Don Nickles: “Rosemary Barkett, chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, has been nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…”

“Rosemary Barkett, chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, has been nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. I am going to vote against her. To help explain my vote, I will refer to three capital punishment cases. These cases help illuminate Justice Barkett's views of life and the law--and it seems to me that these views disqualify her for elevation to the court of appeals. Justice Barkett has, of course, written hundreds of opinions and participated in thousands of cases, and perhaps it is unfortunate that we must focus on a small number of her cases. I acknowledge that Justice Barkett has often, indeed usually, voted with the majority of her court. However, her dissents most vividly outline her views, and when we turn to the dissents we see most clearly those cases where she has drawn a line between her and her colleagues.”