Moving To A New Site

Rumors of my death, as Mark Twain once said, are greatly exaggerated.


I've not published much on sex crimes in the past couple of months. After a long summer vacation, I returned to the practice of law and trials in non-sex cases. Gerry Darrow's antics have been a whole lot pressing than my own.

I've also decided to move to a new web host. You can find me at: http://www.pattisblog.com/. I will no longer have a separate page for Who Is Gerry Darrow, but have moved all of this content to that page. It is listed under the topic labelled "Who Is Gerry Darrow?"

I hope to see you on the new page.

Darrow Pokes At Judiciary Committee

Senator Leahy, Senator Sessions, other members of this committee, my name is Gerry Darrow, and I am here today to answer your questions. I won't evade or hide any inconvenient truth or attitude from you or the American people. But before I answer your questions, I have a few for you. The mere posing of these questions will shed great light on my philosophy and temperament. What you make of me will determine whether I become the newest justice on the Supreme Court. I respect your right to make this decision.

Is there a one of you here who would trade the power, prestige and affluence you now enjoy to establish a new secular order? I looked at a dollar bill the other day and I saw the promise of something new printed right there on the back of it. Yet the nation groans now beneath the same historic weight of rich versus poor that from time to time brough Rome to its knees. Is ours a new order any longer, or are we now simply another in a series of nations that have betrayed the energy of its founding? The world groans in poverty and despair, and we ignore it.

The people I represent cry out for justice. They've learned to settle for laws that are often written behind closed doors, bought and paid for by lobbyists wearing suits that cost more than they spend in a year on a wardrobe. Banks fail, and you bail them out. The people fail and tumble and you are not there to catch them. Folks no longer look to these chambers for hope. Instead this one fiddles a sad tune about the intentions of men who rode in horses and buggies, while that one hums a silent tune of praise to his campaign contributors. I came here today with a heavy heart, and longed to find just one money chamber's table to turn over. That's my America, an open wound you refuse to look at, much less treat.

I am, Senator Sessions, a trial lawyer. I learned my trade yoked to the law, as you put it in your remarks this morning. The law's doctrines have broken men and women standing next to me. Some have killed in a rash moment and we called it murder. Others have taken by force what you would not give by law and we call it robbery. Despair and lack of hope have led many to dull their pain with alcohol and drugs. My American is filled with people just getting by and wondering why they should give a whit about whether either of your parties prevails. I know the law, Senators. The law is too often deaf to need; it serves power.

Can any of you tell me what justice is? Can you tell me, Senator Kohl? What is justice, sir?

I cannot tell you that I know. I agree with Clarence Darrow: "There is no justice in or out of court." What there is is conflict and the resolution of conflict. Life is a struggle between those who have and those who do not. It has always been that way. It will alwys be that way. It is that way today. How often do debates in this very room pretend it is otherwise?

I did not attend an elite law school. I have never clerked for a judge. I've never set foot in the office of an elected official. I am not a professor or a dean. I am a lawyer. I read the laws you pass and I know that you don't have a single intent, often many of you have not even read the laws you vote on. What I read of your debates tells me there is little on which you can agree. No, I read the law and then I look to my client to see what he or she hopes for in the struggle that brings them to me. Then I used the law to fight to get them what they want. My clients have interests; they are not members of a party with an agenda cast in sweeping policy terms. They bleed. Have you ever seen corporate blood, Senator Hatch?

Senator Leahy, I heard you say in your opening remarks Constitution was intended to last for the ages. ow much longer do you think we really have? How many Americans don't vote because the outcome of an election doesn't matter? How many have given up hope of finding a job? For how many Americans have the material circumstances of their lives led down the dark path of mental illness? Not one of you can truly answer these questions. You don't know the answers. It is not that you don't care. It is simply that your America is a world of well-set tables and manners. Mine is that of the stable and litter-strewn stoop.

You want to know my view of judging? I'll be honest with you: I'm not sure I have a settled view. I've been too busy trying cases to adopt one, or even to give the matter much thought. Perhaps it is easier to say what my view lacks. I bring no predisposition to how the Constitution should be read. Strangers meet on a street and are knit together by the law's silent chords. The Constitution is the primary chord. It must bind high and low in the same bundle. The social contract must be struck each generation anew; we always poor new wine into old skins. When those skins break, we remake them, one at a time. As judge my job will be to decide the case before me in a principled manner, using the best material at hand. It is the litigants' job to bring me the brick and mortar with which to build. I come to this Court with empty hands and an aching heart, nothing more.

I believe in the separation of powers. This is a republic. The courts stand removed from the passions of the day. When you are swept by the day's events and act too rashly as a legislative body, I believe it is the courts' role to say "Not so fast." Do not expect deference from me for all that you do. The federal government is a government of limited powers; yes, commerce has changed the nature and scope of our lives, but the fundamental commitment to the dignity of the individual remains sacrosanct. I believe the Court is the guardian of that dignity. I believe my experience as a criminal defense lawyer has taught me to love the flame flickering within each breast.

We are all summoned from the unknown and take shape, live and then die in a community of strangers. The law makes false friends of us all. There should be no berth in our society so low that the mightiest would scorn to occupy it if chance had cast his lot to the lower order, rather than the highest. The law knows no friends, and its only enemy is the man without law, the man who sets himself apart. I worry, Senators, that you are apart, and that you serve an often silent elite the scorns those you never really see from a room with as pretty a setting as this.

