July 11 GEORGIA----impending execution Doctor wants stop to Tuesday execution----Former medical examiner backs self-defense A man set to be executed Tuesday for the gruesome killing of an Atlanta lawyer never should have faced a death penalty prosecution, the case's medical examiner said in a recently signed statement. Dr. Saleh Zaki said Robert Dale Conklin carried out the killing only after being attacked by George Crooks. "I do not believe that this was necessarily an intentional murder case, and I definitely do not believe it was a case in which a death sentence was even something to consider," Zaki, who served as a Fulton County medical examiner for 25 years, said in a sworn statement signed last month. Zaki's statement is part of a petition now before the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, which considers Conklin's plea for clemency today. Conklin is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. Tuesday by lethal injection. Conklin is on death row for the March 26, 1984, killing of Crooks, a 28-year-old lawyer who had been Conklin's lover. Conklin admitted plunging a screwdriver in Crooks' ear, but said he did it in self-defense because Crooks was attacking and trying to rape him. What happened after Crooks' death is chronicled in Conklin's own confession to police. The next day, Conklin said, he entertained friends who dropped by his apartment and then cut up Crooks' body in an upstairs bathtub. He later put Crooks' body parts into nine garbage bags. "I went ahead and filled up the garbage can with these bags, and they would not all fit, so I left some of the bags with George in them outside," Conklin told police. After it started to rain that night, Conklin said, he took the bags and emptied them in a Dumpster. Police subsequently found Crooks' body parts in the Dumpster and arrested Conklin, then a 23-year-old McDonald's manager. In his statement to police, Conklin said he did not want authorities to know about what had happened because he was on parole. He said he cut Crooks into pieces because Crooks was too big for him to carry, and he felt he had to dispose of the body. At trial, Fulton prosecutors relied upon testimony from Zaki, who retired seven years ago, to convince jurors that Conklin intentionally killed Crooks. Zaki testified that Crooks suffered a screwdriver wound to his ear, but said the lawyer also sustained knife wounds to the neck. Conklin told police he stabbed Crooks with a knife after he was dead to drain his blood and make him lighter and easier to handle. But the Fulton County jury found that Conklin intentionally killed Crooks, and appeals courts have since determined there was evidence supporting that conclusion. In his closing argument to the jury, assistant district attorney John Turner called the killing "one of the most vile and brutal crimes to come about in this country in recent memory." But Conklin's clemency lawyers will ask the parole board today to examine what happened before Conklin dismembered Crooks. Killings committed in self-defense are not eligible for the death penalty. Conklin's clemency attorney, Don Samuel, said on Sunday that Conklin's trial lawyer only had 37 days to prepare for a capital trial, a short time frame unheard of today. "The result was inevitable," he said. "There was no defense." In his clemency petition, Samuel said, "Mr. Conklin can demonstrate today he is not guilty of malice murder. He is guilty of defending himself from rape and having the worst possible judgment after his attacker was dead." In his sworn statement, signed June 16, Zaki said Conklin's case "troubled me from the very beginning." Conklin's use of the screwdriver showed "there was no plan to kill," Zaki said. "Based upon my experience, no one planning to kill someone else, particularly a person as large as Mr. Crooks, would select a screwdriver as a murder weapon," Zaki said. Dr. Werner Spitz, a forensic pathologies hired by Conklin's lawyers, has studied Zaki's autopsy and determined that the knife wounds were likely caused after Crooks already was dead. In his affidavit, Zaki said Spitz's findings "are not unreasonable." Zaki noted he performed about 6,000 autopsies during his career and documented "horrible evidence" of torture and abuse cases. His autopsy of Crooks supports Conklin's statement that he was attacked, the former chief medical examiner said. "In the hundreds of times I have testified for the citizens of Fulton County in such cases, I would get my photographs and my report, go to court, answer the questions and leave," Zaki said, adding that he would not think much more about the case or even bother to find out the verdict. "Robert Conklin's case was different and was the exception," Zaki said. Not only did he think a death penalty prosecution was unwarranted during the 1984 trial, Zaki said, "my thoughts regarding this were conveyed to the prosecutors." (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) VIRGINIA----impending execution Execution Set for Va. Death Row Inmate In Jarratt, authorities