How to research judges?

Maybe this doesn't belong here, though it is a question of a political nature. If not, I guess it'll be moved to it's rightful home.

I'm trying to research the judges on the Court of Appeals of Virginia. I want to find their bios, political affiliations, etc. I've googled it six ways to Sunday and can't find what I'm looking for.

Are there any super-surfers out there who can tell me a better way to search these things? Many times I try to find lists of political votes or politically influenced rulings and come up with zilch.

Any suggestions? Maybe I need to use something besides Google?

I appreciate any help I can get.

Here's the link the Court of Appeals for Virginia. Link

As far as researching individual judges - most judges don't have their personal bios available. You have to examine their individual cases to determine their political leanings. However, if they are up for promotion by an elected official, you can bet a special interest group has that information on their site. For example, Right to Life groups, ACLU, NOW, etc.

Thanks, Bleys... I did get as far as that link which at least gave me their names. I was hoping it would tell their academics and such, but no dice. Hadn't thought of the ACLU and those guys, but that's a good angle. I'll give them a shot!

I think this is a form of Boolean, but it's what I use when I search - here's an example:

"judge" AND "virginia" AND "bio"

It only looks websites that would have those three words - you can user other seperators like NOT and OR. The only problem I've found is that sometimes the results will show up with a lot of "..."s in the field below the website's name, which means it's extracing from multiple sites within the domain - if someone could tell you how to prevent those mistakes then I would think you could search and find a lot of good info on your first attempt. It works pretty well tho the way I do it, you just have to sort thru the crap

[edit on 7/23/2004 by EnronOutrunHomerun]

Enron, I tried those, too. Advanced search, etc. Nuffin.

I wish there was a list of judges' names and the schools they went to and whether they're republican or democrat. That would be a dream, though, and I don't think it's gonna be that easy.

Is there maybe a better search than Google? I just automatically use it all the time out of habit.

Torque: Sounds like you are not the only one interested in this.

�We are assembling a team of second- and third-year law students whose work, initially at least, will consist of counting judges� votes,� Sunstein explained. The project team, which also includes collaborator David Schkade from the University of Texas, will examine how Republican appointees and Democratic appointees have voted on cases involving critical legal and public policy issues, such as abortion, affirmative action, labor unions, campaign finance, sex discrimination, environmental regulations, property rights, school desegregation and crime. Subsequent work will explore the causes and implications of their findings for the composition of the judiciary, the confirmation process and the theory of legal reasoning.

Judges

The article is only several months old. It would be interesting to see what they come up with.

That's pretty good... I imagine they'll get some interesting stats. I think it should be put up for easy checking.... rulings, opinions, schooling, etc. I mean, these people hold a LOT of power over the citizens of this country. I'm not half as worried about who is in the Whitehouse as I am about who is on the bench.