[Bluegrass Conservative]

Is it the opinion of many here that activist judges are ok if the outcome is what you want?

Seems to be. Not my opinion though.

[Borges]

Apart from Terri being saved one of the great things about a Judicial reversal in this case would have been seeing the DUmmies cry about Judicial Activism.

[Williams]

If it was al about me I'd ask why do some of my vanities that include a news report go right to "blogs"? But it's an unfair world. The issue of whether the judges acted properly under the law is an important one. Because conservative and liberal judges alike mostly made the same decisions, supports the idea this is legally sound.

But. I once told a then more experienced attorney that an appellate court wouldn't be able to reach a certain decision if they applied the law correctly. He snapped "They do what they want!" And he was right, they did.

Something is out of whack. The judges here had other plausible avenues to take, but their judicial mindset caused them not to meddle in this case. Examples where they do the opposite are legion, but death penalty cases are propably the simplest to analogize.

The courts are certainly within the law when they cause a heinous killer's appeals to last 20 or 30 years, there are lots of states that haven't executed anyone in decades although they have death cases. But they could just as easily have an attitude that quickly dismisses most of those appeals and moves the process along as society wants. They don't. But in this case, they could have allowed Terri to live but found it legally problematic to do so. In my mind the analogy proves the courts are spending our time, money and mental energy in the wrong places.

It's just like the environmental situation. Courts think nothing of tying whole industries up for decades over a spotted owl, but they are nervous about a Terri Schiavo case.