prepared Monday for the 1st execution in Virginia in 2005, as lawyers sought last-minute court intervention in a case where the murder weapon and other evidence was destroyed after the trial. Attorneys for Robin Lovitt, 41, had an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court and a request for clemency with Gov. Mark R. Warner. Lovitt was convicted in 1999 in the slaying of Clayton Dicks, 44, during a pool hall robbery in Arlington. Among those fighting the execution are Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel in the Clinton Whitewater investigation, who argued the case before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February. The appeals court rejected that argument, and Lovitt's attorneys filed an application for a stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court on June 28. A cash box from the pool hall was found at the home of Lovitt's cousin, and a pair of bloody scissors was found in woods halfway between the pool hall and the cousin's home. But Lovitt's lawyers and opponents of capital punishment have argued that the jury conviction should be reviewed because a court clerk destroyed most of the evidence in his case, including the bloody scissors, in 2001. That made additional DNA testing impossible. Initial DNA tests of the scissors had proved inconclusive. In May, more concerns were raised after an independent audit found the state crime lab erred in critical testing in the case of another death row inmate, Earl Washington Jr., who was pardoned. The audit prompted the governor, a Democrat, to call for a scientific review of more than 160 cases handled by the lab. The review team last month concluded the lab properly handled the DNA evidence in Lovitt's case. The Virginia attorney general's office has maintained that DNA evidence was not critical to the conviction because of "very compelling, strong evidence," including eyewitness testimony. "He was found guilty by 12 jurors, two trial judges, seven state justices, one federal district judge and three federal appellate judges," spokeswoman Emily Lucier said. "This has been determined." Lovitt, who declined an interview request, has steadfastly maintained his innocence, his lawyers said. They argue Lovitt was denied the opportunity to have the DNA in his case retested. Lawyers from the Washington, D.C., law firm Kirkland & Ellis took the case on for free. Jack Payden-Travers, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said "it boggles that mind that Virginia is even proceeding with this and that the governor hasn't intervened before now to stop it. We are going to be the laughingstock of the justice system if Virginia proceeds with this execution." The Supreme Court of Virginia in 2000 found no error by the trial court and affirmed Lovitt's conviction and death sentence. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider Lovitt's appeal. The scissors were among items discarded to free up space in Arlington County Circuit Court's evidence room. In 2003, the Virginia Supreme Court rejected Lovitt's claim that his due process rights were violated. The justices ruled a court employee did not act in bad faith when he ordered the evidence destroyed. (source: Associated Press) ***************************8 Va. Man Nears Execution in Test of Destroyed DNA Robin Lovitt is waiting in the death house in Jarratt, Va. He is in a small holding cell about 10 steps from the gurney where he is scheduled to be strapped down for execution at 9 tonight. He is trying not to dwell on death, his visitors have said -- and he is proclaiming his innocence. Before tonight, his 47-page appeal will be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court. If the appeal fails, the fate of Lovitt, 41, will rest in the hands of Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D), who can grant him clemency. It is a day of high-stakes decisions in a case that has captured widespread attention and created a test of capital punishment as rarely before. In an era in which DNA so definitively determines guilt and innocence, lawyers and religious leaders are separately asking whether a death sentence should be carried out after a state mistakenly destroys DNA evidence that had the potential to clear a man. The question is particularly pointed in Virginia, which is second to Texas in its number of executions since 1976 -- the year the Supreme Court permitted states to resume the death penalty -- and where its DNA laboratory is scrutinized closely because of errors in its analysis in another death penalty case. How Lovitt's final pleas will go is difficult to predict, experts have said, even as one of the nation's best-known lawyers, Kenneth W. Starr, the special prosecutor who investigated the Clinton scandals, has become Lovitt's unlikely ally in the courts in what is his first death penalty case. "To be an appellate lawyer in a death penalty case is largely swimming against the tide," said Scott Sundby, a law professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. "Once