Michael Newdow

Law.com has a profile of Michael Newdow, the plaintiff/lawyer in the upcoming Pledge of Allegiance case before the Supreme Court:

[I]n the case of Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, No. 02-1624, Newdow's tangled tale remains front and center. In part, that is because his ongoing custody dispute is key to whether Newdow has standing to challenge the Pledge -- an issue the Court has asked the parties to brief and argue. The Court could easily avoid the Pledge issue altogether by viewing the custody matter as too unsettled to grant Newdow standing.

But Newdow has also kept himself at the forefront by insisting, against the advice of many of his natural allies, that he should be the one to stand before the justices and present the case. His motion to argue the case himself is pending before the Court, and his quirky demeanor could lead the justices to appoint someone else to argue for him. In some of his filings, for example, atheist Newdow refers to himself as "Rev. Dr. Michael Newdow" of the oddly named "First Amendmist Church of True Science."

Newdow's solitary persistence has paid off so far. He argued and won before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. At the Supreme Court, Newdow has already picked off one likely opponent -- Justice Antonin Scalia -- by taking the risky step of asking Scalia to recuse. Scalia, who had criticized the Pledge challenge in a speech in January, took himself out of the case. Newdow has a far better chance of winning before an eight-member Court.

He sounds like a very interesting man, if troubled at the very least. I do think it's nice to see the story behind the case, something which often doesn't come across very well. Not many people know that Ernesto Miranda was conviced again even after the Supreme Court threw out his conviction (and that he was murdered ten years later). Or that the couple in Lawrence v. Texas was interracial (only important if you think, as I do, that it might have played a role in them being prosecuted). One of the best books along these lines is Anthony Lewis' Gideon's Trumpet, which I had the pleasure to browse as I did research for my seminar paper. I recommend it, and urge court-watchers to consciously seek the stories behind these cases. Sometimes they are just as instructive as the legal arguments.