White House Memos Offer Opinions on Supreme Court - New York Times

White House Memos Offer Opinions on Supreme Court - New York Times: "



July 30, 2005
White House Memos Offer Opinions on Supreme Court
By JOHN M. BRODER and CAROLYN MARSHALL
LOS ANGELES, July 29 - For those seeking clues to the judicial philosophy of John G. Roberts, documents from his years as a lawyer in the White House counsel's office during the Reagan administration provide revealing evidence.
In early 1983, Mr. Roberts was asked to analyze a proposal pushed by Warren E. Burger, then the chief justice, to create a new, national-level federal appeals court to relieve some of the Supreme Court's workload.
Mr. Roberts wrote in a memorandum to his boss, Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, that he thought creation of the new court, known as the intercircuit tribunal, was a 'terrible idea.' Mr. Roberts, who is President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, said the court had only itself to blame for its burden of cases.
'If the justices truly think they are overworked, the cure lies close at hand,' Mr. Roberts wrote. 'The fault lies with the justices themselves, who unnecessarily take too many cases and issue opinions so confusing that they often do not even resolve the question presented.'
He wrote that if the court took fewer death penalty and prisoner-rights cases, the docket would be cut by at least a half-dozen cases a year. He added a comment that may signal his view of the Supreme Court's proper role.
'So long as the court views itself as ultimately responsible for governing all aspects of our society, it will, understandably, be overworked,' Mr. Roberts wrote. 'A new court will not solve this problem.'
Mr. Roberts worked in the Reagan White House counsel's office from 1982 to 1986. The files were among pap"