a death sentence is entered, it's very difficult to undo." The day of decisions was set in motion more than six years ago, when Lovitt was arrested for fatally stabbing the night manager of an Arlington pool hall, Clayton Dicks, 45, in a robbery that netted $200. Jurors took 2 hours to convict Lovitt, then sentenced him to die. After his appeals started, the case took an unusual turn. His attorneys went to the Arlington courthouse to examine his trial evidence -- and discovered that nearly every piece had been destroyed. His attorneys have argued that this is especially notable because earlier DNA results were inconclusive and more sophisticated tests now exist. "That's just wrong that someone can face death where there are safeguards in place and those were known and violated," Starr said in an interview, his voice gathering emotion. "That's just wrong." On the other side, the attorney general's office contended that Lovitt has had his chance at appeals. "This case is not a DNA case," said Emily Lucier, a spokeswoman for the office. "Other evidence, such as eyewitness testimony and a confession to a fellow inmate, overwhelmingly implicated Robin Lovitt as the perpetrator of this heinous crime." Lovitt's execution date has approached during a critical audit of the state lab that tests DNA for criminal cases. The audit was released in May. Last month, Warner ordered a review of DNA results from 161 criminal cases, including Lovitt's. Lovitt was one of the review's first priorities, and preliminary results indicate no apparent problems in his case file. It was not an evidentiary review but rather a paperwork review of procedures. But Lovitt's advocates do not believe the quick review was enough. On June 22, a coalition of religious, civil-liberties and civil-rights groups in Virginia called on Warner to stay Lovitt's execution and commute his sentence to life in prison. The group argued that Lovitt faces a Catch-22, with no chance for post-conviction testing because there is no evidence. "We cannot send a man to his death with so many unanswered questions," the group wrote in a letter to the governor. A spokesman at Warner's office said that Lovitt's bid for clemency is under consideration and that it will be decided today if the Supreme Court declines the case. Warner, a Democrat in a Republican-dominated state with a long history of capital punishment, has been governor through 11 executions, since 2002. He has never granted clemency. In Northeast Washington and its surrounding suburbs, the family of Clayton Dicks is not worried about DNA testing or destroyed evidence. They said they share a different concern altogether: What if the execution is stopped? Mary Dicks, 84, said that seven of her children -- nearly all of Clayton Dicks's surviving brothers and sisters -- plan to witness Lovitt's execution. It is a tightly scripted event that victims' families can view from a private room. "They want to make sure," Dicks said. "Since he killed Clayton, they want to see him go. The whole family thinks he deserves it. They were crazy about Clayton." Clayton Dicks was killed Nov. 18, 1998. A night manager at Champion Billiards Sports Cafe, Dicks worked hard on the job, his mother said, and came home to two boys -- whom he raised on his own, as his own sons, in Northeast after they were left with him by a onetime girlfriend. When he was killed, the boys were seniors in high school and college. Dicks had wedding plans, good health, a future, his mother said. He visited her on Sundays and helped other relatives with such chores as mowing grass. Mary Dicks has decided to forgo the execution, having been through too many other deaths in recent years. "It's not going to bring Clayton back," she said. "I don't want to see anyone killed, but if you kill someone, then you're supposed to deserve the same thing the other man gets." As for Starr's involvement in the case, Dicks said: "If someone in his family got killed, he wouldn't try to clear the man who killed his son." Death row was a 2-hour drive. Tonglya Carter looked upon her older brother through the glass of a visitors' room. She and Lovitt had exchanged letters, but it had been years since she had seen him. Only a matter of days were left until his execution date. She broke down. "It's going to be okay," Carter recalled him saying. She collected herself -- sitting there with another brother and a cousin, aware that Lovitt's life might soon be over. Lovitt made it clear, she said, that he would not discuss the possibility of execution. "He just wants everyone to know he is innocent, [that] he didn't do it," she said. For the time they had, she said, she enjoyed the sight of him -- the brother who once sent her to school in the morning and cooked for her when her mother was not around, and who became a beloved uncle to her children. It was hard for her to imagine that he had ended up this way, she said -- in spite of a childhood that she finds hard to discuss openly. They grew up in a tiny house in a tough little neighborhood in Arlington, 