John Roberts

[Livetrueordie]

Enviromental regulation

Roberts has often, both in his public and private work, taken a position against government environmental regulation. Roberts argued against the private citizen's right to sue the federal government for violations of environmental regulations in Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation.

Roberts has also argued on behalf of the National Mining Association in support of mountaintop removal, in the case Bragg v. West Virginia Coal Association.

In the unanimous ruling last October in Hedgepeth v. WMATA, Roberts concurred with the majority in upholding the arrest, handcuffing and detention of a 12-year-old girl for eating a single french fry inside a Washington Metro station. "No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation," Roberts acknowledged in the decision, but he ruled that nothing the police did violated the girl's Fourth Amendment or Fifth Amendment rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Roberts_Jr.

... the possible new supreme court judge until he dies

[Jersey Devil]

Well, Rehnquist has already said that he will not leave the court, it will be interesting to see if his health gets to him before Bush's term is up. Roberts himself was a judge in the very influential appeals court for the Washington D.C Circuit and is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, it is likely that he is going to be confirmed by the Senate. He will have a big impact on the court considering that O'Connor was often the deciding vote in 5-4 decisions.

[Severian]

Law.com article on Roberts when his nomination was still a rumor. (http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1108389946956)

But there is one way in which Roberts stands apart from -- and possibly ahead of -- the others. Luttig, with 13 years on the 4th Circuit, and Wilkinson with 20 have written enough opinions that it is easy to chart how conservative they are. McConnell has only two years on the 10th Circuit, but he has a provocative paper trail from his 17 years as a prolific conservative law school professor.

By contrast, Roberts, with 20 months on the D.C. Circuit, has few opinions or other writings that have attracted enemies.

His lack of judicial record will certainly be a great advantage in the confirmation battle.

He is, however, pretty certainly anti-abortion, given his zealous efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade when he was solicitor general. And, as appeals court judge, he recently made a truly loathesome decision allowing kangaroo "military tribunals" for Guantanamo detainees.