Governor Snyder will name her successor on Wednesday, and MIRS News is reporting that U-M professor Joan Larson is the leading candidate.
Advertisement
Earlier in her career, she was a law clerk for Antonin Scalia, a conservative justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Through elections and appointments, GOP nominees have a 5-2 majority.
Larsen was in the USA attorney general’s office, advising the White House, at the time Bush received controversial legal advice about enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding that many consider torture.
“I am absolutely valued and humbled to effectively serve”, Larsen explained captioners at present.
Larsen says she had nothing to do with those decisions. She called both “great role models”. However, given Professor Larsen’s tenure in the OLC, which authorized torture, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention and other abuses, this appointment should be accompanied by full disclosure about the role Larsen played in the development of those policies.
“She told me tremendous things”, Larsen said of McCormack. She is a member of the State Bar of Michigan and the Bar Association of the District of Columbia.
Larsen’s research and teaching interests include constitutional law, global law, the judicial system and separation of powers.
Advertisement
Larsen is the third justice with no experience as a judge. Snyder himself graduated from the same law school. I’m confident she will be an excellent addition and will serve our highest court well. “I find about these items among the news pages, as if did”, she let it be known.