12 kids in a cramped space, lorded over by Lovitt's alcoholic stepfather who sold and used drugs, according to court documents. The stepfather, court documents state, singled out Lovitt for special abuse because he was the eldest child and the only one who was not his own. Lovitt was beaten -- sometimes in bed at night, once with a telephone cord, in a house where sexual abuse was common, court papers said. By the time Lovitt was 5, he had taken his first alcoholic drink, according to drug treatment records, and by 8 he had smoked marijuana. He turned to speed and heroin as a teenager, then PCP and crack cocaine. He had a long string of arrests. By 35, he had spent 15 years behind bars, mostly on burglary, drug and larceny charges. Months before the killing, Lovitt tried to correct course, landing a job at the pool hall and taking culinary classes at Stratford College. But he fell into drugs again. He applied for long-term drug treatment, writing: "I've used drugs all my life and I need all the help I can get." Lovitt admitted to being high on crack the night of the crime and to stealing the cash-register drawer and taking it to his cousin's house, behind the pool hall. But he has insisted he had nothing to do with Dicks's killing. The evidence against him includes a jail informant's testimony and an eyewitness who said he was "80 percent" certain the killer was Lovitt. Bloody scissors that prosecutors said were used in the crimes were found between the pool hall and the house of Lovitt's cousin. DNA results on the scissors could not be conclusively linked to anyone except the victim. On death row since March 2000, Lovitt has seen 19 other men leave for their executions. His visitors said he has tried to stay positive, writing poetry and greeting cards, serving as a barber to other death-row inmates and becoming well-acquainted with his legal briefs. Yesterday, six of his relatives were in Jarratt to visit him. When his sister recently asked him about his state of mind, he told her he continues to have faith in God and his attorneys, she said. "He knows his lawyers are doing the best they can," she said. For Starr, Lovitt's case is an example of the death penalty process gone wrong. "The facts of this case cry out for there not to be capital punishment," he said. Not the stereotypical liberal advocate for the condemned, Starr, 58, is a onetime federal judge and U.S. solicitor general who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, a man who grew up in a conservative religious home in Texas and thought the death penalty had its place. Starr said that he has not changed his mind on capital punishment but that he has "a much deeper appreciation for the need for the system to be fair and open to the possibility of mistake and failure." To Starr, the evidence destruction is critical. He recites the date it was ordered: May 21, 2001. The problem started when a deputy court clerk decided to make space in an evidence room by discarding everything in Lovitt's case except one chart. 2 other clerks objected, warning him that appeals were continuing and that DNA was involved. "The guy's not dead yet," one clerk said, according to court testimony. "You can't destroy it." But the deputy clerk, who later said he believed the appeals were over, proceeded anyway. A judge signed an order, and police took the evidence to the trash. In the discarded box was a pair of scissors that prosecutors had identified as the murder weapon. The scissors had shown the victim's blood. Other DNA results were inconclusive. "To this day," Starr said, "there has not been an adequate explanation as to why both law and policy were violated in that destruction." He points out that a law requiring the preservation of biological evidence recently had taken effect. The courts have sided with prosecutors in ruling that the evidence destruction was not done in "bad faith." Those are details Starr has become steeped in, four years after his law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, took on Lovitt's case as a pro bono project. Starr himself has delivered courtroom arguments and prepared legal briefs. On Tuesday, he went to see Lovitt on death row. He found Lovitt to be "very warm, very human, extremely articulate," he said. "He was remarkably at peace." In a clemency petition to Warner, attorneys made arguments about the evidence destruction, but they also asserted that capital punishment was never the right choice for Lovitt's crime. "The death penalty should be reserved for the most heinous of cases," Starr said -- terrorists, criminals who kill multiple victims. "It can work effectively," he said, "where there is a very high degree of moral certainty, aided by DNA evidence." Lovitt is not in the same league, Starr said -- a glimpse of which he got when he visited death row and observed the nearby cell of Washington area sniper John Allen Muhammad. "To equate Robin Lovitt's circumstances with that of John Muhammad is so appalling," he said. To the Supreme Court, Starr and his legal team