A citizen lawyer gets permanent applause in the Supreme Court
after The argument of the routine Supreme Court On Wednesday, the senior judge John J. Roberts Junior is a lawyer who represented the government to return to the lecture.
The senior judge told the lawyer, Edwin S. Kennedler, who retires as a public prosecutor: “I just presented your 160th argument before this court, and I understand that you are supposed to be the last.” “This is the record for modern times.”
The President of the Supreme Court, Roberts, spoke a little more than that, with affection and high praise, and thanked Mr. Kneedler for his “exceptional care and professional efficiency.”
Then something great happened. The applause exploded in the courtroom, and this led to a permanent applause for Mr. Kneedler, with judges also joining.
“It was a rare moment of consensus and automatic joy from all nine judges on the bench,” said Richard Lazaros, a law professor at Harvard University. “They were all cheerful.”
It is one of the most electrical moments that I saw in the courtroom. “
Greetings to the frankness of Mr. Kneedler and integrity came against the background of a different kind of behavior of the courtroom. In the first months of the second Trump administration, its lawyers were accused of games, betrayal of trust and challenge, and they were expelled to provide explicit answers to the judges.
Former colleagues said Mr. Kneedler presented a different model.
“Ed is an embodiment of the ideal government lawyer – who was the duty to be frank in court and pay attention to justice, and not just winning the case, to always carry today,” said Gregory Jar, who served as a public lawyer during the era of President George W. Bush.
Mr. Shanamogham said that the loyalty of Mr. Kneedler was for the rule of law. “It was preferable that the law be in the risk of loss,” from winning at the expense of distorting the law. “
Seth B. said. And Axman, who was a lawyer in the Clinton administration, Mr. Kneedler was the opposite of a party.
Mr. and Aksman said: “In all the years in which I worked with Ed in the Ministry of Justice, I did not know his policy.”
Mr. Kneedler joined the Office of the Public Prosecutor, the elite unit of the Ministry of Justice, which represents the federal government in the Supreme Court, in 1979, served in many departments and helped teach public lawyers who came and went.
“I was so fortunate because I was a deputy when I was SG,” Judge Elena Kagan, who held the position of public attorney at the Obama administration, said in a statement. “There is no legal question that he cannot answer. He has a deep understanding of the traditions and spirit of the SG office.”
She added: “I learned from him every day, and I did my job better because he was there. At all the time I spent in the government, I never knew a more accurate public employee.”
This was the same as the consensus point of consensus between the former general lawyers. Mr. Waksman, for example, Mr. Kneedler described as a “patriotic treasure”.
Noel c. Francisco, Attorney General at the first Trump administration, Mr. Kennedler “is not just a line of knowledge, but wisdom.”
Elizabeth B. Brailogar, the Payden Administration, is that “Ed Kanadler is the best that he means to be a lawyer for the United States.”
Mr. Kneedler’s retirement is part of a wave of departure from the attorney general office, which is very small. After the public lawyer and a handful of deputies, there are only 16 lawyers. About half of them leave, Washington Post mentioned This month.
Mr. Kneedler, 79, did not respond to the interview requests. When it is Award This month from the Faculty of Law at the University of Virginia, his mother mother, he said that he is “a professional civil employee, and not in the press if I can avoid him.”
At the ceremony, Mr. Kneedler made extended statements, which indicates that in another era, it may seem unnoticed. These days, they are upon provocative.
He described himself as a “citizen lawyer”, and praised many federal employees with whom they worked, saying that he admired “their sympathy and understanding of our country and their dedication in our country.”
He said that his office analyzed the legal cases related to solidarity and care, at least in the cases received in the regular potential schedule of the court. Since Mr. Trump took office in January, the government has submitted a torrent of emergency requests for what critics call the shadow of the court.
“When we do not face emergency situations like we have a number of now, we have a very organized process to make decisions,” said Mr. Kneedler.
Leslie Kindrik, Dean of the Faculty of Law in Virginia, asked Mr. Kneedler about some questions, one of which is based on “his office’s commitment to providing non -party representation to the United States, regardless of the issue, regardless of the political leadership of the other two branches.”
Mr. Kneedler did not completely adopt the hypothesis. He said: “We are lawyers of the United States, and the administration in his position is the final determinant of what the interests of the United States.”
But he ended his remarks to note Amal. He said: “We are all part of the process that leads us to a more perfect union, and this means a union in which we gather, and not separate.”
Before the permanent applause in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the chief of judges, Roberts, who himself from the old lawyer in the attorney general office, added what he called a personal observation while speaking to Mr. Kneedler.
“I remember that on two occasions you and I have argued on the same side here, and I am representing a private agent while you are in the United States,” said the chief judge. “We have lost each of these cases. I’m sure it was my fault. Mr. Kneedler, thank you for your distinguished service to the court and the country.”