Do I want to be a Supreme Court justice? Not really. I could live without the honor and the power and the prestige. When I walked into this room and saw the lights flashing I felt like a fool. Me, a middle aged man now a rock star, with groupies attending my every step. I saw some of you smile when you entered the room. Have you come to love your comfort perhaps more than you should?

I am not a member of any political party. I rarely vote. I pay my taxes, work, love my wife and kids, and read in the silent evenings I can steal from my clients' needs. I am no more than this, but in this I am independent. I will serve if chosen because I have been asked to do so. This is not a position for which I have groomed myself from youth onward. In truth, I never set a path for myself that required me to sacrifice my peace of mind. If selected, I will read the law, read the briefs submitted, question the lawyers who argue before me, and press my client to give coherent accounts for their opinions. Then I will do my best to decide each case according to such principles of right, precedent and law that I can discern.

Will this make me a good justice? I do not know. I will be an honest judge, the sort of which a litigant can say: "He listened, and I understand why he decided as he did." There is nothing more I can aspire to, and, frankly, nothing more to say on the topic.

Thank you for listening to me. I await your questions.

Darrow Promised "Frank Talk" At Confirmation Hearing

Supreme Court nominee Gerry Darrow held a surprise press conference this afternoon, bidding reporters to "Ask me anything." Across town, co-nominee Elena Kagan, was hidden away from the press with White House handlers, in preparation for the confirmation hearings set to begin Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

President Barack Obama stunned the nation earlier this year when he nominated Darrow, a Connecticut public defender, to the Supreme Court. To mollify critics of his decision to nominate such an unconventional candidate, the president then nominated Elena Kagan, the Solicitor General and a former dean of the Harvard Law School. "Let the people choose," Obama said, setting the two candidates for office on a potential collision course in this week's hearings to select a replacement for Justice John Paul Stevens.

"Of course, there can be but one Justice," Carswell Redding of the Cato Institute said. "The president's decision to nominate two contrasting candidates is unprecedented in our history. I'm not sure how the Senate will respond."

Darrow seemed unconcerned about the Senate reaction on Sunday, laughing as reporters peppered him with questions.

"Original intent? Beyond efforts to preserve liberty by creating checks and balances and limiting the reach of the federal government, I don't think Tom Jefferson has a whole lot to say. He's been dead a good long while, hasn't he?," Darrow said when asked about original intent. "Scalia's a bright guy," Darrow said of Justice Antonin Scalia, a proponent of trying to tether the Constitution's meaning to the intent of the framers, "but he should have gone to divinity school, or maybe taught biology in Dayton, Tennesse."

"That's right up there with the Tooth Fairy, in my view," Darrow then said about a recent Court decision giving to corporations unlimited rights to contribute to political campaigns. "Corporations aren't people. Never were. Can't be. They're simply fictions designed to limit risk for necessary investments. The decision is a disaster," he said of the case, called Citizens United.

Darrow's free-wheeling style and easy-going demeanor are expected to mark a contrast to Kagan's reserve and polish. Whereas Kagan has spent the past six weeks courting Senators in private one-on-one meetings, visiting more than 60 at last count, Darrow has kept busy at work in the Connecticut criminal courts. Last week, Darrow tried a drunken driving case, winning for an acquittal for a man the police found passed out behind the wheel of an idling car. "The statute says you have to prove operation. No one saw him driving the car. He had an empty bottle on his lap. I guess the jury concluded he drank it as he sat looking out at the water," Darrow said with a shrug. "It's hard to figure on juries, not that Kagan would know much about that."

Legal experts doubt Darrow has much of a chance of confirmation. His style is often blunt, even confrontational, character traits honed in the one-on-one combat of a courtroom. Darrow was once held in contempt when a microphone picked up a comment he made a little too loudly during closing arguments in a murder case. "Bullshit," he said of the prosecutor's closing. He later apologized.

But placards carried by demonstrators outside the Court during Darrow's press conference suggest some support for the trial lawyer. Several people carried large photographs of Kagan with a large X over her face. "Just say no," the signs said. "It's time for a people's lawyer," said other signs.

"Look, I know I am not the choice of insiders," Darrow told a reporter. "But we've heard so much coded cow dung at confirmations over the past couple of decades I am pleased as punch to sit there and give the Senate some straight talk."

"How would I vote on Roe v. Wade?" he asked. "Aren't you going to ask? Well, let me tell you: I don't want any government poking around between my or my wife's legs. You'll get yourself shot doing that. I suppose that what tells you what I think about the Second Amendment, too," he said with a wink.

Darrow clearly seemed to be enjoying the press conference, pausing frequently to shake hands with well wishers and the curious.

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow. But I'll bet Kagan isn't. She locked up somewhere studying how to talk and not say anything. Haven't we had enough of that? I'd say we need a little frank talk for a change."

Does Darrow Favor Crime?

Gerry Darrow has never taught at a law school, authored a law review article or given an address to bar groups about his views on the law. In his 17 years as a practitioner, he's been too busy in courts of law representing folks injured in car accidents or accused of crimes to take a broader view of the law. As the Senate considers his suitability for a seat on the Supreme Court, critics wonder just what the man believes about the role of courts in our society.

"I cannot help but wonder whether Mr. Darrow has a soft spot in his heart for deviants and criminals," said Senator Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I mean, did he ever serve the government as a lawyer? Why only those accused of crime?"

