Todd's point is right on. In the last chapter of my upcoming Stevens's biography ("John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life"), I offer a layman's list of points to consider when nominating someone to the Supreme Court. Here it is:
"Good writers are good thinkers. Any appellate court judge who lets his or her clerks write opinions should automatically be disqualified for higher judicial office. Obtain testimony [from the candidate and former clerks] on this point. As Stevens told his law clerk Lawrence Rosenthal, 'I'll do the first drafts. Sometimes you can be totally unsure how a case is supposed to come out until you sit down and write.' Roger J. Traynor, former chief of the California Supreme Court, put it this way: 'I have not found a better test for the solution to a case than its articulation in writing, which is thinking at its hardest. A judge ... often discovers his tentative views will not jell in the writing.'" — Bill Barnhart
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