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Slate’s “Hitjob” on...

Slate’s “Hitjob” on Southwick

By: Magnolia Tribune - June 6, 2007

Headed Southwick?

As a judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals for 12 years, Leslie Southwick participated in more than 7,000 cases. Now he is President Bush’s nominee for a long-vacant seat on the Fifth Circuit, one of the federal appeals courts. At Southwick’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked him to give an example of an unpopular decision he’d made in favor of somebody downtrodden—a poor person, or a member of a minority group, or someone who’d simply turned to the courts for help. Judge Southwick couldn’t name a single one.

The question might sound like a bit of a stunt. But other data show that Judge Southwick’s answer fits with his larger record. He has a pattern of voting against workers and the injured and in favor of corporations. According to the advocacy group Alliance for Justice, Southwick voted “against the injured party and in favor of business interests” in 160 of 180 cases that gave rise to a dissent and that involved employment law and injury-based suits for damages. When one judge on a panel dissents in a case, there’s an argument it could come out either way, which makes these cases a good measure of how a judge thinks when he’s got some legal leeway. In such cases, Judge Southwick almost never favors the rights of workers or people who’ve suffered discrimination or been harmed by a shoddy product.

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Magnolia Tribune

This article was produced by Magnolia Tribune staff.
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