Session's office released this week briefs Darrow wrote in a Connecticut case involving the rape of a child. Darrow asked the court to prohibit the child from testifying against her accused. "Does it make sense in this state to say that a nine-year-old child cannot enter into a binding contract but that her word is sufficient to send a man to prison for life?," he wrote.

In another case, Darrow pleaded with the court to permit a man convicted of a brutal carjacking and rape to serve a sentence short enough to permit him hope of leaving prison while alive. "Judge, my client is nineteen years old. He has an entire life ahead of him. Is it too much to ask that he have the hope of someday, when he is old and bent by time, walking among us and seeing the Sun set on without looking through prison bars?" The youth was sentenced to 85 years in prison, a result Darrow told reporters was "shocking."

"These sentiments, these arguments, are shocking," Sessions said.

Others see it differently.

"No one raised questions when Sonya Sotomayor was nominated that she was unfit because she had served as a trial prosecutor earlier in her career. Wouldn't it hold that a constitution seeking to place limits of governmental power should render as unfit to serve a person who sought to assert that power?," said Robert Fogelbeak, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "Sessions' assertions are absurd."

The parsing of a judicial nominee's statements about the law and courts before becoming a judge are often controversial. Last week, journalists scoured over the public and not-so-public record of tandem nominee Elena Kagan to try to learn her views. But the record was opaque: she appeared right of center on freedom of speech, cautious on abortion, and seemingly without public views on the range of issues that typically occur in a court of law. In 25-years of legal career she appears never to have stood beside a client in a court of law.

"At least Darrow has a record of courtroom accomplishment," said Julius Nugent, a lawyer familiar with Darrow. "He has served as an advocate for his client. That's the role of a practitioner."

Some question whether a non-practicing lawyer can become an effective jurist.

"A judge without courtroom experience is like a sprinter confined to a wheelchair," said Scott Minefield, an influential blogger on legal affairs. "Sure, you can describe the race and the attributes of who should win: The fastest man out of the blocks and capable of sustaining his lead wins. But that's mere pap."

Kagan would not comment about her qualifications, and spent the week locked away with Senators who will vote on her nomination. Reports indicate she is charming, engaging, a good conversationalist and gracious.

Darrow, by contrast, spent his week in court, trying the case of a man accused of a residential arson. To the dismay of his White House handlers, Darrow speaks freely with the press.

"Mr. Sessions seems like an all right kind of guy," Darrow said. "I am sure his heart is in the right place. But reading my briefs to see what I believe is sort of a waste of time. I am an advocate for my clients. My role is not to assert my views of the law into a case so as to advance some pet or idiosyncratic version of legal theory," Darrow chuckled. "Here's an aphorism for you: Practice conceived isn't theory relieved. The law is not theory. There are no philosophers pleading a client's case."

The Senate is expected soon to hold simulatneous hearings on the nominations of Darrow and Kagan. President Obama's nomination of Darrow sparked revolt and controversy among legal scholars and court personnel, prompting Obama to nominate a more mainstream candidate to be evaluated alongside Darrow.

"Let's let the people decide what sort of the Court they want," the president said. "I heard voters ask for change in November. I think Darrow represents change."

Darrow v. Kagan: Contrasting Candidates

It is a tale of two nominees, one the golden child of doting Upper West Side, Manhattan parents, seemingly destined for great things and expensively reared and educated, the other largely self-made, the product of two blue-collar workers struggling to get by in Detroit. While the child of Manhattan soared through the world's most prestigious educational instutions, Detroit's child struggled to get through middling sorts of institutions. One worked as a law clerk, professor and dean, the other represented folks injured in accidents and accused of crimes.

Question: Which background reflects the lives of ordinary Americans?

The contrast between Gerry Darrow, President Barack Obama's startling dark horse nominee to the Supreme Court, and what observers now call the "tandem nominee," Elena Kagan, is apparent even in the demeanor of the two nominee as they find themselves now in the public eye. On the day after her nomination was announced, Kagan looked gleeful, a beaming, almost child-like grin animating her features: at last, the long wait was over, she had been picked for a job she had wanted since at least high school. The ambition of a lifetime to which she had bended every fiber of her considerable talent was to be fulfilled. Childless, without a spouse, a self-proclaimed workaholic, Kagan seemed at once, finally to relax.

Darrow was nominated at a press conference on the steps of a federal prison. He walked from the press conference into the prison to visit a client. In the days after his nomination, Darrow appeared daily the courtrooms of the small community in which he struggles, as public defender, to keep chaos from overcoming the lives of his clients. His demeanor far from gleeful, he looked almost stunned. "I am not worthy of the honor," he told a judge.

"Putting the contrast in terms of life experiences, Gerry Darrow is clearly the more recognizable," said Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "But the Senate is not an elective office. This isn't a demographic contest. Elena Kagan could bring superior intellectual fire power to the Court."

The nomination of Darrow was met with protest among the law's elites. Federal law clerks staged a one-day work stoppage. Law schools at Harvard, Yale and Stanford seemed in mourning, as students wandered the halls in shock, all but muttering alound about barbarians storming the gates. Some wondered whether the decision of the United States Supreme Court to close its mamouth front doors to the public was a symbolic protest against the appointment of a trial lawyer to the high court.

