The WSJ's John Fund has uncovered what I can only characterize as systematic fraud in the 6th Circuit Court leading up to yesterday's "racial bias is ok" ruling.

The article is too long to quote, and besides, it's freely viewable by anyone who bothers to click the link:
[url]http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110001709[/url]
It's not every day a federal appeals judge publicly scolds his own court. Judge Danny Boggs, a 16-year veteran of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, used a blistering dissent to lay out a shocking case of judicial manipulation that this week may have resulted in an artificial 5-4 decision upholding the University of Michigan's race-based admissions policy for its law school.


Judge Boggs questioned the constitutional reasoning of his five colleagues, which is usual enough. But his opinion also included a "procedural appendix" that laid out how the court's chief judge had ignored the court's "long-established rules" in replacing the three-judge panel originally set to hear the case.

[...]

Cases before federal appeals courts normally go first to a randomly selected three-judge panel;  the full, or en banc, court will sometimes hear an appeal of the panel's ruling.  Judge Boggs laid out a disturbing series of decisions that bypassed the usual procedure.  First, last April, Chief Judge Boyce Martin, a Carter appointee, dispensed with the usual random selection and assigned himself to the three-judge panel that would hear the case.  Judge Martin knew--but didn't inform his colleagues--that the university's lawyers had filed a motion to have the case heard by the full court, which then had 11 members. During the ensuing five months, while the other eight judges were in the dark, two Republican-appointed judges retired, leaving the court, which has 16 seats, with only nine members.  Meanwhile in the U.S. Senate, Democrats began the legislative equivalent of a sit-down strike by refusing to hold hearings on most of President Bush's circuit-court nominees.

[red]. . . and much more at the link. . . .[/red]

An interesting article. Thanks Achmed.

Always glad to be of service. [:D]

[url]www.OpinionJournal.com[/url] has lots of good commentary.  I don't always agree with it, but it is usually worth reading.

The exception seems to be their one "provide some leftist balance" columnist, Albert Hunt, who cannot seem to get over the concept that Bush won and is doing a halfway decent job (sorta like 90% of the rest of the media).