As a Supreme Court clerk, Ted Cruz was 'obsessed' with the death penalty

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published 20 January 2016

Sen. Ted Cruz had a reputation for being "obsessed" with the death penalty when he was serving as a clerk of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 1996, according to colleagues who spoke with The New York Times.

"That I think was a special interest of his," former clerk Renée Lerner told the Times. Lerner also remarked on how Cruz paid special attention to the more grisly details of murders in his memos, rather than summarizing them and moving on to the legal merits of the case as other clerks tended to do. "It was unusual for a Supreme Court clerk to do that," Lerner said.

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Clerks for liberal justices expressed the strongest distaste for Mr. Cruz's death penalty memos, and sometimes made their antipathy known. Several clerks for conservative justices said that while they usually agreed with his conclusions, his writing needlessly provoked the death penalty opponents working at the court. Those clerks declined to be quoted criticizing Mr. Cruz, however, saying they did not want to anger someone who could become the next president. [The New York Times]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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