Posted on 06/24/2005 1:13:50 PM PDT by Crackingham
Lawyers should speak up and explain the judicial process when judges come under attack, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy told members of the Florida Bar on Friday.
"When judges are attacked unfairly, it's proper for the bar over the course of time, in a professional and elegant way, to explain to the public the meaning of the rule of the law," Kennedy told several hundred lawyers attending the Florida Bar's annual meeting.
In the past year, the judiciary has come under attack from U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who openly criticized the federal courts when they refused to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Delay pointed to Kennedy as an example of Republican members of the Supreme Court who were activist and isolated. Other conservative critics have accused the courts of housing "activist judges," and in Chicago, the husband and mother of a federal judge were found murdered in her home. There's nothing wrong with criticizing cases, Kennedy said.
"We want a debate on what the law does and what it means," he added. "Judges aren't immune from criticism and neither are their decisions."
What is worrisome is when the criticism isn't just focused on a decision but at the judiciary, and increasingly, individual judges, he said. Lawyers can act as an intermediary between the decisions made by judges and the larger society by explaining, he added.
"When the judiciary is under attack, the bar disengaged, the public indifferent and critics scornful, then this idea of judicial independence might be under a real threat," Kennedy said.
Some critics believe that the idea of judicial independence gives judges the ability to rule however they want to, but the opposite is true, Kennedy said.
"Judicial independence is so that a judge can do what he has to do or what she must do," Kennedy said.
My optimistic view in search of a silver lining:
President Bush ran on and touts the "Ownership Society" and points out often that minority ownership has increased even more rapidly than the average. Now the gang of 5 has rendered ownership meaningless.
Also, as you pointed out above, even the less sharp knives in the drawer seem to understand that this travesty will effect THEM badly.
If Tom Delay and others can marshal public opinion based on THIS evil ruling, it just might find traction. Even the commies understand that any puny little local level bureaucrat can sell them out for a crappy little bribe from what they, the commies, already regard as evil "business interests".
With the right ads, this can be sold and impeachments can happen. But it will take fast action (while people are still hot about this decision), good ads, and brave people. I know Delay is brave and maybe he can find more brave people to help when sentiment is 96% with them...
The media beat the ANG drum fairly continually, but the BS Kitty Kelly book was ready for release right about the time that Danny boy was going to come out with "documented proof" that W got favored treatment and didn't meet his responsibilities in the ANG. The climax so to speak. Totally coordinated.
I know I'm forgetting other important bits and I think this goes back even further to Senator Rockefeller's memo--I call it the Treason Memo--wherein they plan to comb all the classified info they had access to in order to glean bits they could use against W.
My whole point here is to show that these things are planned way ahead, choreographed for maximum impact and building effect. It is done with purpose aforethought. We know the purpose of the DNC/MSM propaganda/campaign--to defeat W.
I'm saying we need to see this court crap in the same way. I don't know how far back it started but at least as far back as Gavin Newsome in SF declaring same sex marriage as legal when he had no legal right to make that determination, preceded a short while by the MA Supreme Court basically telling the legislature they had to make same sex marriage legal because they, the gods on MA SC, had already decided that it was but they wanted a legislation, certainly the findings that referred to the goodness of having our legal thinking accommodating foreign countries' attitudes and rules...
I'm a lot shakier on the overturning of sodomy laws, but I vaguely remember that some court (was it USSC based on the attitudes of other countries...?) declared them unconstitutional without a specific case to base it on. I could be very wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure that it involved a major court making a ruling it had no right to make in that specific situation.
I'm NOT trying to debate same sex marriage or sodomy laws here. The point here is illegal judicial activism--in these cases in the face of public opinion to the contrary.
I believe this is a coordinated campaign as well and, if so, what is the purpose? It could be the obvious--making decisions that little by little destroy the Constitution and reinforce the power of the black robed tyrants until they have effectively brought off a bloodless coup d' etat.
OTOH I doubt it's going to remain bloodless based on what I read in thread after thread from back during the election and now with these filthy rulings.
It's hard not to wonder if somebody important behind the scenes somewhere has decided that it's a fine idea to push us until we rebel and have Civil War II. Certainly the provocations have been intense for over 5 years. They may not be unprecedented. After all we did have CWI, but I don't ever remember so much inciting to violent reaction even when the political issues were volatile and divisive in my life.
We've got the guns. How stupid they would be to start CWII. Unless they have foreign entanglements they could count on.
