I'm Calling It...

The next Supreme Court Justice will be...

Judge Edith Brown Clement

Clement has a reputation as a conservative jurist and a strict constructionist who strongly supports principles of federalism, but she has written few high-profile opinions.

She wrote for the majority in Vogler v. Blackmore, 352 F.3d 150 (5th Cir. 2003), reducing pain and suffering damages awarded by a jury to a mother and daughter who were killed in a car accident. The basis of her ruling was the lack of specific evidence about the daughter's "awareness of the impending collision." Large damage awards to the father and husband due to the loss of society in his wife and daughter were affirmed.

In Chiu v. Plano Independent School District, 339 F.3d 273 (5th Cir., 2003), Judge Clement held that a school district's policy requiring the preapproval of fliers handed out at a school event violated the First Amendment free speech rights of would-be protestors.

In United States v. Harris, 408 F.3d 186 (5th Cir. 2005), Clement again wrote for the majority, this time reinstating the sentence of a police captain convicted for violation of federal civil rights laws in using excessive force. The captain moved to vacate, arguing that his counsel had been insufficient. Clement and the court held that the representation had been reasonable.

Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote a unanimous opinion for the 5th Circuit in Tarver v. City of Edna. She upheld officers' appeal of qualified immunity for reasonably arresting a father who was interfering with the return of a child to its rightful custodian. Qualified immunity also protected officers from the plaintiff's accusation of excessive force in using handcuffs and confining him to the police car as part of the arrest. Officers also, however, slammed the car door on his foot and head, and the plaintiff's excessive force claim under this heading was remanded.

Judge Clement has joined other conservative judges in dissenting in Commerce Clause cases that implicate federalism. In U.S. v. McFarland, 311 F. 3d 376, she argued that the Commerce Clause power did not enable Congress to regulate local robberies.

In GDF Realty Investments, Ltd. v. Norton, 362 F.3d 286, Judge Clement argued that the Endangered Species Act needed a commercial nexus to enable regulation of endemic rare species.


aC. Sidebar

As long as she keeps the Pledge of Allegiance in tact and don't take away my civil library, then she's all right with me. Then again my call could be wrong...