved around exactly what Winston said it didn’t. That being the president’s Constitutional right to make recess appointments when the Senate was out of session. The argument made by Reagan’s critics was that he used the tactic to put radically unfit people into positions within the federal bureaucracy. Based on what I have read about Reagan, and what I know about Reagan, that is patently false. Reagan was the kind of president that didn’t accept people who didn’t do their best. (Yes, we’ll have to excuse him for O’Connor and Kennedy.)
Page twenty-one gives us an interesting overview of the case, in general, but it cites another case we pointed out earlier, United States v. Allocco where the 2nd Circuit Court rejected the idea that a sitting judge that had been recessed had no right to rule on a case. There is also a citation from the Attorney General in 1889 where it was made clear the president had the right to make recess appointments, especially in regard to the federal judiciary. Also, it is reinforced that there is no time frame that is enumerated for the president to issue a recess appointment other than Article I, Section 5, Clause 4 of the Constitution. The time frame cannot begin until after the Senate is in recess of longer than three days.
Page 23 of the pdf offers us the ruling that the 9th Circuit issued, which ruled in a 7-4 decision that the president retained his right to recess judicial appointments. This seems contradictory to their original reasoning in the Woodley case as the conviction was tossed because of a recessed judge. But now, in a Post article dated 15 January 1985, the 9th Circuit Court decides that judicial recess appointments are OK. The conviction was tossed in 1983 when the 9th Circuit Court ruled the president’s power to recess judges was unconstitutional. Two years later, they reversed themselves, coming down on the side of the Constitution. (Anyone know why we at the Asylum refer to this as the 9th "Circus" Court, now?)
The remainder of the box is a lengthy Congressional Record where Sens. Byrd and Dole are discussing and debating the recess appointment power, and those that the president wished to recess because of Sen. Byrd’s flat-out refusal to do his job in the Senate, and give these people their appropo up or down vote. This fight is vaguely reminiscent of what we were going through just a few months ago. But back in Reagan’s day, he used the recess power, as opposed to Pres. Bush being reluctant to use it now.
A quick lesson here: This power doesn’t give the president the power to rule by fiat, or even like a king. We have checks and balances within the Constitution that would call for those recessed to receive a Senate confirmation vote after one year, unless rescinded by the president. Byrd is as inept now as he was then, but he still knows how to play the partisan game. And, in conclusion, there is NOTHING in this box that could reflect badly on Roberts. Aside from a minor steering memo he wrote, there is nothing else here. This box reads more like a history book than anything else, and it’s all about the fight between the White House, and Sen. Byrd, and whether the courts agreed the president had the power to recess jurists.
The Bunny & Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 10:36 AM
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