Thanks to Buckhead and friends the Fifth Column's plans for the election were thwarted and the Republic, though damaged, remains. I think we better figure out the master plan on this one and stop it too and pretty damn quick!
Californian's..back when they had cahones......got rid of that commie Rose Bird.
Is 2/3rds of Congress honest, principled, loyal to the Constitution and dedicated to the welfare of the people? I trust them less than the Supreme Court.
The problem with the Supreme Court is it's the Supreme Court. Once they rule specifically on something that's the final word. Their rulings can only be overturned by the Supreme Court. State or federal laws won't work at protecting property rights from local officials or developers now. Laws which are on the books are only good until a corrupt local board and developer challenge any limitation by going ahead and doing what the Supreme Court said they could do in Kelo vs. New London.
Corrupt local boards will just go ahead and take property under the 'public good' presumption. If they're taken to court the case just has to be appealed to the federal. Once in federal court any state or federal law limiting a government-sponsored property seizure will be stuck down via Kelo vs. New London. Two dissenters in that case even specified that Emminent Domain would be used for corporate and politically-connected enrichment at others' expense. I.e., the court has already signed-off to eggregious corruption associated with the ruling.
Of course he doesn't. That's not what I wrote or implied. You read something that was not there.
"Is 2/3rds of Congress honest, principled, loyal to the Constitution and dedicated to the welfare of the people?"
No. But they are elected and in some degree responsible for their actions. If we wanted nine Kings, the Founding Fathers would have created them.
Face it. The system isn't working. The Supreme Court was supposed to look at the Constitution and look at a proposed law and determine if that law was in conflict with the Constitution.
This collection of clowns does nothing of the sort. They use the Constitution as a general guideline and then make up everything else as they go along. And this pattern isn't new - but its escalalting.
To answer your question - I don't trust anyopne in power. But I trust someone who is answerable to no one and appointed for life least - especialy when they have the kind of power-grabbing track record the intemperate Supreme Court does.
"The problem with the Supreme Court is it's the Supreme Court. Once they rule specifically on something that's the final word."
The problem with that premise is we then no longer have three co-equal branches of government. We have two subordinate branches of government and one superior branch which is not what the founding fathers intended.
And this is all fine and good with many of our Congressmen. It takes them off the hook to have a judicially active court system. They can evade making hard decisions on major issues of policy and leave it to the untouchables on the SCOTUS. In that manner they secure their sinecures to what was never intended to be a permanent job by aggrevating no one.
Suppose all nine justices becamne senile. Then what? Can they be removed? No. They can't be touched for making assinine decisions like this recent one, only for commiting a crime and unfortunately being stupid or demented isn't a crime.
In a sense privacy has been included but to imagine that sexual privacy, so to speak, was included does not historically hold up as all or at least most (probably all) of the founding fathers were from states that had legal prohibitions on adultery and sodomy. Now I'm not saying such laws were a good thing but they give you an idea of what the founding fathers meant about the document they authored.
Human Rights First (WTC Memorial) has been working directly with the ACLU with lawsuits (ex: prison abuse and Rumsfeld).
Calls to defend the Judicial branch must be a type of fillibuster to keep the Bush Admin. busy.
FYI
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy told members of the Florida Bar
An attorney in a robe.
I thought it was:
A judge was a lawyer who wasn't very good at it.
Actually adultery is still illegal in some states. I believe in FL it is a misdemeanor. But the idea of outlawing contraception...the goverment budding into the marriage bed, is so fundamentally repugnant that I can't imagine it's a right that contemporary interpreatations of the Constitution wouldn't include into the basket of rights previously mentioned.
What, more swat teams? More Judge Greer goon squads making home visits?
All part of the plan.
"Because judges can be unfairly attacked. The problem is then that a judge is ethically prohibited in many ways from contemporaneously defending himself...."
ON THE OTHER HAND ... judges and justices make decisions that have long term effects on peoples lives ... when they make a bad decision, the aggrieved party has no choice but to appeal at enormous cost not only in money, but time, resources, energy .. years as often as not. SOme cannot afford the appeal. In the case of SCOTUS, there is no recourse, such as in this week's decision affecting homeowners in New London .. what recourse do those people have because 5 justices decided the economic value to the town would be enhanced by TAKING their homes? They are not gods; they are not infallable. Their improper decisions destroy lives. I think those justices SHOULD be condemned, and condemned LOUDLY.
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