For several months, Judge Barry has been the Third Circuit judge in the national media spotlight in connection with the Trump presidential campaign. But that all changed yesterday when Trump included Hardiman on his list of 11 potential Supreme Court nominees.
My post yesterday collected conservative praise of Trump’s list and the couple early stories featuring Hardiman. UPDATE: Here’s another, from David Lat on Abovethelaw.
Since then more Hardiman coverage has emerged. A Wall Street Journal analysis of the 11 said this about Hardiman:
Judge Thomas Hardiman, 50, joined the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2007, after serving as a district court judge in Pennsylvania for four years. Both appointments came from George W. Bush. A graduate of University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University Law Center, he worked in private practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and other law firms before becoming a judge. The Trump campaign says he’s the first in his family to attend college. In a decision he authored, which was later affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the appeals court held that a jail’s policy of strip-searching all detainees, even those with minor alleged offenses, wasn’t a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
A Washington Post analysis of the 11 by Amber Phillips included this:
Hardiman is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit and also a George W. Bush appointee. He’s a Georgetown Law School graduate and has written two majority opinions that were reviewed by the Supreme Court: one supporting the strengthening of mandatory minimum sentences for criminals, and the others supporting a Pennsylvania jail’s policy of strip-searching the people it arrests, arguing that it does not violate a person’s Fourth Amendment right of unreasonable searches and seizures.
Arch-liberal Mark Joseph Stern of Slate had this:
Then there’s Thomas Hardiman. Another Bush appointee, Hardiman is a law and order guy. He wrote an opinion affirming the constitutionality of a jail’s policy to strip search every single arrestee—even those brought in for minor traffic offenses. (Regrettably, the high court narrowly upheld his decision.) In a different case, Hardiman wrote that there is no clearly established First Amendment right to videotape law enforcement officers in public—an extremely dubious if not outright incorrect proposition. Hardiman reads the Second Amendment quite broadly, arguing that states cannot restrict residents’ ability to carry handguns in public. And while he interprets the First Amendment broadly in the realm of campaign contributions, he takes a very narrow view of students’ free speech rights. Sound familiar?
Ron Brynaert of Dailycaller had this critical look at one of the same cases mentioned by Stern, Hardiman’s opinion in a 2010 case affirming summary judgment in favor of a police officer and ruling that there was no clearly established right to videotape officers during a traffic stop. (Neither article mentions the important fact that Hardiman’s opinion was joined in full by McKee and Pollak by designation.)
UPDATE: another liberal take, by Ian Millhiser on Thinkprogress, is here. He calls Hardiman “one of the more enigmatic names on Trump’s list” and says “he appears to have had more luck steering away from controversial cases,” resulting in “a thinner ideological profile than some of the other names on Trump’s list.”
Finally, Paul Gough had this brief profile of Hardiman in the Pittsburgh Business Times.
UPDATE: here’s a thoroughly reported critical profile of Hardiman by Rich Lord in Pittsburgh CityPaper from way back in 2003, when Hardiman’s WDPA nomination was pending.
And Laura Olson has this profile of Hardiman in the Allentown Morning Call, citing the 2003 profile and noting his bipartisan political ties.