This week, President Obama nominated Elena Kaga, a former dean of the Harvard law school, as a so-called "tandem candidate," a move unprecedented in the nation's history. Was the president signaling a lack of confidence in Darrow?

If he was, Senators didn't appear to notice.

"Kagan is no doubt brilliant," said Republics Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. "But she's got no apparent track record. At least we know who Darrow is. Kagan looks like the geriatric version of a summer staffer, all elbows and ambition. But simply being here isn't enough. What does she believe about the law's role in our life?"

Efforts to humanize Kagan were at once apparent. The New York Times reported that she can be a scatterbrain, and has from time to time left her car running overnight as she walked away from it deep, apparently, in thought. The paper even went so far as to find it noteworthy that she smoked cigarettes as a teenager. A picture was published of her struggling to swing a baseball in a softball game at the University of Chicago.

"I thought I was reading the Onion," a satirical Internet publication, "as I read the Times piece," said Sandra Whaling, dean of the Thomas Cooley Law School, from which Darrow graduated. "She smoked? Oh, my, and she loves Jane Austen, too. I mean, really. Is a clinical profile of someone with social Asperger's syndrome?"

Darrow himself seemed intimidated. "She's pretty impressive," he said. "You almost never see someone like that in court. Folks like her get to spin the webs the rest of us try to untangle when those webs snare a client. But I got to hand it to her, wow, she's got a great looking resume."

Kagan supporters hailed her nomination as a sign of diversity. "She would be the only nominee never to have served as a judge. She brings diversity to a court comprised wholly of former jurists," the Harvard Daily News editorialized. But this diversity claim appeared lost on Darrow supporters: "Diversity? Another Ivy League star who clerked on the Supreme Court, got lost for a year or two in a megafirm and then went on to academia? When I think of diversity on the court, I think of appointing a lawyer who has actually tried a case in a courtroom, someone who has actually represented a person in a conflict. Is anyone up there in that league?" asked Scott's Minefield, a prominent legal blog.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares for nomination hearings, legal interest groups suddenly found themselves reading trial transcripts to get a sense of Gerry Darrow's demeanor and intellectual acumen. "He can talk the ears off an elephant," said one staffer. "It's refreshing to see the law in action."

Legal interest groups, however, returned to familiar terrain. "I need to know whether Ms. kagan is prepared to honor the intentions of the Founders or whether she's the sort of activist who believes in a living constitution," the director of legal research for the Federalist Society said. "The nomination process is really a test of constitutionali infidelity."

When asked about the Federalist Society's concerns in a break during an arson trial in New Britain, Darrow paused for moment, smiled, and then said: "That's just stupid. I can't imagine a more activist approach to reading the document than restorting to a Quija board to figure out what dead people think. Who do these people think they are kidding?"

Kagan could not be reached for comment. She was rumored, however, to be enjoying a cigar, a rare indulgence, the Times reported, as she read briefing papers on the various Senators with whom she will be meeting in days to come. Even in the white glare of new-found fame, the contrast between Darrow and Kagan was obvious, and glaring.

For more complete coverage of the Darrow nomination click here.

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Who Is Gerry Darrow?

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Kagan Tapped As "Tandem Nominee" For Court

The Senate Judiciary Committee today announced that it would only consider the nomination of Gerry Darrow for a seat on the United States Supreme Court if the president also submitted the name of a more conventional candidate to be considered at the same time.

In a terse, one-line announcement, President Barack Obama relented. "I submit a tandem nominee, Elena Kagan, for the Senate's consideration," the president said.

The move is unprecedented and may well sound the death knell for Darrow's chances for a seat on the high court. "The more customary course in our history is for the president to submit the name of one nominee at a time," said Carswell Bork, a professor of constitutional history at Yale University. "Although the Constitution does not prohibit the submission of two names at once, the president's decision to do so could well be taken by the Senate as a lack of confidence in Darrow."

"Nonsense," said a White House spokesman. "The president promised change. We are building new coalitions. We're happy to provide two names in tandem so that the nomination process does not get bogged down. But the president stands committed to placing a trial lawyer on the Supreme Court."

President Obama stunned observers last month by nominating the 42-year-old Darrow to fill the seat of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Darrow, a virtual unknown among the bar's elite, has worked as a personal injury lawyer and a public defender. He now practices in New Britain, Connecticut, where he represents indigent people accused of felonies.

In announcing Darrow as a nominee to the high court, Obama noted that he was redeeming his promise of change. "Mr. Darrow has worked in the trenches. He is not a legal theoretician, but an experienced trial lawyer. His appointment signals my administration's commitment to pragmatic reform of the legal system."

Darrow's nomination was met by protest at the nation's elite law schools. "Who is Gerry Darrow?" became a theme of class boycotts at the institutions, whose graduates typically go on to assume legal clerkships for the nation's federal judges. Darrow graduated from the Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan.

Last week, federal law clerks staged a one-day work stoppage to protest the nomination of Darrow. "While accomplished as a trial lawyer, Mr. Darrow has no apparent appreciation of the law's deeper structure or its ideals," a manifesto delivered to the Federal Judicial Center read. The clerks demanded that the president nominate one of their own to the high court.

The nomination of Kagan, the current Solicitor General and a former dean of the Harvard Law School, appears to be a response to the backlash against Darrow.

"Kudos on Kagan," a headline announced at the Yale Daily News. The endorsement was surprising, as Kagan is a Harvard Law School graduate, and the rivalry between Yale and Harvard for top spots in the law is often intense.

