Judging Supreme Court nominees

[Orser67]

Experience for me is mostly a yes/no proposition. Either they have the experience (preferably they have served on an appellate court, though being an appellate lawyer works too) or they don't.

Assuming they have adequate experience, I think the most important thing is that they have an open mind and are willing to rule in a case based on precedent and law rather than ideology; in other words, they follow the process to a result rather than starting with an ideologically-favorable result and finding a way to justify it. I would definitely oppose Clarence Thomas, but I think the other justices are in more of a gray area in this regard. I think that all of the justices have probably been guilty of voting based on ideology at some point.