Obama's choice for #2 spot at Justice worries conservatives

Jim Brown and Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 2/4/2009 8:45:00 AM

Updated 11:30 a.m. Central

A conservative legal scholar is raising red flags about President Obama's pick for deputy attorney general -- namely his reliance on foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution. The nominee has also been characterized as a 'porn lawyer' and a 'hired gun' for the ACLU.

Heritage Foundation fellow Steven Groves is urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask Deputy Attorney General-nominee David W. Ogden some pointed questions on Thursday regarding his views on constitutional interpretation.
 
In the 2005 case Roper v. Simmons, Ogden succeeded in convincing a narrowly divided Supreme Court to declare the juvenile death penalty unconstitutional and spare the life of his client, who killed a woman in cold-blood nine months before he turned 18.
 
Groves says Ogden argued that the high court should look to laws, legal opinions, and decisions of foreign countries and international organizations regarding the death penalty. He notes that in particular, Ogden cited the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) -- a 1989 treaty that bars the execution of people who commit crimes while under the age of 18.
 
Ogden, says Groves, pointed out that the United States is one of only two countries in the world that has not signed onto that treaty.
 
"[He argued] that doesn't mean that the U.S. doesn't have to follow the treaty, [but that] it means the opposite -- that the United States must follow the treaty that it has specifically decided not to join," says Groves. "Why? Because [Ogden argued] the rest of the world has joined it -- and so therefore it's some new customary, international norm and the United States must outlaw the juvenile death penalty."
 
Social conservatives are also expressing concern about an amicus brief Ogden filed in the Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which he claimed that "abortion rarely causes or exacerbates psychological or emotional problems." In addition, other conservatives are uneasy with Ogden's past legal representation of Playboy, Penthouse magazine, the ACLU, and the largest distributor of hard-core pornographic movies.

A 'porn lawyer'
It's that pro-porn stance that concerns Alliance Defense Fund special counsel Pat Trueman. As Trueman notes, criminal prosecutions is one of the areas Ogden would be responsible for.
 
"The reason David Ogden is going to be trouble is that he is a pornography lawyer [who was] prominently involved in the Playboy cases representing Playboy, Penthouse, other cases," says Trueman. "[And] he has fought against keeping public libraries free of pornography to protect children."
 
In other words, he says, Ogden opposed using Internet filters. The pro-family group Fidelis picks up that argument.
 
"[Ogden] has opposed filters on library computers protecting children from Internet smut, and successfully defended the right of pornographers to produce material with underage children," charges Fidelis president Brian Burch.
 
"Ogden's record is nothing short of obscene," Burch continues in a press release. "[He] is a hired gun from Playboy and the ACLU. He can't run from his long record of opposing common-sense laws protecting families, women, and children."

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According to Trueman, Ogden also is strongly pro-homosexual and pro-abortion. "I think that you have a man here who is going to be trouble from day one to the end of his term -- but there's still time to defeat him," he counsels.

Trueman encourages people to contact both of their U.S. senators, urging them to oppose Ogden's nomination. Those hearings are scheduled to begin tomorrow (February 5).

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