MORON
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.
Well, we'd do better to handle things by statute rather than have nine unelected people "find" things when they are needed. The ultimate outcome would probably be no different but the process would be intellectually honest and would have avoided the politicization of the courts.
In Causeway Medical Suite v. Ieyoub, expressed dismay that the Supreme Court's broad readings of the word "liberty" in the Constitution "have slowly eroded the scope of public debate." Garza argued that if the court had stayed out of several arenas—for example, marriage, child rearing, school curricula, abortion—state laws might have changed "as public attitudes changed." Instead, "the people's Constitution—at least as to unenumerated constitutional rights—has become the Court's Constitution."
SCOTUS has too much power, they shouldnt be deciding these issues it is up to congress.
OK. You're a good person, it's your sentence structure that is faulty. Read again what you wrote:
"I have no duty to the State or God to obey an unjust law."
I take it you mean you don't have a duty to God to obey an unjust law of man.
God probably wouldn't give a hoot if I lit a cigarette in an NYC bar.
"We must correct this oversight," Kennedy added.
True. I know I sure don't.
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