Key Judge Disavows His Ruling On Voter ID

"Richard A. Posner, one of the most distinguished judges in the land and a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, [said] he was mistaken in one of the most contentious issues in American politics and jurisprudence: laws that require people to show identification before they can vote... One of the landmark cases in which such requirements were affirmed, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, was decided at the Seventh Circuit in an opinion written by Judge Posner in 2007 and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2008. In a new book, "Reflections on Judging," Judge Posner, a prolific author who also teaches at the University of Chicago Law School, said, "I plead guilty to having written the majority opinion" in the case. He noted that the Indiana law in the Crawford case is "a type of law now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention."" John Schwartz in The New York Times