focused many of their arguments on Lovitt's trial lawyers, who they say erred in not presenting Lovitt's "horrific" childhood during his sentencing. If just one juror had been swayed by the drugs and abuse he grew up with, Starr said, Lovitt would have drawn a life sentence. "It only takes one juror to have his or her conscience moved and to say, 'I believe under these circumstances of this childhood, this background, that life in prison is appropriate," he said. In several other courts, the attorney general's office successfully argued that the lawyers acted wisely in their decisions about Lovitt's background. One court agreed, calling it a "can of worms" that could have hurt as much as helped Lovitt. Still, Starr remains passionate about the case. With evidence destruction, childhood omissions and a claim about prosecutors failing to disclose potentially damaging statements from a medical examiner, he sees "a constellation" of important legal issues. "When you take these facts together, one has cause to wonder, why the death penalty here?" (source: Washington Post) ILLINOIS: 2 Men Charged in Ill. Student's Death A college student was beaten to death with his own bicycle lock during a fight near campus, and 2 men were charged with 1st-degree murder, police said Sunday. Tombol Malik, 23, was pronounced dead shortly after the beating early Saturday at the University Village housing complex several blocks from the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. Police believe the 2 suspects struck Malik repeatedly in the face and head with the bicycle lock. Investigators also found a stun gun on the ground nearby. Officials would not comment on a motive. "He was a very artistic, sensitive young man, and we're still just broken up over it," said his 31-year-old brother, Sati Malik. Charges of 1st-degree murder and aggravated battery were filed against Muaz Haffer, 21, of Burr Ridge, and Mantas Matulis, 20, of Clarendon Hills, said police Officer Patrice Harper. A hearing was held Sunday and bail for each man was set at $900,000. Suzanne McEneely, the assistant public defender representing Matulis, said her client had been attacked and was defending himself during the altercation. Matulis is a student at the College of DuPage, and Haffer is a student at Benedictine University. Malik, who was born in Saudi Arabia to a Sudanese father and an American mother, was a sophomore majoring in political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He had planned to study in Germany during the upcoming academic year, his brother said. Malik and another man were leaving a party at the housing complex when they encountered the 2 suspects. One of the suspects appeared injured and when Malik's friend asked if they needed help, the men attacked, prosecutors said. The 2 suspects were later arrested near the scene of the attack wearing bloody clothes. The bike lock and stun gun, both of which had blood on them, were later recovered by police. The death came several weeks after a UIC history professor was beaten to death in suburban Oak Park. Peter D'Agostino was found unconscious outside a home on June 22 and died later. Police said Saturday there had been no arrests in that case. (source: Associated Press) USA: ACTION: Ban Lethal Injection and Pancuronium Bromide Petition http://www.petitiononline.com/needles/petition.html ******************************* NAACP: U.S. leaders eroding rights----Conference speakers target government In Milwaukee, civil rights advocates yesterday called the blurring lines between religion and politics a threat to equal opportunity, and said conservative judges and lawmakers are threatening progressives' gains nationwide. "You have 3 branches of government that seem to have an orchestrated approach to, in effect, chisel away at civil rights protections. It's systematic," said Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington, D.C., branch of the NAACP, speaking at the group's annual convention. The 96th annual gathering of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People comes as the Baltimore-based nonprofit has been struggling to raise money. Its new president, retired Verizon executive Bruce Gordon, has pledged to improve efficiency in the organization and raise an endowment, as well as to stress economic equality. During weekend panel discussions and meetings, convention delegates discussed laws that bar felons from voting, racial patterns in death penalty sentencing, reparations for slavery and the federal funding of religious groups, among other issues. U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia, said religious groups that receive federal funding for social programs are increasingly hostile to participants who don't share their views on social issues -a violation of equal protection laws and a broad threat to civil rights. He also criticized legislation proposed last year by North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones that would allow religious leaders who receive federal funding to endorse political