CCL President Robert S. Peck told WUSA9, the Washington, DC CBS affiliate, that the Constitution imposes no qualifications on a nominee for the Supreme Court.
As he explained, there is no requirement that a nominee be a lawyer, although all Supreme Court nominees had legal backgrounds. When Gerald Ford was president, there was a brief discussion that he might consider a constitutional historian, however, Ford nominated Justice John Paul Stevens.
While theoretically, a nominee might need the same qualifications imposed by statute of any appointee to federal service, the Constitution puts its trust that a president would not name and the Senate would not confirm someone without certain generally agreed-upon qualifications.
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