"Practice conceived isn't theory relieved," responded one White House staffer. "We're trying to eliminate gap between theory and practice on the Court. Darrow does that. Kagan is just another bridge to nowhere."

"Well, I suppose there's no harm in tossing Kagan's hat into the ring," Darrow said. "But I don't recall her ever appearing in court to argue on behalf of some ordinary person getting screwed to the wall by a corporation or a government. She's a power lawyer, not a people's lawyer. Haven't we had enough vanilla on the court?"

Kagan appears on behalf of the United States Government before the Supreme Court, but is not known to have appeared in other courts on behalf of non-institutionalized clients. "Brilliance isn't enough," read the headline of the lead editorial in The Detroit Free Press today. "Ms. Kagan does not represent diversity," the paper said. "She's just another brand of vanilla on a court distressingly homogenous and detached from the concerns of Americans who face each day without the an ivy laurel perched on their brow." The Free Press called on the Senate to confirm Darrow.

Senator Patrick Leahy, D-VT, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, promised that both candidates would be fairly vetted. "I suspect that Kagan is the safe choice," Leahy said. "But I am not sure what the American people want is safety. Most folks feel the current court views the government as too big to fail. The people want a fighter on the court. Someone who realizes that government can and should fail if it cannot meet the needs of ordinary folks."

Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the ranking minority member of the committee appeared puzzled. "Two candidates instead of one? This is unprecedented. The most important question on my mind today is whether this what the founders intended. I'll be reading my Constitution extra carefully in the weeks to come."

Did Darrow Nearly Flunk Constitutional Law?

Did Gerry Darrow nearly flunk constitutional law?

It turns out that President Barack Obama's nomination to the Supreme Court received a near failing grade in the year-long course on constitutional law while a student at the Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan. The nominee received a grade of C- in the course. "That's one step from the academic death penalty," said Robin Roundtree, the professor who taught the course. She claimed to have no memory of the exam.

Darrow, on the other hand, recalls the exam well.

"I went to law school because I was amazed at what government could do to people. I figured there had to be some limits somewhere. So I took the text of the Constitution seriously. I guess that was a mistake," he said with his characteristic smirk.

Darrow is a a public defender and former plaintiff's lawyer now representing indigent defendants in New Britain, Connecticut. President Obama's nomination of the unconventional trial lawyer to fill the seat being vacated by the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens sent shock waves through the legal establishment.

"My sense of the Constitution is that it is a defining document, and that is represents a contract among strangers. It is a compact that established a government of limited powers," Darrow said. "Yet throughout the course, there seemed to be a bias in favor of ever-expanding government. Sure, the separation of powers doctrines provides a set of checks and balances of one branch of government against the other two. But it struck me then, as it does now, that all this pocket pool among government workers takes place at the expense of the people."

Darrow noted that throughout the class he hungered for "just one case" that gave meat to the Ninth Amendment. Calling it the "people's amendment," Darrow characterized it is retaining for the people those rights not explicitly delegated to government. "The high court has never given teeth to that amendment," Darrow said.

So in his constitutional law exam, Darrow wrote an extended essay on Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, and the so-called social contract theory. He characterized modern constitutional law as "Hobbesian in character," giving to government powers never intended by the framers of our republic.

Elena Kagan, who was passed over the nomination in favor of Darrow, was scornful of Darrow's comments. "This is not the way law is taught. It flies in the face of accepted constitutional theory," she noted. Kagan is former dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor General of the United States.

"Has she ever represented a client screwed to the wall by some government bureaucrat?" Darrow asked. "Oh, wait," he chuckled, "she represents the government."

"Elena Kagan is a sharp tack," Darrow said. "But she's a courtroom greenhorn. I think the president nominated me to move away from the the plantation theory of justice -- you know, the theory that holds the professors, deans and wealthy lawyers know best."

During his career as a lawyer, Darrow appeared in hundreds of cases at both the trial and appellate level, arguing constitutional issues in most cases. "Sure, I can use the dessicated doctrines of the legal elite when I have to. But the challenge of the law is translating academic law into law that matters on a pragmatic level. A courtroom is no place for a professor," Darrow said.

Leahy: "Darrow A Breath Of Fresh Air"

Although stopping short of giving an endorsement, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy gave a cautious thumbs up to the nomination of Gerry Darrow as the newest justice on the Supreme Court.

"President Obama clearly struck a responsive chord with my constituents in naming Darrow," Leahy said. "Our phones have been ringing off the hook with folks wanting to know more about this man."

Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a key vote in the confirmation hearings for Darrow scheduled for later this spring.

In an op-ed piece published this morning, Leahy praised the president for going outside the "Ivy closters and appellate corridors of power" in naming a new justice. He noted that Darrow was a "man for all people."

"I am pleased that he is continuing his practice of reaching out to both sides of the aisle concerning judicial nominations. I am looking forward to consulting with the president, and with the Senate majority leader, the Senate minority leader and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. This is an important step in the process of confirming the next Supreme Court justice....

"Today's Supreme Court is the first in history to be limited to former federal appellate judges. The Supreme Court once included among its ranks former governors, former cabinet members, former senators and even a former president. A Supreme Court nominee with a varied background would be a welcome addition. The Supreme Court is charged with upholding the constitutional protections and liberties of every individual American. "We the People" deserve no less.

