US: Gorsuch tops Donald Trump’s Supreme Court list

As President Donald Trump whittles down his shortlist for a Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, who serves on the federal appeals court’s 10th circuit in Denver, has emerged as one of the likely names to be selected reports the Washington Post.

Trump tweeted on Wednesday that he’ll announce his pick next Thursday, and later told Fox News’ Sean Hannitythat he’s mostly finished deciding.

“I have made my decision pretty much in my mind, yes. That’s subject to change at the last moment, but I think this will be a great choice,” Trump said.

Media reports have indicated that Trump has narrowed his list to three candidates: Gorsuch, William Pryor, and Thomas Michael Hardiman.

Trump said during his campaign that he would seek to “appoint judges very much in the mold of Justice Scalia” — a characteristic which Gorsuch embodies in particular.

In a speech to Case Western Reserve University’s law school shortly after Scalia’s death, Gorsuch praised the justice for his unyielding textualism — interpreting a law according to its plain text, rather than considering the intent of the lawmakers or the consequences of its implementation.

Gorsuch said Scalia’s greatest achievement was perhaps his emphasis on the differences between legislators, who he said use the law according to their own morals and ambitions for society’s future, and judges, who “should do none of these things in a democratic society.”

“Judges should instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be,” Gorsuch said during the speech.

Full Content: Washington Post

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