Linda Greenhouse says it's Ruth Bader Ginsburg. According to Ms. JD's report on Greenhouse's comments at New York Law School on March 3, 2011, Greenhouse said Ginsburg is “very clear, very precise, and does not waste a word; she is a cut above the rest.” No examples are provided, but here's a possibility, from Ginsburg's opening in United States v. Hayes, selected for a 2009 Green Bag Exemplary Writing Award:
The federal Gun Control Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. § 921 et seq., has long prohibited possession of a firearm by any person convicted of a felony. In 1996, Congress extended the prohibition to include persons convicted of "a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence." § 922(g)(9). The definition of "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence," contained in § 921(a)(33)(A), is at issue in this case. Does that term cover a misdemeanor battery whenever the battered victim was in fact the offender's spouse (or other relation specified in § 921(a)(33)(A))? Or, to trigger the possession ban, must the predicate misdemeanor identify as an element of the crime a domestic relationship between aggressor and victim? We hold that the domestic relationship, although it must be established beyond a reasonable doubt in a § 922(g)(9) firearms possession prosecution, need not be a defining element of the predicate offense.