candidates from the pulpit. "When you allow discrimination based on religion in federal programs, you lose all your moral authority to enforce civil rights legislation," Scott said. "Typically, you rely on the judiciary to get you through times like this, but unfortunately the judges being appointed only affirm many of the things happening." NAACP officials also announced yesterday that Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has been criticized for telling a trade group that Mexicans in the U.S. are doing work that "not even blacks want to do," had declined two invitations to attend the convention. Fox cited scheduling conflicts in declining the invitation, NAACP officials said. More than 8,000 people are attending the 6-day convention, which runs through Thursday. (source: The Associated Press) ******************** Bush Caught in GOP Riptide Over High Court ----Choosing a nominee, or 2, who will satisfy competing interests may prove to be a struggle. As he weighs the momentous choice about whom to nominate to the Supreme Court, President Bush is facing the toughest test yet of his ability to hold together the diverse - and often fractious - political coalition that twice elected him to the White House. Bush has marched through his presidency championing causes held dear by one Republican Party faction or another - lawsuit limits sought by business, antiabortion measures pushed by religious conservatives, tax cuts favored by free-market advocates, immigration law changes appealing to Latinos - but the court seat opened by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement is a prize valued by all parts of the party. And their priorities do not always coincide. It may be easier for Bush to navigate his party's crosscurrents if ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist also retires, as many political observers expect. That would give Bush two opportunities to satisfy the GOP's diverse interests in reshaping the Supreme Court. But Bush still will be buffeted by an unusually powerful confluence of competing political pressures. Evangelical Christians, a key grass-roots force behind Republicans' 2004 election victories, want Bush to choose a firm opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage. The business community, a significant source of political money for the party, has launched an unprecedented drive to ensure that Bush's choice is friendly to its antiregulatory interests. And GOP strategists eagerly eye the possibility that Bush can expand the party's appeal to minorities by naming the first Latino to the Supreme Court. "It leaves Bush with an excellent test of how he balances political considerations, party building, strategic outreach and principled policy," said David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington. Whether there is one vacancy or two, White House allies say they are confident that the party's factions will close ranks as soon as the president chooses a nominee. "It's a little like putting the horses into the starting gate: There's a lot of steam-blowing and whinnying, but they all line up when the bell goes off," said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who has helped coordinate party strategy for the court debate. In the meantime, the jockeying is intense because Bush's decisions about the Supreme Court will be a defining moment for his presidency and his party. Although Bush says he will not be guided by political considerations, his choice will speak volumes to the country about what kind of party the GOP will be after he leaves office. This is hardly the first time that Bush and GOP leaders have had to juggle the interests of the party's factions. This year, business lobbyists told Senate leaders they opposed a strategy for speeding confirmation of lower-court judges - a top priority for religious conservatives - because the expected partisan backlash would make it harder to enact business priorities, such as tax cuts and further limits on lawsuits. Before that, conservative activists warned the White House that their grass-roots supporters might be less inclined to back Bush's Social Security initiative if he did not show strong commitment to their top concern, a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Intraparty differences are more consequential over the Supreme Court vacancy because it involves not just a single-issue legislative aim but a lifetime appointment that could alter the ideological balance of the court for years. The most obvious GOP tensions have emerged over speculation that Bush might nominate his longtime friend, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales. That appointment would give Bush the distinction of naming the first Latino to the Supreme Court - a potential boon to the president's long-term political effort to include more minorities in the party's base. But to many conservatives, expanding the GOP's appeal to Latinos takes a back seat to their ambition to turn the Supreme Court to the right. Gonzales has come under criticism