This from the Legal Times:
Perhaps the person on the short list who confounds conservatives and liberals alike is Judge Edith Brown Clement of the 5th Circuit, who has been on the bench since 2001. To her benefit and detriment, she makes both conservatives and liberals uneasy because she has not written many notable opinions, especially in hot-button areas like abortion and religious freedom.
Two of the most noteworthy opinions written by Clement are in the area of criminal rights and law enforcement. In Traver v. City of Edna, she wrote for a unanimous panel that allowed the plaintiff to sue police officers for violating his due process rights when they slammed his head against a car door during his arrest. In Hearn v. Dretke, a habeas case that involved a death row inmate who claimed mental retardation, she found that he was entitled to a lawyer to help with the claim — a conclusion, she noted in the opinion, she was forced to reach because of a Supreme Court ruling in 2002 that found executions of the mentally ill were unconstitutional.
I have to say it would be hard for the Dems to mount a campaign against this woman from what I’ve read so far. The religious right may, however, get a little nervous.
The Dish 