James Harvie Wilkinson III
From dKosopedia
James Harvie Wilkinson III (born in New York, New York, September 29, 1944) is a federal judge serving on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. His name has been raised at several junctures as a possible nominee to the United States Supreme Court.
Wilkinson was raised in Richmond, Virginia, and graduated with honors from Yale University in 1967. He served in the Army from 1968-1969, and in 1970, Wilkinson made an unsuccessful bid for a Virginia seat in the United States House of Representatives, running as a Republican. He then attended the University of Virginia's law school, graduating in 1972. From 1972-1973, he served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, an experience about which he wrote a book. His clerkship was followed by five years as an Associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and three years working as an editor for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. In 1982, he was given a position in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and after a brief return to the University of Virginia School of Law, was nominated to the Fourth Circuit by Ronald Reagan on January 30, 1984. Wilkinson was confirmed by the Senate on August 9, 1984 by a vote of 58-39.
From 1996-2003, he served as chief judge on that court. In 2003, Wilkinson wrote the majority opinion upholding the right of the United States government to detain Yaser Esam Hamdi indefinitely without access to counsel or a court. Hamdi was a U.S. citizen captured during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The decision was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States.
With the announcement of Chief Justice Rehnquist's illness in the fall of 2004, many commentators listed Wilkinson as a potential Bush nominee to the Supreme Court. See Potential nominees to the Supreme Court of the United States.
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Judicial outlook and record
Wilkinson is reported to be an affable, middle-of-the-road southerner like Lewis Powell, the Supreme Court justice for whom he clerked. But his record as a forward-looking defender of core conservative values is more akin to William Rehnquist's. Like Rehnquist, Wilkinson has a long affiliation with the Republican Party (he ran unsuccessfully for a House seat in Virginia in 1970). His confirmation battle would probably highlight his willingness to defer to the president in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi. Wilkinson's approach to the case was overturned by the Supreme Court and pilloried, in a separate opinion, by Scalia. Another factor to consider is Wilkinson's age—at 60, he is the oldest of the shortlisters by a significant margin.
Civil Rights and Liberties
For the 4th Circuit as a whole, upheld the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Wilkinson's opinion rejected the claims of a gay-rights group that the policy violated the equal-protection clause of the Constitution by discriminating against homosexuals. (Thomasson v. Perry, 1996)
In the 1985 book One Nation Indivisible: How Ethnic Separatism Threatens America, sharply criticized affirmative action for causing racial division.
Over a dissent, struck down an affirmative action program in Richmond, Va., which guaranteed that at least 30 percent of municipal contracts would go to minority-owned businesses. Wilkinson's approach was adopted by the Supreme Court. (J.A. Croson Co. v. City of Richmond, 1987)
For a unanimous panel, rejected the claims of Yaser Esam Hamdi. Wilkinson argued that the president's war powers allowed him to hold Hamdi without trial as an enemy combatant captured abroad and that he was not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. The Supreme Court rejected this approach. (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2003)
Separation of Church and State
For a unanimous panel, found that a "non-sectarian invocation" recited at the start of meetings of a county board of supervisors in Virginia does not violate the Constitution's prohibition against government-endorsed religion. (Simpson v. Chesterfield County Bd. of Supervisors, 2005)
For a unanimous panel, reversed a district-court ruling to find that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a federal law that requires prisons to accommodate the religious observance of prisoners, is constitutional. The Supreme Court unanimously reached the same conclusion. (Madison v. Riter, 2003)
Voted unsuccessfully (along with Luttig) to reconsider a case in which a three-judge panel found that a superintendent at the Virginia Military Institute who required cadets to say a prayer before eating supper in the mess hall possibly violated the First Amendment principle of separation of church and state. (Mellen v. Bunting, 2003)
Environmental Protection and Property Rights
Over Luttig's dissent, upheld various regulations issued by the Fish and Wildlife Service promulgated under the Endangered Species Act in the face of a challenge that they exceeded Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause. (Gibbs v. Babbitt, 2000)
Abortion
Voted to deny rehearing (along with Luttig) in a case about South Carolina's decision to offer "choose life" license plates. Wilkinson's vote helped to uphold a ruling that the license-plate program violated the First Amendment because it did not offer pro-choice advocates a similar opportunity to make license plates that asserted their views. (Planned Parenthood of S.C. Inc. v. Rose, 2004)
For a unanimous panel, found that an anti-loitering statute was invalid as applied to a group of protesters staging a pro-life rally because the statute did not give them proper notice that the core political speech and expressive activity in which they were engaged was prohibited by law. However, the panel refused to find the city of Norfolk, Va., liable. (Lytle v. Doyle, 2003)
Judicial Philosophy
In a law review article, responded to the charge that the conservative "preoccupation with the abstract, the collective, and the impersonal has locked actual human beings out." Wilkinson argues that conservative jurisprudence is compassionate, but that it is also committed to crafting "narrow rulings" that show "deference to democratic solutions."
In a law review article, defended the record of the Rehnquist Court. Wilkinson contends that the "modest" interventions of the Rehnquist Court are about preserving a space for state laws and do "not pose any threat to such basic premises of constitutional law" as the "binding effect of the Bill of Rights upon the states, or to the constitutional underpinnings of our most basic national civil rights statutes."
Wilkinson has written four books including Serving Justice: A Supreme Court Clerk`s View. (New York: Charterhouse, 1974).
Affiliations
External links
- The Supreme Court Shortlist - Slate magazine, Friday, July 1, 2005
- Article on James Harvey Wilkison III as a potential Supreme Court nominee
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