Merrick B. Garland: Nominee Currently: William Barr
The Justice Department in the Trump administration most notably drew criticism for its leaders apparently bending to political pressure from Trump and getting involved in criminal cases involving the president’s friends. Biden’s Justice Department would probably seek to change that, restoring the department’s historic independence on criminal matters.
Biden’s Justice Department also is likely to focus more on forcing reforms at police departments through court and other actions. The Justice Department in the Trump administration had largely abandoned those efforts, positioning itself as defending the police from unfair criticism.
Merrick B. Garland
Federal appeals court judge
Garland has served as a judge on the federal appeals court in D.C. since 1997 and was elevated to chief judge in 2013. He is best known for being nominated to the Supreme Court in 2016 by President Barack Obama – but Senate Republicans refused to give him a hearing, and the high court opening was eventually filled the following year by President Trump’s choice, Neil M. Gorsuch. Garland was nominated to the appeals court by President Bill Clinton, after a stint as a senior Justice Department official in which he oversaw the prosecution of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people.
Source: Washington Post Reported by Matt Zapotosky, Devlin Barrett, Matt Viser and Amy B Wang.
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2021-01-20 Why Merrick Garland is a disheartening pick for attorney general When a government agency is as punitive, secretive and capricious as the US Department of Justice often is, trying incremental reform can feel about as satisfactory as non-alcoholic beer. That was the tack under Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., and it almost certainly will be under Biden’s choice, Merrick Garland.
Politically, Garland may seem a feel-good choice to fill the role; he became something of a martyr in 2016, when Mitch McConnell blocked the vote on his confirmation for a Supreme Court seat. Many Democrats will take satisfaction in thus getting one over on obstructionist Republican leaders.
Learning nothing from the successful “progressive prosecutor” movement, Biden has appointed as the nation’s “top cop” not a civil rights lawyer or public defender, but someone who appears to be an inflexible supporter of mass incarceration.
Criminal justice reform, including drug policy reform, has for decades been a lowest-rung priority for national-level Democrats. It may therefore be little surprise that Garland has been said to be at his least liberal when it comes to criminal law and procedure.
There are only eight cases where Garland sided with a criminal-case defendant over the government. Notably, he never wrote an opinion vindicating a defendant’s constitutional rights.
2021-01-10 The Justice Department is a mess. Merrick Garland can fix it.
2021-01-08 Merrick Garland move to Justice will give Biden new pick for influential DC appeals court But now, by elevating Garland to the Justice Department, Biden has a shot at putting someone on a court that often acts as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, served on the D.C. circuit before ascending to the Supreme Court. So did the late Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
2021-01-05 Biden plans to nominate Merrick Garland as his attorney general
2018-06-29 What Happened With Merrick Garland In 2016 And Why It Matters Now To recap, Garland was nominated to fill the 2016 vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death that February of Justice Antonin Scalia, an icon of conservative jurisprudence.
President Barack Obama quickly named Merrick Garland, then 63, to fill the seat. Garland had long been considered a prime prospect for the high court, serving as chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — a frequent source of justices that is sometimes called the “little Supreme Court.”
But even before Obama had named Garland, and in fact only hours after Scalia’s death was announced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared any appointment by the sitting president to be null and void. He said the next Supreme Court justice should be chosen by the next president — to be elected later that year.
McConnell was not alone. The 11 Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signed a letter saying they had no intention of consenting to any nominee from Obama. No proceedings of any kind were held on Garland’s appointment. McConnell and others referred to the “Biden rule” nonetheless in justifying the blockade of Garland.
Democrats were outraged, of course, but were short of tools with which to respond. As the minority party — following a disastrous midterm in 2014 — they could not force a committee or a floor vote. The court had to convene that October with only eight justices, divided often between the four appointed by Democrats and the four appointed by Republicans. Short-handed, the court deadlocked on a number of issues and declined to hear others.
With or without such justification, McConnell’s blockade was doubly effective just as a power move. First, it prevented the seating of a Democratic president’s choice. Second, and more important, the vacancy became a powerful motivator for conservative voters in the fall. Many saw a vote for Trump as a means to keep Scalia’s seat away from the liberals and give the appointment to someone who promised to name anti-abortion justices supportive of Second Amendment gun rights.
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