Here's to breaking the mold!
Question:
Now that Justice Alito has "filled the seat" of Ex-Justice O'Connor how does the poor lady sit?
Posted on 03/19/2006 3:03:06 AM PST by flattorney
Edited on 03/19/2006 3:46:48 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
I hope everyone at Free Republic will remember that when other ranking Republican DC leaders would not step-up and help in trying to stop the execution of this poor women, it was Tom DeLay that stood up for Terri knowing full well that he was going to take a substantial amount of political, MSM, and public heat because of his actions.
There are a number of very strong parallels between Terri's legal case in Florida and Mr. DeLay's criminal indictments in Texas, primarily in the area of odd peculiarities in both States laws and Constitution that are being utilized by the Soros Shadow Party who was/is behind both cases. Quite simply, it is no accident these two legal cases happened in Florida and Texas. - TAB
Posted by TAB
3rd Article - Op-Ed
Forget Judicial Independence, It’s Time For Judicial Accountability
North Country Gazette
Editorial
March 17, 2006
Judges across America are becoming increasingly nervous, claiming that their judicial independence is being threatened.
The real problem is that they’re afraid of judicial accountability and the ever increasing demands by the public that the judiciary be held accountable for their actions, to cease their judicial activism and their wrongful rulings which are unjustly destroying people’s lives.
People across America, our Republic, are slapping back at the judicial tyranny which has become rampant in the courts across our nation, from the town and village courts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Last week, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg attacked congressional critics like Tom Delay and labeled the court’s critics an “irrational fringe”. It’s the judges in this country who have become tyrannical and irrational, despots in black robes, enamored with themselves.
Members of the judiciary nationwide claimed that they were intimidated by DeLay last Spring when he issued a statement following the death of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, saying that “the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior”. DeLay said that he wanted to examine what he called the “failure” of state and federal courts to protect the disabled woman who died 13 days after the court-ordered withdrawal of her feeding tube by a lowly probate court judge in Pinellas County.
Judges quickly cried foul and said that their judicial independence was being undermined. DeLay later apologized for saying that the federal judiciary was “responsible” for Schiavo’s death but he asked the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the judges who refused too issue an order to reinsert the woman’s feeding tube while the courts conducted a de novo, or new review of the Schiavo case as the Congress and President mandated. He said that Congress should "look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president”.
DeLay says that Congress retains oversight of the federal courts and should use it to hold judges accountable. But judges from Maine to California cry that the separation of powers doctrine gives them independence and that they shouldn’t be held accountable by anyone, Congress, the President and certainly not the public.
DeLay had said “I have asked the Judiciary Committee to look at the Schiavo case and the actions of the judiciary. The legislative branch has certain responsibilities and obligations give to us by the Constitution. We set the jurisdiction of the courts. We set up the courts. We can unset the courts. We have the power of the purse. We have oversight of how we spend their money. All of these are oversight tools”.
Perhaps what the judges bristled at even more was DeLay’s statement that the Judiciary Committee would decide to recommend impeachment for any of the judges of the involved in the Schiavo case. The impeachment of George W. Greer has been long warranted and is overdue.
The battle lines between DeLay and members of the U.S. Supreme Court were drawn when DeLay encouraged members of the press to read “Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America”, a book which alleges that the nine justices are engaging in an activist agenda that oversteps the bounds of the Constitution.
DeLay and his supporters in the Republican-controlled Congress quickly became targets for attack by justices and judges nationwide and a year later, the attacks continue and seem to be intensifying.
Ginsburg continued her attack on Congressional GOP critics last week and Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla) responded that “no one in Congress wants to compromise the safety of any public official”.
Feeney said that some of Ginsburg’s fellow justices on the high court disagree with her and noted that “there are some justices that get awful thin skins when they get their black robes on, and when they talk about judicial independence, they sometimes mean no one should be able to criticize them”.