"I wanted a nominee who will be faithful to the Constitution and its storied history, ... someone who understands and appreciates the real-world impact of the Supreme Court's decisions on hard-working Americans. That nominee should be someone just like Gerry Darrow.

I would also like to see a nominee who reflects Justice Stevens' reverence for the Supreme Court as an institution. In many of his most historic opinions, Justice Stevens lamented that the court's divisive rulings would do harm to the public's confidence in it. I share that concern. Over the past two years, the Judiciary Committee has held several hearings aimed at shining a light on how just five justices on the Supreme Court can issue decisions that greatly affect millions of Americans' everyday lives. These hearings have shown how these Supreme Court decisions frequently misinterpret laws designed to protect consumers, employees, women, retirees, senior citizens and the environment, not to mention those victimized by over-criminalization."

"Most recently, the committee held a hearing to examine how corporate spending will drown out the individual voices of Americans in the wake of the Citizens United decision. One of the lessons of these troubling rulings is the importance of every vote on the Supreme Court. As the nation thanks Justice Stevens for his decades of public service, and marks his upcoming 90th birthday, it is my hope that the next Supreme Court justice will honor his legacy. The stakes for the American people are high....

" I am encouraged by the serious manner in which this president has fulfilled his responsibilities. I look forward to the Senate fulfilling its constitutional role of advice and consent."

Support For Darrow Growing Nationwide

Hours after creating this page, Darrow's candidacy for the Supreme Court has prompted interest nationwide. We've heard from folks in the following locales: Cedar Crest, New Mexico; Danbury, Connecticut; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Greenville, South Carolina; Mckeesport, Pennsylvania; Cedar Grove, New Jersey; and Douglassville, Pennsylvania.

Spread the word. It's time for a people's lawyer on the Supreme Court.

NPR: Time For A Public Defender On High Court?

National Public Radio's Scott Simon is poised to endorse Gerry Darrow.

Darrow A Lay Minister?

Although a self-professed agnostic, it appears that Gerry Darrow, President Obama's nominee to replace the retiring John Paul Stevens, may recently have preached a sermon at St. Luke's the Evangelist, in Everytown. Although it it by no means clear whether there are two men identically named, the similarity was enough to cause a brief stir on the social networking site Twitter today.

"We all know that all that Twitters is not gold," an administration spokesman said. "We don't believe that Gerry Darrow preached at St. Luke's."


Hat Tip: thetriallawyer

Jerome Or Gerry? New Questions About Darrow

Supreme Court nominee Gerry Darrow may really be Jerome Darrow, The Huffington Post reports. According to the Post, court records in New Britain, Connecticut, relay that Darrow's birth name was Jerome Darrow. He petitioned the probate court for a name change in 2004, changing his first name to Gerry.

Why a middle age man would change his name is just one of the questions that emerged in the wake of President Barack Obama's decision to name a virtual unknown to the nation's highest court. New and troubling questions also arise about whether Darrow was trying to distance himself from a past filled with financial and spiritual turmoil.

"The president stands behind Darrow, and had full knowledge of the nominee's name change," a White House spokesman said. "Indeed, before the nomination was announced, Mr. Darrow filled out a complete questionnaire answering all questions about his education, background and financial history. There is nothing unlawful about Darrow's change of name."

The Michigan native and Connecticut resident left the private practice of law to become a public defender in Connecticut in 2003. He was a high-flyer in the Southfield firm of Geoffrey Fieger, winning a series of multi-million verdicts in his first decade as a practicing lawyer. His income reportedly approached seven figures when he left his wife and two children in 2001.

Court records reveal that in the years before his divorce, the couple owned a 15,000-acre ranch in Montana and prime waterfront property in South Carolina. He dabbled in race horses, rare books and expensive wines.

"I didn't feel like much a people's lawyer when I was living so high on the hog," he said. "It seemed like there was never enough money. I wanted what we called [expletive] you money -- enough money to tell the Government to back off," he testified in a hearing before Superior Court Wanda S. Haustile, in the Wayne Family County Court in Michigan during a hearing on his financial means.

Darrow testified he underwent a spiritual crisis after attending a college for plaintiffs lawyers and criminal defense lawyers in DuBois, Wyoming, founded by legendary Wyoming lawyer Gerry Spence. Attending the college in 2000, he returned as a staff member for several years thereafter. In 2002, he liquidated his assets and donated them to the Trial Lawyers College, a non-profit entity devoted to the training of trial lawyers.

"I decided that if I was going to be a people's lawyer, I ought to live like one the people I was representing. It struck me as hypocritical to play populist rock star while living like a prince," Darrow told the court. Darrow declared bankruptcy two years later.

Frustrated creditors and Darrow's ex-wife challenged the disgorgement of his assets as little more than a fraudulent conveyance. Darrow's lawyer, S. Sam Ferris, defended the moves. "He retains no beneficial interest in the proceeds. His wife and children were adequately cared for in the divorce. The bankruptcy court found no fraudulent intent after extensive hearings."

A spokesman for the Trial Lawyer's College could not be reached for comment, and several other lawyers who attended the college with him spoke only on condition of anonymity. "Darrow fell hard for the college's stated mission of justice for ordinary folks. I saw the man weep one day. His tears seemed genuine," one classmate said.

"He said he planned to change his name to mark a fresh start in life. He chose Spence's name to honor the man who taught him so much," another said.
Gerry Spence could not be reached for comment.

