Patzke+Interview

__**Interview with Richard Posner**__
 * As a model for interviewing judges about delicate issues, I should look more into Nina Totenberg’s questions of Supreme Court Judges.
 * Unfortunately these are not in a coherent order….

1. You began your career in the law clerking for the Supreme Court (Justice Brennan), working at the Solictor General’s office and then taught for 13 years at Standford and then the University of Chicago before being nominated as a federal judge. How do those experiences influence your current position/viewpoint/perspective?

2. According to the Journal of Legal Studies, you are the most cited legal scholar of the past century. How do you view your legacy in the court system?

3. You’ve taken a variety of stances on controversial topics such as abortion, patent law, police surveillance. Most judges are advised to “remain neutral” in their public lives, but you have been called an “activist” and a “radical” for your stances on LSD, adoption, and “the rule of law.” Why is it important to you, as a judge?
 * Seems kinda vague.

4. President Reagan nominated you to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago in 1981. Have you seen the US courts (and particularly the role of appellate judges) change in the past 30+ years? How has it changed? What has remained the same?

5. You were appointed to the Seventh Circuit in 1981, and the following year, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was established. Many of your writings, both in legal journals and blog posts fall into the domain of the Fed. Circuit Court (antitrust, patent, breach of contract, etc). If given the choice, which court would you prefer to be on? (maybe even the Supreme Court?) What are the advantages and disadvantages), given your perspective (and agenda….)?
 * I have since been told that he expected to be on the Supreme Court, but the conditions were never right. – Positioned as less appealing than Clarence Thomas – apparently is a delicate topic to address with Posner.

6. In June of this past summer (2013), you dismissed with prejudice Apple’s case against Motorola concerning 4 patents. Your judicial reason cited both parties inability to “establish relief.” –neither part was proposing an appropriate redress --, In your opinion dismissing the case you states “ No more can Apple be permitted to force a trial in federal court the sole outcome of which would be an award of $1.” You have written that the patent system in the US is ‘dysfunction’ and even ‘slummed’ it in the Court of the Northern District of Illinois to dismiss this case. Did this case exemplify the flaws of the system? How so? How to you envision a new patenting system? (Pros and Cons…)

7. You’ve been silent on the issue of patenting gene sequences. Given the Supreme Courts ruling on the case (cause this interview is in the FUTURE), what is your take on their decision? Does it reflect a ‘dysfunctional’ system? Justice Breyer, in multiple opinions including the LabCorp dissent, also advocated for changes in patent regulation. How do your views line up (or not) with his?

8. Something about how being in the middle court gives him more freedom.... to negate all the Supreme Court Questions