While a Supreme Court with Donald Trump nominees on it would be unlikely to overturn Roe v. Wade, it would strengthen Second Amendment rights, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz tells
Newsmax TV.
"You're always buying a pig in a poke when it comes to whether or not the justice will see his or her role as overruling decisions like Roe v. Wade," Dershowitz said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
Conservative judges, like the
11 Trump named Wednesday as possible nominees if he is elected in November, oppose the decision that legalized abortion nationwide, but Dershowitz added, such justices also have a high respect for previous high court rulings — even when they disagree with them.
"I don't think we'll see an overruling of Roe v. Wade, but I do think we'll see a solidification of the Second Amendment," Dershowitz said. "I think what we'll see a big difference is an accommodation between the free exercise of religion and the establishment clause, but there will be much more emphasis on free exercise, much more rights to religious organizations."
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The judges will be harder to predict on free speech, but conservative on criminal justice matters, he said.
No one on the list surprised him, Dershowitz added, saying it is much the same list as any Republican president would have had. Still, he said, many of the judges are people Trump himself probably wouldn't have come up with on his own.
All are solid conservatives, he said, who would have no problem being confirmed by a Republican Senate, but wouldn't have such an easy time with a Senate controlled by Democrats.
Though the list does contain some state supreme court justices in addition to the normal federal judges who are nominated, Dershowitz said he would like to see some practicing attorneys named.
"There are some very, very good conservative lawyers practicing around the country who would lend some diversity to the court by their practical experience," he said. "This is a very kind of academic group. They're not Trump's kind of people. They're not the kind of people Trump would be comfortable with, and that surprises me a little bit. It's a very defensive list. It's a list that says, 'See, I'm a conservative. I'm being cautious.'"
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