Katie Trzaska of De Pere, Wis., wants to know:
When was the last time someone with no judicial experience was appointed to the Supreme Court?
The last one was William Rehnquist, who was appointed to the Court by President Nixon in 1971. Rehnquist had been a law clerk to Justice Robert Jackson (in addition to being an assistant U.S. attorney general) but had no judicial experience of his own.
Another Nixon appointee was Lewis Powell, who had been president of the American Bar Association and later president of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He too lacked judicial experience.
The fact that all nine justices of the current Supreme Court were formerly appeals court judges is more of a historical anomaly than anything else. Of the nine justices named by FDR, for example, five -- Stanley Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, James Byrnes and Robert Jackson -- all lacked judicial experience.
categories: Approaching the Bench, Questions From The Reader
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