Judge supremacist Posner retires

Chicago news:

Richard A. Posner, one of the best known appellate judges in the nation, is retiring from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Saturday. ...

Posner also supported the legalization of marijuana and wrote opinions in favor of abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

While one of the most — if not the most — frequently cited federal appellate judges in the United States, Posner had no interest in serving on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s not a real court,” Posner said in a 2014 interview with the Daily Law Bulletin. “It’s a political court.”

Posner used to known as a conservative, but he actually a judicial supremacist.

Here is Posner's legal philosophy:

My approach in judging a case is therefore not to worry initially about doctrine, precedent, and the other conventional materials of legal analysis, but instead to try to figure out the sensible solution to the problem or problems presented by the case. Once having found what I think is the sensible solution I ask whether it’s blocked by an authoritative precedent of the Supreme Court or by some other ukase that judges must obey. If it’s not blocked (usually it’s not—usually it can be got around by hook or by crook), I say fine—let’s go with the commonsense solution. ...

The time to look up precedents, statutory text, legislative history, and the other conventional materials of judicial decision making is after one has a sense of what the best decision should be for today’s society.

In others, he does not believe in rule of written law, but in imposing his personal and political beliefs whenever he can.