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Jerry Edwin Smith
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Jerry Edwin Smith
Jerry Edwin Smith (born November 7, 1946) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit since December 1987.
Smith was born on November 7, 1946, in Del Rio, Texas. After high school, he graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969 and earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1972. At Yale, he was a member of the Calliopean Society.[citation needed]
Smith clerked for Judge Halbert O. Woodward of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas from 1972 to 1973. After his clerkship, he joined the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski (now Norton Rose Fulbright), where he became a partner in 1981.
Smith was Director of the Harris County Housing Authority in Texas from 1978 to 1980. He was a special assistant attorney general of Texas from 1981 to 1982. He was Chairman of the Houston Civil Service Commission from 1982 to 1984. He was the City Attorney for the City of Houston from 1984 to 1987.
Smith was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by President Ronald Reagan on June 2, 1987, to a new seat created by 98 Stat. 333. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 19, 1987, and received his judicial commission on December 21, 1987.
In Corrosion Proof Fittings v. EPA, Smith wrote a panel opinion that required the United States Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether to ban a toxic substance.
Smith was one of three judges on a panel that heard the appeal to Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar,[citation needed] a case challenging the U.S. Department of the Interior's six-month moratorium on exploratory drilling in deep water that was adopted in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the subsequent oil spill. The lower court had struck down the United States Department of the Interior's moratorium as arbitrary and capricious government action, and the Fifth Circuit panel denied the government's emergency request to stay the lower court's decision pending appeal.
In April 2012, during oral argument in a Fifth Circuit case involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Smith ordered the United States Department of Justice to provide his panel of three judges with a three-page, single-spaced report explaining President Barack Obama's views on judicial review. Smith's order was prompted by Obama's recent press conference remarks on the then-pending case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius before the Supreme Court in which the Court was considering, among other things, whether to strike down the entire ACA as unconstitutional. Obama had stated that if the Supreme Court overturned the ACA, it would be "an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," and that a law that was passed by Congress on an economic issue had not been overturned by the court "going back to the '30s, pre New Deal." These remarks were criticized by many as historically and legally inaccurate. Though Judge Smith's response and order were criticized by some legal scholars and members of the press, George W. Bush administration U.S. Attorney General and former judge Michael Mukasey defended Smith, stating that Obama's remarks had called judicial review "into question", so that "the court has, it seems to me, every obligation to sit up and take notice of Mr. Obama." U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Justice Department would respond "appropriately" to Smith's request and filed a short response, conceding that the federal courts have the power to strike down laws passed by Congress but citing Supreme Court precedent for the proposition that those laws are presumed constitutional and should only be overturned "sparingly".
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Jerry Edwin Smith
Jerry Edwin Smith (born November 7, 1946) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit since December 1987.
Smith was born on November 7, 1946, in Del Rio, Texas. After high school, he graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969 and earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1972. At Yale, he was a member of the Calliopean Society.[citation needed]
Smith clerked for Judge Halbert O. Woodward of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas from 1972 to 1973. After his clerkship, he joined the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski (now Norton Rose Fulbright), where he became a partner in 1981.
Smith was Director of the Harris County Housing Authority in Texas from 1978 to 1980. He was a special assistant attorney general of Texas from 1981 to 1982. He was Chairman of the Houston Civil Service Commission from 1982 to 1984. He was the City Attorney for the City of Houston from 1984 to 1987.
Smith was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by President Ronald Reagan on June 2, 1987, to a new seat created by 98 Stat. 333. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 19, 1987, and received his judicial commission on December 21, 1987.
In Corrosion Proof Fittings v. EPA, Smith wrote a panel opinion that required the United States Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether to ban a toxic substance.
Smith was one of three judges on a panel that heard the appeal to Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar,[citation needed] a case challenging the U.S. Department of the Interior's six-month moratorium on exploratory drilling in deep water that was adopted in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the subsequent oil spill. The lower court had struck down the United States Department of the Interior's moratorium as arbitrary and capricious government action, and the Fifth Circuit panel denied the government's emergency request to stay the lower court's decision pending appeal.
In April 2012, during oral argument in a Fifth Circuit case involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Smith ordered the United States Department of Justice to provide his panel of three judges with a three-page, single-spaced report explaining President Barack Obama's views on judicial review. Smith's order was prompted by Obama's recent press conference remarks on the then-pending case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius before the Supreme Court in which the Court was considering, among other things, whether to strike down the entire ACA as unconstitutional. Obama had stated that if the Supreme Court overturned the ACA, it would be "an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," and that a law that was passed by Congress on an economic issue had not been overturned by the court "going back to the '30s, pre New Deal." These remarks were criticized by many as historically and legally inaccurate. Though Judge Smith's response and order were criticized by some legal scholars and members of the press, George W. Bush administration U.S. Attorney General and former judge Michael Mukasey defended Smith, stating that Obama's remarks had called judicial review "into question", so that "the court has, it seems to me, every obligation to sit up and take notice of Mr. Obama." U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Justice Department would respond "appropriately" to Smith's request and filed a short response, conceding that the federal courts have the power to strike down laws passed by Congress but citing Supreme Court precedent for the proposition that those laws are presumed constitutional and should only be overturned "sparingly".
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