News of the name change drew sharp commentary from the Republican Party. "The law's cardinal virtue is transparency. Not only do we not know what Gerry Darrow believes. Now we're not even sure what his real name is," said GOP spokesman Charlotte Harnes.
Others seemed non-plussed by the new revelations. "He seems more real to me for all this trouble in his life," said radio talk show host Colin McEnroe, whose daily talk show airs on National Public Radio in Connecticut.

Darrow now lives in a modest three-family ranch home in Plainville, Connecticut, a blue-collar town not far from the courthouse in New Britain, Connecticut, with his wife, a sergeant in the Connecticut State Police. Neighbors describe them as quiet, even reclusive. "The most frequent visitor to his home is the UPS truck delivering books," a neighbor said.

"More than a million Americans file for personal bankruptcy each year," said Wayne State University law professor Samuel Kitka. "Indeed, one of the first justices of the Supreme Court, James Wilson, had financial problems so severe he from time to time had to hide from his creditors. Mr. Darrow availed himself of a lawful remedy for personal distress. He's like many Americans who've needed a fresh start. I find it refreshing that the president chose a man real enough to admit failure for the high court."

Who Is Gerry Darrow? Uproad Over High Court Pick

"Who is Gerry Darrow?" The question, however simple and direct, seems to have taken on a symbolic importance at some of the nation's leading law schools. The day after the little known Connecticut lawyer was nominated to become a justice of the United States Supreme Court, law students at Harvard, Yale and Stanford seemed to talk of nothing else.

"I've spent the afternoon on-line searching his name," said Marion Ledger, a third-year student at Yale. "I know he spends a lot of time in court defending people. But beyond that, I don't really know his legal philosophy. Who is he?"

The question resonates at Harvard as well. Leaflets have begun to appear on campus asking, simply, "Who is Gerry Darrow?", where the nominee seems to be regarded as part cult hero, part pariah. At Stamford, one law student was observed wearing a button embalzoned with the question.

"It sort of reminds me of the opening lines of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged," said Samantha Quigley of Stanford. "There is a lot of resentment here about this man, a sense that he has overreached, and taken something that should have gone to one of us."

President Barack Obama stunned observers Wednesday when he announced Darrow as his pick to replace the retiring John Paul Stevens on the nation's top court. Darrow, a public defender in the hardscrabble town of New Britain, Connecticut, is an unknown among legal intellectuals. While the 42-year-old Darrow has achieved a measure of notoriety for his work in a courtroom, he has never served as a clerk to a federal judge, a federal government lawyer or professor at a law school, the more traditional routes taken by high-court nominees. Darrow attended the Thomas Cooley law school in Lansing, Michigan, a location far from what one Internet wit calls the "Darling Crowd" consisting of schools, such as Yale, which boast of their training the next generation of judges.

Within 24 hours of Darrow's nomination, a web site called "Who Is Gerry Darrow?" was created. Anecdotes impossible to verify began to appear about his career. Court clerks in Michigan and Connecticut also reported a brisk business in orders for old transcripts of his closing arguments in cases ranging from insurance bad faith claims, to his defense of notorious serial killers. Briefs authored by Darrow were in demand, traded almost like baseball cards at collectors' auctions.

Nominees typically emerge after years of writing law review articles and books about the law. "These publications shed an important light on the evolution of a candidate's judicial philosophy," said Stanford's Ricard Bemona, a professor of the school's course on judicial temperament. "The absense of any meaningful such record in Mr. Darrow's case requires a scouring of such material as we can find."

But the use of legal writings as a baromoter of judicial philosophy and demeanor can be controversial.

At hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals hopeful Godwin Liu, an associate dean at the University of California at Berkeley law school and a prolific legal scholar, told the Senate "whatever I may have written in ... books and the articles would have no bearing on my action as a judge."

Liu's comments raised eyebrows. "Is he saying that all his intellectual training and work as a scholar won't impact his behavior as a judge," a Senate aide scoffed. "That's ludicrous. Is Liu confessing that his legal scholarship is some species of science fiction?"

Liu's apparent agnosticism about how his writings would bear upon his conduct as a judge did not sit well at Darrow's alma mater, where an edgy, almost defiant, answer to the identity of Gerry Darrow was emerging.

"This is Gerry Darrow," said Marge Ratner, a clinical professor at the school. She pointed to a picture of a man in handcuffs being led from a courtroom. "The law is about human struggle and conflict," she said. "Just how Dean Liu can appear before the Senate and tell them his life's work will have no bearing on his conduct as a judge should be regarded as a confession of intellectual and spiritual poverty. Instead, the Senate took the comment at face value. There's something wrong with the current nomination process," Ratner said.

One trial transcript involving a case of Darrow's was posted online. "No man is the sum his worst moments," Darrow told a Hartford jury in support of a claim for money damages in a case involving the beating of a prisoner by guards. "The rule of law requires that the least among us be held to the same standard as the most exalted. Today I am asking you, as members of this jury, to shine a bright light into dark places and announce that justice is not the property of the popular and well-heeled. Justice belongs to all us. You are justice's guarantors."

"Those are fine sentiments and nice rhetoric, but what, really does that mean?" asked Harvard's Falon Marcus. "I'm looking for something more substantial in a Supreme Court nominee."

Darrow seems non-plussed by the controversy.

