Miles's blog

There is an opening on the Colorado Supreme Court. I need to get my application together. What? You think I am not qualified? How dare you.

First, I have judicial experience. True, it was only as a part-time judge in municipal court, and I got fired from that, but that is more judicial experience than a lot of Supreme Court justices had before taking the bench. I think presiding over several speeding and a couple of dog at large jury trials well-prepares me for the kind of decisions the Supreme Court has to make. Admittedly, I was never required to make a lot of legal rulings, but serving as a municipal judge put me in touch with the people. I realize my demeanor being in touch with those people is what got me fired, but hey, Joe Torre was fired three times before he became manager of the Yankees. We all learn from our mistakes.

Plus, I have appellate experience. I wrote about 60 briefs for the Attorney General’s Office. Yes, only one was in the Supreme Court. And in that case, while they first accepted certiorari and agreed to hear the case, following oral argument they changed their mind and dismissed it as “improvidently granted.” Which was my second experience in front of the Supreme Court. The first time I persuaded them to hear my Rule 21 appeal of a district court ruling from Georgetown, but after all the briefs were filed they dismissed that one, too, as “improvidently granted.” Not such a good track record at the highest level, but, still, I do have some appellate experience. Some Supreme Court justices had none prior to their appointment.

Also, I have extensive professional experience at many levels of courts; in both urban and rural areas; and in many aspects of criminal law. So, while some might call my career “checkered,” I like to think of it as varied and diverse.

You might be thinking there must be better candidates. For example, my friend Bob Russel who made the final three for the last opening a year ago. Sure, on the face of it, Bob appears to be the superior applicant. He has served on the Court of Appeals for the past eight years, following stints as the supervising prosecutor in the appellate sections of both the United States Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office. Excellent preparation for the Supreme Court, but not nearly as good as working night traffic court. Bob is perhaps the most intelligent person I know, but really, how important is intelligence for an appellate judge, I mean compared to a varied and diverse career? Bob is also widely-respected and universally-liked. But the Supreme Court is no popularity contest. Someone with an edge, like me, might be able to shake those other justices up.

Tomorrow I am going to get to work on my application. It will look a little light since in the past five years I have only tried a single case and handled no appeals. However, I did advisements about 500 times. How many other applicants can make that claim? I need to get five people to write letters of recommendation. That might be a problem. But I have written a lot of letters for other people. They owe me. Hopefully they will forget about the other stuff.

# posted by Miles Madorin : 6:04 PM