Date: January 12, 2006
Senator: Witness - Lewis
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SPECTER: Thank you very much, Judge Gibbons.
Our final witness on the panel is former 3rd Circuit Judge Tim Lewis, a graduate of Tufts University in 1976, a law degree from Duquesne in 1980.
SPECTER: He served as an assistant United States attorney before President Bush the elder appointed him to the Western District Court. And then in 1992, President Bush the elder nominated him to the 3rd Circuit.
Judge Lewis resigned in 1999 and now is co-chair of the appellate practice group at the Schnader Harrison office. He serves as co-chair of the National Committee on the Right to Counsel, a public service group dedicated to adequate representation of indigents.
Judge Lewis and Judge Alito served together on the 3rd Circuit for seven years.
We appreciate your being here, Judge Lewis. And the floor is yours.
LEWIS: Thank you very much, Senator Specter.
Thank you, members of the committee. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here today.
When Thurgood Marshall announced his intention to resign as a justice of the United States Supreme Court in conference one day, the first person to respond was Chief Justice Rehnquist. Chief Justice Rehnquist's words were, "No, Thurgood, no. Please don't. We need you here."
Shortly thereafter, when Justice Marshall had resigned, he was interviewed and, in the course of that interview, was asked about Chief Justice Rehnquist. And during that interview, he said, "This is the best chief that I have ever served under" and went on to extol Chief Justice Rehnquist's service on the United States Supreme Court.
Now, I was quite frankly stunned by both of those observations when I learned them at the time. And it wasn't until I had served for a period of time as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals that it all began to make sense to me.
It is no coincidence to anyone who is familiar with my body of work while I served on the United States Court of Appeals and my body of work since having left the court, that I happen to be sitting on the far left of this panel here this afternoon.
(LAUGHTER)
And yet, I am here. And what I have just related about the exchanges between Justice Marshall and Justice Rehnquist -- and Justice Marshall's later observation about the chief justice helps explain why I am here, because it is true that during the time that I served with Judge Alito, there were times when we did not agree.
I am openly and unapologetically pro-choice and always have been. I am openly -- and it's very well known -- a committed human rights and civil rights activist and am actively engaged in that process as my time permits, my law practice permits today and through my law practice at Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis.
LEWIS: I am very, very much involved in a number of endeavors that one who is familiar with Judge Alito's background and experience may wonder -- well why are you here today saying positive things about his prospects as a justice on the Supreme Court?
And the reason is that having worked with him, I came to respect what I think are the most important qualities for anyone who puts on a robe, no matter what court they will serve on, but in particular, the United States Supreme Court.
And first and foremost among these is intellectual honesty. As Judge Becker and others have alluded to, it is in conference, after we have heard oral argument and are not propped up by law clerks -- we are alone as judges, discussing the cases -- that one really gets to know, gets a sense of the thinking of our colleagues.
And I cannot recall one instance during conference or during any other experience that I had with Judge Alito, but in particular during conference, when he exhibited anything remotely resembling an ideological bent.
That does not mean I agreed with him. But he did not come to conference or come to any decision -- any decision -- that he made during the time that I worked with him, based on what I perceived to be an ideological bent or a result-oriented demeanor or approach.
He was intellectually honest and, I would say rigorously so, even with respect to those areas that he and I did not agree.
Second, I have no hesitation in commending his commitment to principal, both in how he went about his work on the 3rd Circuit and how he came to his decisions.
LEWIS: It was through a very difficult process we all would put ourselves through.
But in Sam's case, I think that I can say that no one worked harder at coming to what he thought was the right decision than Judge Alito.
Finally, though we did disagree, it was always respectful, and that is what I came to understand as probably the most important facet of appellate judging. No one, and I mean no one, has a corner on the marketplace of ideas in terms of what is best, what is right.
We have different approaches and it's very important that we maintain different approaches in positioning and in pushing forward our sense of jurisprudence. They do not have to be the same.
In fact, I think that it is contrary to the best interests of democratic government for there to be some monolithic approach to judicial decision-making on the United States Supreme Court or on any other court.
Sam Alito practiced a form of jurisprudence that I think is best referred to as judicial restraint, judicial deference. It is, in many respects, a more conservative form of jurisprudence than was my own. And that is fine. That is perfectly fine. And as a matter of fact, I dare say it's important because through the exchanges we learn from one another and I think we're a better court.
And I know that this is the case on the Supreme Court, as it is reflected in Chief Justice Rehnquist's observation when Justice Marshall announced his resignation.
And I think that it's important that different approaches be respected.
So that in the end I am here as a matter of principle and as a matter of my own commitment to justice, to fairness and my sense that Sam Alito is uniformly qualified in all-important respects to serve as a justice on the United States Supreme Court.
Thank you.
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