Luttig Leaves 4th Circuit Court for Greener Pastures at Boeing

Fred Barbash for WaPo reports that extremely conservative Judge J. Michael Luttig Resigns From Appeals Court. Luttig had been on Bush's short list of possible Supreme Court nominees. Luttig, who sits on the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, wrote the most important appellate decision yet in support of the Bush administration's powers to detain individuals without recourse to ordinary legal protections. But he had a significant falling-out with the Justice Department late last year when he protested, in a follow-up opinion, what he suggested was the administration's inappropriate manipulation of the legal system in order to avoid a further Supreme Court test of the president's wartime authority. --- update Mark Kleiman has a noteworthy reaction to Luttig's career move, and voices a general concern about "the growing gap between the salaries of top public officials and the compensation available in the private sector."