Patrick Leahy: “I have no doubts about Professor Cassell's intelligence, his passion, and his commitment to how he thinks the law should…”

“I have no doubts about Professor Cassell's intelligence, his passion, and his commitment to how he thinks the law should read. I am sure he is a fine professor of law. I suspect he is an effective advocate. But viewed as a whole, his career has been one of a results-oriented advocate where he has worked forcefully to push the law to the far right. His one-man war on Miranda, his aggressive defense of our flawed system of capital punishment, even though 100 people have been released because of mistakes, and his work on other matters place him outside the mainstream of modern American jurisprudence. Even more troubling is his clear track record of manipulating sources and data to promote his ideological agenda. I have voted for 56 of the last 57 of the President's judicial nominees so far, and I will surely vote for many, many more, but on the basis of all I have seen in connection with the nomination of Paul Cassell, I cannot and will not vote in favor of this nomination. My judgment is that he is not likely to be the kind of fair and impartial judge that is essential to our Federal courts.”