Posted on 04/22/2005 6:17:01 AM PDT by JBW
Other then the fact that made no sense -- he doesn't represent me. I like my Congressman just fine who has the common sense to know when to makes waves and when to shut up! DeLay went over the edge when he critized a Justice of using the Internet. Showed how little he knew. Sometimes it is better to keep one's mouth shut.
Have you been to Find Law? If not, recommend you visit and type in something like Separation of Church and State which we all know is NOT in the Constitution. You will get all kinds of backup, etc.
Case Law that is backed by written law is what Find Law is all about.
It is not a tabloid, it is a site to find case law. Check it out and you will find out it is an excellent site for finding case law.
Maybe some of you along with DeLay need to go read some of the legal sites like Find Law and will see how great it is to track down previous cases and find out the ruling -- saves time along with Nexus searches.
You all don't get it do you? Sometimes it is better to say nothing! DeLay may be your poster boy, but he is certainly not mine. I will take someone who knows when to shut up instead of one who inserts foot in mouth without facts which is what he did.
If you want to criticize a justice in his capacity, he is free to do it and I am free to say he should shut-up and quit making himself out to be all powerful and a know-it-all. BTW, he does not Represent me -- Cong Tom Cole does. If he did, I would be on the phone telling him to knock it off. He is not doing anything but giving red meat to some of you on here that obviously suck in every word he says.
I can think for myself thank you!
YES! When the 9th Circuit got out of control, what did the Senate do -- zero, zip, nothing and it got worse!
Impeachment is itself a guarantor of the balance of powers. The only reason impeachment is even being considered is because the judiciary has already upset the balance of powers with its unconstitutional power grabs and usurpations.
I would be happy with a court that would say more often (or at least once), "there is no law or Constitutional amendment specific enough for us to rule on this issue; therefore we will leave the resolution of this issue to the people acting through the elective representatives."
Krauth is a little off here. First, I think Cornyn was right in that the lack of respect for the imperious and arbitrary judiciary is part of the violence in courtrooms.
The problem with Judge Greer is not that he misapplied law but that he made incredibly bizarre decisions that favored M.Schiavo/Felos to an absurd degree. Consider: Greer declared MS's testimony "credible" despite basic common sense. Greer permitted MS to spend TS's settlement money on lawyers to kill her. Greer agreed to various abuses of TS -- forbidding basic treatment of infections, forbidding visitors, etc.
None of this was required by law, and Greer's connections to the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast should have lead to a recusal.
In addition, Charles misses the point of Bush v. Gore. Just because the Democrats bitch about something doesn't mean they have a point. SCOTUS may have saved the day . . . but only because of the corrupt blatant partisanship of SCOFLA. The judiciary may have solved one problem, but only because the judiciary caused it in the first place!
But Krauth recognizes the problem:
It is politically crazy. Democracies work as stable social entities because when people are allowed to settle issues themselves by debate and ballot, they are infinitely more likely to accept the results when they lose. To deny them that participation is to risk instability and threaten social peace.
He distinguishes current court decisions from previous court successes and why we need to address this problem and didn't have to with respect to cases like Brown:
The race cases were cases of a disenfranchised citizenry. The representative branches of government were legitimately superseded because they were not representative.
He says what the answer shouldn't be:
But the answer is not to assault the separation of powers. Certainly not to empower Congress to regulate judicial decision-making by retroactively removing lifetime appointees.
And then he makes the stupidest possible statement:
The non-deranged way to correct the problem is to appoint a new generation of judges committed to judicial modesty.
Uh huh.
So, Chuck, we just have to get the good people in there.
Well, there ya go.
Why don't we do that? Call up the President, Charles Krauthammer has solved the whole freakin' problem. QED. What's next? Cancer? Terrorism? Bring it on.
He just doesn't see that it's not about just having good people. I mean, any problem can be solved this way. Assuming we could manage to get rid of Harry Reid, we still would not have solved the problem. What's the problem is that judicial activism is the norm. It's part of the culture. It's everywhere. It takes an extraordinary jurist to resist this powerful temptation.
The system is broken. Even if you could manage to get a few rational appelate court judges appointed on the federal level, this is a cancer that reaches down to the lowest, scummiest, most corrupt probate judge in the most rural backwater of, say, Florida.
I think yours is a fair criticism of the column.
Thank you for such an insightful comment. (And thank you also for the FR welcome. I've read the boards for years but never registered to post until this past week).
CK's conclusion is, ultimately, just get good judges. And that really isn't much of a conclusion, as you point out.
So what is the conclusion?
On the civil side of litigation, I make two arguments in my book, Out of Balance, for (a) shifting attorneys' fees through a modified 'offer of judgment rule' and (b) limiting punitive damages through statutory ratios based on compensatory damages, following the rule in the Supreme Court's State Farm decision. (You can get more detail from http://www.jonathanbwilson.com/reformbook.html).
On the Constitutional side (which is arguably where more long-term damage is done to our system of government through activist judges) I don't see an easy solution. The damage has been wrought by several decades of activist liberal judges. (For an excellent analysis of this, consider Janice Rogers Brown's speech to the Federalist Society in April 2000 - you can find the link on my website here: http://www.jonathanbwilson.com/2005.04.01_arch.html#1114184005648).
How do you undo decades of bad decisions? By decades of better decisions, I suppose. And that will take decades of conservative presidents appointing dozens and dozens of new, better federal judges.
It may not be an overnight solution but it is probably the only Constitutional solution.
What do you think?
(By the way, AmishDude, are you a lawyer? Are you Amish? You write awfully well for a chat board poster).
Well, if I had a book to plug, I'd pick this time to be on the board, too! (But thanks for your website.)
The civil problem is relatively easy to fix. Capping lawyers fees (for example, that a lawyer can receive no more than the median award in a class action lawsuit) or capping awards or even eliminating punitive damages altogether.
The Federal judiciary is going to be a problem, because this activism is a cancer. It penetrates the legal class from the law schools up. You have to assume that every judge will become activist eventually. One way is to have fixed terms of judges (excepting the Supreme Court) of 10 or 15 years. This would keep independence but restrict the damage that they can do. They are either promoted or they must leave. The disadvantage is that former judges may be looking for jobs and this makes the judiciary a less than desirable profession.
Others have noted that Congress can restrict the jurisdiction of lower courts. I think they should start, just to set the precedent.
This is a big problem and it has no easy solution, but whatever solution is found will not solve the problem entirely.
You are kind. I am a (non-Amish) mathematician.
Guess we'll disagree then. I've had no problems with what Rep. Delay has said about out-of-control judges.
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