Another excellent argument against lifetime appointments ~ as Steve Benen says: "This one's a doozy." ~ ~ emphasis/bolding below is mine, and there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Judge takes aim at Obama’s immigration policy
12/17/14 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen

The headlines yesterday afternoon, at first blush, were entirely unexpected. A federal judge in Pennsylvania had apparently declared President Obama’s new immigration policy unconstitutional, which didn’t seem to make any sense given that no one had brought a challenge the White House policy to this district court.

So what actually happened? This one’s a doozy.


U.S. District Court Judge Arthur Schwab, appointed to the bench by George W. Bush, was responsible for sentencing in the Juarez-Escobar case, but Schwab decided the Obama administration’s recent executive actions might apply to the defendant, so the judge took it upon himself to go after the president’s policy at the same time.

The 38-page memo from Schwab, available in its entirety here (pdf), is a mess. More importantly, it doesn’t seem to have any legal weight – as msnbc’s Amanda Sakuma reported, the opinion “will not likely have any direct impact or serve to invalidate the policy.” The White House policy remains fully intact; Schwab’s angry missive was effectively little more than a press release.

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, a law professor at Pennsylvania State University and expert in prosecutorial discretion in immigration law, told msnbc, “It strikes me as odd for a single judge to devote so many pages of a memo to his feelings about the president’s executive action when the case itself is about an individual immigrant who faces illegal re-entry charges. There’s a little bit of political theater, and maybe the judge had a bad day.”

What makes this story especially interesting, though, is appreciating just how many bad days Judge Schwab has had.

The Huffington Post noted, for example, that the far-right judge “has a highly unusual history of being removed from cases due to temperament and charges of bias.”


Wait, it gets worse. Sahil Kapur added, “In a 2008 survey of lawyers with the Allegheny County Bar Association, Schwab received the lowest ranking among federal judges, according to a June 2008 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. On a scale of 1 to 5, Schwab ‘received the lowest scores both for impartiality, with an average score of 2.82, and temperament, with an average of 2.21,’ the paper reported.”

And then, there was the cherry on top: Fox News’ Sean Hannity told his audience about the ruling, “I gotta tell you something, it almost could’ve been written by me.”

What a perfect summary of the ruling on the merits.

The next step would ordinarily be an appeal, but in this matter, it’s not even clear if Judge Schwab’s tirade is appealable – he wasn’t presented with a case challenging the president’s policy and his outrage doesn’t appear to actually do anything to the policy.

In other words, you may receive an email from your crazy uncle who watches Fox News all day saying, “See? I told you Obama’s moves on immigration would be struck down by the courts!” You can then safely reply, “That’s not what happened here.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/judge-takes-aim-obamas-immigration-policy#break

It seems like a stretch, but I'm curious if this aberrant behavior [bias, etc] only became prominent AFTER his life-time appointment ~ ~ Sooz

Judge Who Axed Obama Immigration Actions Is No Stranger To Controversy
By Sahil Kapur Published December 16, 2014, 6:10 PM EST

The federal judge who ruled Tuesday that President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration are unconstitutional has a controversial past which includes slaps on the wrist from the circuit court that oversees his court.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab of Pennsylvania, who was appointed by George W. Bush in 2002, drew a fierce rebuke from the Justice Department, which called it "unfounded" and "flatly wrong."

Here are some controversies he has been involved in.

1. Judge Schwab has been pulled from several cases by a higher court

Judge Schwab has twice been removed from cases by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, a rare occurrence for a judge. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one instance came in 2008, when he was criticized for his handling of a case involving Cyril H. Wecht, in which a coroner faced accusations of misusing office resources. Another came in 2012, when he was pulled from a case involving a dispute between health care companies West Penn Allegheny Health System and UPMC. The blog FindLaw reported that Schwab was removed for bias.

One law professor, John M. Burkoff, told the Post-Gazette that it was "a slap in the face" for a judge to be pulled from a case.

2. In 2011, Schwab recused himself from 17 ongoing cases amid accusations of bias

The legal blog From The Sidebar reported in November 2011: "In a recent criminal case in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, a federal judge [Schwab] denied the public defender’s request to withdraw over a conflict of interest from a prior representation and instead ordered the public defender to obtain separate counsel who could independently manage any claimed conflict. When later accused of bias against the defender’s office, the judge voluntarily recused himself from 17 ongoing criminal cases."

3. Schwab once adopted a defendant's opinion as his court order, 'with only two substantive changes'

In 2004, the Third Circuit reversed one of Schwab rulings in the case of Bright v. Westmoreland County. The reason it gave was extraordinary.

"The Court of Appeals, Nygaard, Circuit Judge, held that reversal and remand was required where district court, with only two substantive changes, adopted defendants’ proposed opinion and order as its own," the circuit order read.

4. Schwab once received the lowest rating among judges from county lawyers

In a 2008 survey of lawyers with the Allegheny County Bar Association, Schwab received the lowest ranking among federal judges, according to a June 2008 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. On a scale of 1 to 5, Schwab "received the lowest scores both for impartiality, with an average score of 2.82, and temperament, with an average of 2.21," the paper reported.

5. Schwab's ruling on Obama's immigration actions came out of nowhere

The Tuesday ruling became the latest controversy for Schwab, whose decision quickly faced criticism from the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The criminal case before him was about an undocumented immigrant who was prosecuted for illegally re-entering the country after he was removed. AILA pointed out that neither side had asked the court to weigh in on Obama's executive actions; Schwab did so on his own without holding a hearing on the president's actions, the group said.

"It’s shocking that a federal judge would use an unrelated criminal case to take it upon himself to declare the lawful, discretionary decisions of a sitting President unconstitutional," AILA's president, David Leopold, said in a statement.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/judge-arthur-schwab-controversies

A patently illegal ruling. There's a candidate for impeachment, IMO.