What type of person will Barack Obama be looking for to fill any vacancies in the Supreme Court during his term as President? There is a wide range of speculation, but many have their eyes on Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. See pictures, a video, and a biography below.
Deval Patrick Photo
The current court is the only court in history where all the justices were judges on lower courts before they were appointed. When Roe v. Wade was decided, none of the justices had been judges before their appointments. There is some indication that Barack Obama would like to go back to appointing people from outside the judiciary for the Supreme Court.
Deval Patrick has been an assistant attorney general under Bill Clinton and is now the governor of Massachusetts. He is also known to be a good friend of Barack Obama. He even came from the rough neighborhoods of Chicago that Obama was a community organizer in. They also share an ideology of judicial review that takes human suffering into account when applying the law. I call it “bleeding heart jurisprudence.”
Deval Laurdine Patrick was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 31, 1956, so he is 52. His family resided in the Robert Taylor Holmes Housing project on the south side at the time. Fortunately, he was recognized early as a gifted student and was recommended to “A Better Chance” program for talented African American Students. This enabled him to attend the Milton Academy in Massachusetts.
Patrick graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in 1978. After serving for the United Nations in Africa for about a year, he returned to Harvard to attend Law School. He married Diane Patrick née Bemus in 1984. They have two daughters.
After law school, Patrick clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, after which he worked for the NAACP legal defense in New York City. He also became famous for representing Desiree Washington in the Mike Tyson rape case.
He was appointed Attorney General for Civil Rights under the Clinton Administration. He has been very successful in private practice, working for the Boston firm Day, Berry & Howard. He has even served has executive vice-president and general counsel to the Coca-Cola Company. His latest success is being elected as governor of Massachusetts.
For a critical look at his ideology, see this article at the National Review.


