Obama nomination of a 39-year-old law professor from the University of California, Berkeley to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ignotes brouhaha. The Los Angeles Times reports that if Liu is confirmed, he would be the only full-time Asian American judge serving on a federal appellate court. Another Asian-American, Denny Chin, has been nominated to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court in New York, but has not been confirmed.

The nomination has touched off angst since Liu testified against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. at his confirmation hearings, criticizing his record on capital punishment. Liu is also chairman of a group that opposes "the activist conservative legal movement." The 9th circuit covers some 90 million Americans making it the largest juisdiction in hte nation. It also has more Democrat nominated justices than any other appeals court.

Baptist minister Jerry Falwell caused a controversy mislabeling the 9th circuit the “most overturned” appeals court. In fact in 2004-05 term, the Supreme Court reversed 84 percent of the cases it chose to hear from appeals of 9th Circuit decisions, compared to a 73 percent average reversal rate for all circuit courts of appeals.* But the high court reversed 100 percent of the decisions it heard from the 1st, 2nd, and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals.*

So, Obama’s nomination is almost certain to touch off a verbal fist fight at confirmation hearings.

Liu, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, was born in Georgia and grew up in Sacramento, California. A Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, he graduated from Yale Law School and in 2000 was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who most see as one of the most liberal on the U. S. Supreme Court..