Judgeship

While reading the article on U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt (Times, Aug. 17), I wondered what would be the reaction of The Times, Sen. Alan Cranston, prominent law school deans, and liberals in general if President Reagan nominated to the 9th Circuit Court a man:

--With no prior judicial experience.

--Who had been a member of the Republican National Committee.

--Whose prior legal experience had principally been to advise large corporations on labor law.

--Who had been a campaign adviser to candidates on the most rightward edge of the Republican Party and who had reportedly engineered the kind of last-minute smear of a moderate candidate as that attributed to Reinhardt in the Burt Pines-Yvonne Burke campaign.

--Who had been a close political adviser to a Republican officeholder currently seeking higher office and whose wife held an appointive position in that officeholder’s administration from which she reportedly functions as one of his top political strategists.

Did those who now accuse President Reagan of politicizing the federal judiciary and packing the courts with persons possessing only ideological and political credentials oppose President Carter’s nomination of Stephen Reinhardt?

ALAN M. STANLEY

Santa Ana