A prime example of that is retired visiting judge Richard Markus in Ohio who got his dander up and levied 34 charges of contempt against Elsebeth Baumgartner because she unabashedly told him he was corrupt and criticized his rulings. He abused his power in an attempt to get even with a critic, a very knowledgeable critic.
Judges are not exempt from criticism in this country and no judge has the power or right to violate an individual’s constitutional rights, especially First Amendment rights. Criticizing a judge is not a criminal act. It’s a free and robust exchange of opinion that our forefathers guaranteed us in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. No one is above the law, not even a judge.
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in a recent speech at Georgetown University, criticized the efforts of lawmakers last year to save the life of Terri Schiavo, and complained about harsh criticism of the courts. She even suggested the legal efforts constituted the beginnings of dictatorship.
In response, Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life and one who was at Terri Schiavo’s bedside in her final hours and moments, declared, “Justice O’Connor has it backwards. Dictatorships begin with the idea that government can deprive people of their fundamental rights. That’s what happened to Terri, who was neither terminally ill, nor comatose, nor on life support.” Fr. Pavone added, “When Supreme Court Justices get such fundamental points wrong, we’ve got a problem, and they deserve all the criticism we can muster.”
We absolutely agree with Fr. Pavone. Judges are not immune from criticism. And the growing grassroots attack in an effort to eliminate judicial immunity and to hold all judges accountable clearly has members of judiciary worried----and rightly so. It’s time to rein in the judicial tyranny which has existed all too long in this country.
Although she didn’t name DeLay, it was obvious O’Connor’s comments were directed towards him when she said that repeated denunciations of the courts by Republican leaders could be contributing to a climate of violence against judges. Ginsburg later said that she and O’Connor had received death threats. George Greer claims that he received death threats because he ordered the death of an innocent disabled woman.
“We must be ever vigilant against those who would strong arm the judiciary”, O’Connor says. More and more members of the public feel that it’s time to be vigilant against members of the judiciary who are strong-arming the public, who make up the law as they go along, thumb their noses at the Constitution and established case law and then claim that they have followed the rule of law.
In her recent address at Georgetown University Law Center, O’Connor told the lawyers present that threats to judicial independence “pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedom. I want you to tune your ears to these attacks…..you have an obligation to speak up”.
The public has an obligation and duty to speak up too----and to hold the judiciary accountable, just as accountable if not more so than the executive and legislative branches of our government. There is no separation of powers when it comes to governmental accountability. The judiciary must cease their intimidation of the public. For some unknown reason members of the judiciary seem to think that a black robe and gavel allows them to play God and that’s just not so.
In a recent address before the Broward County Bar Association in Fort Lauderdale, it was obvious that Schiavo death judge George Greer is afraid of being held accountable for his actions and is afraid that the shield of judicial immunity which all judges hide behind may soon become stripped from them, which would make them wholly accountable for their actions, force them to uphold the Constitution and case law precedents, the rule of law and to cease the judicial activism.
Way too long judges have hidden behind the cloak of judicial immunity. In watching George Greer speak, it was clear that his biggest fear is being held accountable and the loss of judicial immunity.
A year later, he’s still trying to justify killing an innocent disabled woman and apparently thinks if he says often enough that his actions were correct, then it will become so. What George Greer did to Terri Schindler-Schiavo will never be right. It was contrary to the rule of the law, it was contrary to the Constitution. It was contrary to the Bible and it was contrary to human rights law.
“Judicial independence stands for fair and impartial judiciary”, the introducing lawyer said to an audience who seemed more intent on eating their lunch than listening to what Greer had to say. “What it means is that a judge is free to do his or her job, free from biases, prejudices and other pressures. Judge Greer at a great personal cost stood the ground and called it the way he saw it in the Schiavo caseover a number of years”.
Yes, he did, George Greer consistently thumbed his nose at the law, the Constitution, and he did so at Terri Schiavo’s expense---at the greatest personal cost a person can give---her life. George Greer cost Terri Schiavo her life and deprived her parents of their daughter.