from many conservative activists who contend he is insufficiently committed to opposing abortion and affirmative action. Twice last week, Bush publicly voiced irritation at the attacks on Gonzales. "I don't like it when a friend gets criticized," the president said at a news conference in Denmark before he attended the Group of 8 summit of leaders of the world's largest industrialized nations. "I'm loyal to my friends. And all of a sudden this fellow, who is a good public servant and a really fine person, is under fire." In less public settings, other Republicans joined Bush in urging critics of Gonzales to stop the sniping, fearing they were giving ammunition to Democrats who wanted to portray Bush as being bullied by conservative ideologues. "It does no one any good to start a friendly-fire exercise," said a Republican working closely with the White House. "We are never stronger than when all our wings are beating together." The message seems to have worked, as criticism of Gonzales has abated in recent days. "The tone has changed significantly," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice. The White House is hearing from business groups that have taken an unusually active interest in this judicial nomination - a debate that legal experts and conservatives with a social agenda probably would dominate. C. Boyden Gray, who heads a coalition of conservative groups mobilizing to support Bush's nominee, has made a concerted effort to get business groups involved. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is giving the White House its analysis of potential nominees' records on issues of concern to business. The National Assn. of Manufacturers also will be reviewing the record of Bush's choice on such issues as property rights and government regulation - heedless of the nominee's views on social issues that are the focus of evangelical and antiabortion groups. Because business' concerns are broader and less ideological than social conservatives', their assessments of jurists do not always coincide. Conservative judges are often pro-business, but not always. O'Connor's legacy is a case in point. Nominated to the court by Ronald Reagan, she was widely hailed by business leaders for her rulings on such issues as limiting jury awards and curbing class-action lawsuits. But she angered religious conservatives by being a deciding vote on cases affirming abortion rights and limiting public display of the Ten Commandments. Among the judges thought to be under consideration by the White House, one who could draw a mixed verdict among Republicans is J. Michael Luttig, an appellate judge in Virginia. A favorite of social conservatives for supporting capital punishment and restrictions on abortion rights, he is not the most reliable business ally in the lineup of potential candidates. In a 2002 study in the journal Judicature of 6 possible Bush nominees to the Supreme Court, Luttig was found to have ruled on the conservative, pro-business side of economic and labor issues 59.2% of the time - less than all but one of the 6 studied. Boaz of the Cato Institute said libertarians might also be ambivalent about Luttig because, although he generally favored a restrained federal government, he had ruled in favor of strong presidential power over individuals in times of war. To bridge differences within the party, the White House and its allies have been trying to focus their message on process, not substance. Rather than call for a nominee who would further a particular cause, such as limiting abortion rights, they talk about naming a judge who will strictly interpret the Constitution, not rewrite it. "What we are selling to people is an overall philosophy, not a results-oriented wish list," said Sean Rushton, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice. "Our side would fall into chaos the moment we kick in agitating" for judges who favor specific issues. Rehnquist's retirement would give Bush more room to maneuver. Having 2 vacancies may make it possible for Bush to select one nominee who appeals to the party's most conservative wing and another who presents a more moderate profile appealing to centrists. Many Republican observers said they believed it would be politically easier for Bush to appoint Gonzales to a 2nd court slot if the 1st went to a more conservative jurist. "That way, neither side has their worst fears confirmed," said Grover Norquist, an administration ally who is president of Americans for Tax Reform. But that strategy - replacing Rehnquist with a like-minded conservative and O'Connor with a comparable moderate - might run into trouble from the right, because it would fall short of the broader aim Bush has led conservatives to expect: that he will fundamentally alter the ideological balance of the court. "I genuinely think he wants to change the court, so I don't think he'll be thinking, 'I'll balance one conservative with one moderate,'" said Paul M. Weyrich, chairman of the conservative Free Congress Foundation. (source: Los Angeles Times)