"Something more substantial than equal justice for all?" Darrow said as he walked into his office and passed a throng of reporters. "Quite frankly, I've never understood the Harvard crowd. What can be more substantial than requiring the courts to honor the rights of those we despise?"

When pressed for additional comments, Darrow placed an upraised index finder across his lips. "I'm told I ought not speak before my hearing," he said. "That's on orders from the president," he chuckled.

The question "Who Is Gerry Darrow?," so much the rage at the nation's elite law schools, seemed not to concern the only man really capable of answering it.

For earlier coverage of Obama's appointment of Darrow click here.

Obama Picks Unknown For Supreme Court

Butner, North Carolina -- President Barack Obama stood before a federal prison today and announced that he was nominating an unknown 42-year-old lawyer as the next justice of the Supreme Court, replacing retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

"I promised hope when I asked for your trust during the last election. And you heard me. Together we transformed hope into a new and audacious reality. Today I redeem a part of my promise by naming a man who is no stranger to the suffering of ordinary Americans as the next Justice of the United States Supreme Court," the president said.

When the nominee stood to address the assembled press corps, there was an eerie silence. The man was on no short list of candidates. Indeed, he was a man few present had ever considered.

"I am flattered and humbled by this honor, Mr. President," Gerry Darrow said. "In all my years at the bar, I never dreamed that I would be considered for such a post. I've represented folks at the margins of society for so long, I had begun to think of myself as an outcast."

Thus began the improbable confirmation battle of a former plaintiffs' lawyer turned mid-life public defender.

Court watchers and legal academics were stunned by the nomination.

"Who?," said Laurence Tribe of the Harvard Law School. Even the Republican Party was stunned into momentary silence. "The man's an unknown, a cipher," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "We will, of course, have questions for him. Many questions." A spokesman for the Federalist Society questioned Darrow's credentials: "He didn't even graduate from a top-tier law school? Has he ever clerked for a federal judge?"

Darrow spoke with reporters after the press conference. Like his namesake Clarence Darrow, he is plainspoken, even blunt.

"My parents wanted me to be a lawyer," he said. "They figured with the last name Darrow, I'd have a pretty good start." He chuckled with the warmth of a man accustomed to mirth. "Of course, we're no relation. It was just dumb luck they named me Gerald," he said. "But once Gerry Spence's name went up in light, well, I knew the law was for me."

Darrow graduated in the middle of his law school class at the Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, and went on to become a personal injury lawyer in the Detroit firm of Michigan legend Geoffrey Feiger. His father worked on the assmblyline at Chrysler before succumbing to a heart attack two years before Darrow was graduated from college. His mother worked as a clerk at Blue Cross and Blue Shield. He enjoyed early and spectacular success as a trial lawyer, winning multi-million dollars against the auto industry and insurance companies. But after ten years of civil work, he had an epiphany.

"There's only so much money necessary to keep a roof over your head. I woke up one morning and didn't like the man looking back at me in the mirror. So I sold the Audi and applied for a job as a public defender," he said. "I was also divorced from my wife. It still hurts to think about that and the pain I caused my kids." He eventually landed in New Britain, Connecticut, in a community court serving an economically distressed community. "My bankruptcy helped knock the false pride out of me. I know human need and fear," he said.

Darrow remarried six years ago. His wife is a state police officer. "Passion makes strange bedfellows," he chuckled.

For the past seven years, Darrow has defended "more people than I can recall" in cases ranging from murder, child sexual abuse, drug sales and bank robbery to minor offenses such as promoting prostitution. "I'm more comfortable with folks like the ones I grew up with," he said. "I'd like to try my hand at white collar defense, but that work doesn't come to a public defender."

Darrow is an only child who graduated Detroit's Edwin Denby High School in 1986. He played football and worked part-time sweeping factory floors in high school before attending Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. "I really wanted to go to University of Michigan, but I didn't have the grades," he said. "I did pretty good in law school, though. And I love the courtroom."

An administration spokesman acknowledged that Darrow was an unconventional choice for the high court.

"The president had his pick from an extremely talented group of academics and appellate court judges," one source said on condition of anonymity. "But he promised change. He wanted a nominee who shared the same rough edges most Americans live with each and every day. As we were vetting candidates we came to the depressing realization that all these folks looked the same. The president wanted to leaven the Court with a person ordinary Americans would appreciate."

The Detroit Free Press once referred to Darrow as "brilliant and audacious" for his trial work on behalf of prisoners in the Wayne County jail. He is reported to have tried in excess of 150 cases to a verdict. He has argued scores of appeals in state and federal courts.

"The man knows his way around a courtroom," said Salmon Penderton, of the Connecticut Bar Association. "He is respected and admired by almost everyone in the criminal justice system. Sure, he's rubbed some folks the wrong way. But he's the guy they call when trouble comes."

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, promised to give Darrow a fair hearing.

"We know nothing about the man, but I hear he is a capable lawyer. Perhaps that's all that is required. It could be refreshing to have a nominee unencumbered by commitments to legal interest groups." Leahy promised a prompt confirmation hearing.

Darrow seemed nonplussed by the furor with which his nomination was met.

"Sure, I want the job," he said. "But if it's not mean to be, it's not meant to be." He then removed his sports coat and entered the Butner Federal Medical Center, a federal prison, to visit a client committed there for the purposes of being restored to competency. "This is where the law lives," he said, as he entered the prison door. "I wonder if I can make what I see here a reality for the other justices."