News Round-Up
More news articles about yesterday’s grants:
Charles Lane of the Washington Post discusses the union fees grants here.
Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times also discusses those cases here.
Tony Mauro weighs in on the WEA cases here at the First Amendment Center.
David Savage of the LA Times highlights the grant in the deportation case, Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, here.
Dahlia Lithwick offered her thoughts on the important cases of the coming Term on NPR’s “Day to Day.” The discussion can be heard here.
The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by Justice O’Connor called “The Threat to Judicial Independence” that can be read here. Andrew Cohen responds to that op-ed here at his Bench Conference blog.
While it is wholly unacceptable for any judge to be subjected to fear for doing his job, it is important that judges be subject to criticism, even withering criticism. Judges are government officials, and it is well within the bounds of a free society to criticize them. It is wholly inappropriate for Justice O’Connor to link criticism of judges and even legal disputes about
“precedent” to violence. Judge Parker may be wrong about what precedent means in American jurisprudence, but since the Supreme Court has shown that Constitutional law is malleable and in some cases comes with a 25 year shelf life, Parker cannot be blamed for thinking that maybe the rules about precedent are as well. Additionally, as the Supreme Court has engaged in the raw exercise of power, e.g., Hamdan, a little comeuppance from state courts may not be a bad thing.
As for Justice O’Connor’s criticism of the South Dakota proposals, certainly many a lawyer can tell stories of imperious judges acting solely on whim and caprice. Immunity tends to foster that. And, given Breyer’s recent report about the federal court system not keeping its house clean with respect to judicial misconduct, perhaps personal liability, even jail time, should be a remedy in egregious cases. Manuel Real, in my opinion, belongs behind bars for his actions.
The courts have grown in power over the last fifty years. With that power has come increased criticism. In a free society, that is to be expected and celebrated.
Comment by federalist — September 27, 2006 @ 7:20 pm
certainly many a lawyer can tell stories of imperious judges acting solely on whim and caprice. Immunity tends to foster that.
Losing a case tends to foster those kinds of stories even more.
As for the assessment of Justice O’Connor’s op-ed, she takes the notion of “judicial supremacy” a bit further than her colleagues, in my opinion. Being the deciding vote for 24 years on a court that occasionally acts as a super-legislature tends to do that.
Jail for Judge Real sounds like a little much, though.
Comment by Subzero91 — September 28, 2006 @ 10:17 am
Justice O’Connor needs to come down from her throne and mingle among the peasants that she used to rule. There is fire under the smoke of movements such as JAIL4Judges.
Why should judges not be held accountable for their actions. They are given great power. Along with that should go accountability. If the good Justice and her fellows are not willing to be accountable then we need judges with more courage. A soldier, police officer or fireman may die not making any mistakes but simply doing their duty and the good Justice doesn’t think that judges should be held accountable. She has made a grevious error. She sat on the US Supreme court not at the right hand of GOD. Judges with intelligence, integrity and courage don’t need immunity to be independent.
Comment by Art — September 28, 2006 @ 2:06 pm
http://birmingham.bizjournals.com/birmingham/stories/2006/09/25/daily15.html
Tom Parker responds.
Hat tip: Bashman
Comment by Subzero91 — September 28, 2006 @ 6:17 pm