Topic: Life Experiences That Relate to the Powerless, Disenfranchised, &
Minorities. ]
Senator: Durbin
Date: SEPTEMBER 14, 2005
Contents
SPECTER: Senator Durbin, you're recognized.
(CROSSTALK)
SPECTER: Senator Durbin, you're recognized for 20 minutes.
On to business, Judge Roberts.
DURBIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your fairness.
Judge Roberts, good to see you again.
Mrs. Roberts, friends and family.
Yesterday and again today, you've continued to prove your legal talents. I remember law students with your talents when I was in law school. I had to get to know them in the first year, because they were then off to the law review and I was off to buy another Gilbert's outline. I didn't see them again.
But today, I've noticed the questions have changed some. The questions now are more -- they've gone beyond your resume and beyond your legal skills. And I think it relates to the fact that so frequently, when asked, you have said, appropriately, that you will be driven and inspired by the rule of law, which is an appropriate term, but a hard and cold term by itself.
We know you have the great legal mind and have proven it with the questions here. But the questions that have been asked more and more today really want to know what's in your heart. And I think those are appropriate. When you look down from the bench or read a trial transcript, do you just see plaintiffs and parties and precedents, or more?
Do you see the people behind the precedents? The families behind the footnotes? I think that's what many of us are driving at with these questions.
You've lived a comfortable life. Court cases often involve people who have not. Many times contests between the powerful and the powerless, as someone said in the opening statement, the powerless, just with the rule of law and the Constitution on their side, praying for relief, for their day in court.
Aside from a few pro bono cases, as important as they are -- and I salute you for being involved in them -- what would the powerless, the disenfranchised, minorities and others see in your life experience that would lead them to believe that they would have a fighting chance in your court?
ROBERTS: Well, Senator, I think there are many things that people could look to.
ROBERTS: You said I had a comfortable life. I think that's a fair characterization. I had a middle-class upbringing in Indiana. As part of that, I worked in the steel mills outside of Gary during the summers as soon as I was old enough to do that and throughout my life have been exposed to and mixed with at school, learned and played with people of a wide variety of backgrounds.
Comfortable, yes. But isolated in no sense. I was, I would say, a typical middle class kid growing up in Indiana and had, I think, a great upbringing. I was privileged in the sense of having my parents and sisters contributing to my upbringing and education. And I think people looking at my life would see someone in that experience -- and, obviously, with limitations.
I wasn't raised in other places in the country and might have a different perspective if I were. I wasn't raised in different circumstances and would have different experiences if I were.
As you look at the Supreme Court, the people on there come from widely different backgrounds and experiences and I think that's a healthy thing.
But as far as someone going into court, and looking too see why they would expect to get a fair hearing from me, I think -- and I could answer this with respect to the court I'm on now.
DURBIN: Yes, please.
ROBERTS: It's hard for me to imagine what their case is about, that I haven't been on their side at some point in my career.
If it's somebody who's representing welfare recipients who have had their benefits cut off, I've done that.
If it's somebody who is representing a criminal defendant who's facing a long sentence in prison, I've done that.
If it's a prosecutor who's doing his job to defend society's interest against criminals, I've been on the side of the prosecution.
If it's somebody who's representing environmental interests, environmentalists in the Supreme Court, I've done that.
If it's somebody who is representing the plaintiffs in an anti- trust case, I've been in that person's shoes.
ROBERTS: I've done that.
If it's somebody representing a defendant in any trust case, I've done that as well.
It's one of the, I think, great benefits of the opportunity I've had to practice law as I have is that it has not been a specialized practice. I've not just represented one side or the other. I've represented all of those interests.
And I think those people will know that I have had their perspective. I've been on the other side of the podium with a case just like theirs. And that should, I hope -- and I hope it does now -- encourage them that I will be fair and that I will decide the case according to law but I will have seen it from their perspective.
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