Former Top Judge Says US Risks Edging Near To Dictatorship

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 3-13-2006 | Julian Borger

[blam]

Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship

· Sandra Day O'Connor warns of rightwing attacks
· Lawyers 'must speak up' to protect judiciary

Julian Borger in Washington
Monday March 13, 2006
The Guardian (UK)

Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeated denunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said, be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.

Ms O'Connor, nominated by Ronald Reagan as the first woman supreme court justice, declared: "We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary."

She pointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communist countries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary might lead. "It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

In her address to an audience of corporate lawyers on Thursday, Ms O'Connor singled out a warning to the judiciary issued last year by Tom DeLay, the former Republican leader in the House of Representatives, over a court ruling in a controversial "right to die" case.

After the decision last March that ordered a brain-dead woman in Florida, Terri Schiavo, removed from life support, Mr DeLay said: "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behaviour."

[msnimje]

Huh? Try reading the article

Huh yourself, I did read the article.

[Da Bilge Troll]

Sandy spent the last 24 years pissing on the Constitution, negating the power of Congress and the States and now she wants to warn us about unbridled power in the Executive Branch?

Yup. 24 years of trying to create a dictatorship of the judiciary down the drain. Her bitter tears over a wasted life are sweet to me.

If you believe a SC Justice should have a consistent judicial philosophy, believe in the Constitution as written, believe that democracy is a good thing (as opposed to Rule By Court) and trust the people to make up their own minds without a political elite telling them what to do, then the only possible opinion of Ms. O'Connor is that she is a drooling idiot.

[kimosabe31]

Sandy spent the last 24 years pissing on the Constitution, negating the power of Congress and the States and now she wants to warn us about unbridled power in the Executive Branch?

O'Conner's idea of judicial independence is judicial unaccountability...a dictatorship of the judicial. Incredible how warped some of these people are. This old bag should be placed in a corner somewhere muttering to herself and not on a judicial bench.