The announcer said that George Greer embodies what judicial independence is all about. In our view he personifies why judicial independence must be tempered and why judges like George Greer must be reined in.
Democracy requires independent courts---but not tyrannical courts---where decisions are based solely on facts and law---not personal feelings or wishes or by influence from other sources and campaign contributions.
Greer talked about impartial jurists making decisions “without fear or favor and where judges are free to exercise their constitutional duty to make unpopular decisions without concern or retribution whether it be personal or professional”.
The public has the right to expect fair and impartial judges and to expect that whenever there is the least appearance of impropriety, that that judge will step aside. The bias and prejudice of George Greer in the Schiavo case was more than blatant and commanded that he should have removed himself from the case shortly after it was assigned to him and certainly after he discussed it outside the courtroom with his good buddy Everett Rice at a baseball game no less.
Greer said that “Thomas Paine once observed America knows no monarchy for in America, ‘the law is king’. If ever there was a judicial dictator, his name is George Greer. America patriots stood up to King George once, they’ll do it again. How interesting that Greer referred to Thomas Paine. Common Sense traced the origin of government to a human desire to restrain lawlessness.
Judicial tyranny must end. It is time to rein in the judges.
Greer clearly is afraid of the increasing effort to eliminate judicial immunity---and rightfully so. Eliminate judicial immunity and then and only then will the courts become truly accountable.
“There have been numerous attacks on judicial independence over time”, Greer said. “The latest of these attacks on the branch is called Jail4Judges. Its pending in the state of South Dakota where there will be a referendum on the ballot in November this year…..What this would do is to establish a grand jury separate and apart from the legal system. To determine at the conclusion of a case, whether or not a judge acted appropriately, whether he or she followed the law, whether he or she assessed the evidence as the grand jury thinks it should be assessed and so forth. This grand jury would have the power to strip judges of judicial immunity and permit complaining litigants to sue. It would also have the power to indict and create a criminal prosecution of a judge. According to that organization’s website it has groups working in each of the other 49 states. Without commenting on whether or not that measure would pass constitutional muster it is a bit chilling”.
Too bad an initiative limiting judicial immunity wasn’t in place in Florida in March, 2005 so that a grand jury of the public could have assessed George Greer’s performance in the Schiavo case and acting appropriately, removing all nutrition and hydration from George Greer----including the big water goblet that he clutched throughout while speaking to the Broward County Bar Association. How symbolic.
George Greer personifies the reason why judicial immunity must be eradicated. He is an insult to the fair and impartial jurists who do exist, who aren’t capitalizing upon their notoriety because of a ruling in the case and championing the death cult in America.
As he campaigns up and down the East Coast for the “right to die”, Greer clearly has done more harm to the judiciary in the last year than virtually any other judge in America and many, many people in America hold George Greer and members of the judiciary in utter contempt. Greer has done a grave disservice to the judiciary of this country, making a mockery of the judicial system that people thought that they could look to to right the wrongs. Instead, Greer and his solemates compounded the wrongs and took an innocent life, claiming that they had immunity and independence to do so.
The Pinellas County Court probate judge personifies and justifies each comment about the judiciary that Tom DeLay and other GOP members in Congress have uttered.
Forget about judicial independence and judicial activism. The focus of Congress and the People has to be on judicial accountability---from the town and village courts to the probate courts and all the way to the Supreme Court.
It’s time to rein in the judges and make them as accountable to the People as the legislative and executive branch and stop the monarchy and dictatorship of judges like King George. True judicial independence is to release the People of this great Republic from the tyrannical rule of judges like George Greer.
In other words, the SC Justices can use international law instead of the US Constitution to rule against America but woe be to the "gasp" rightwinger who expects honesty from them. The courts are dismantling our Constitution by "interpreting" what the word "is" is as long as it means whatever the leftists want. Sick!
Who cares what she says?
O'Connor is irrelevent.
She is gone and Alito is sitting in her seat, that's what matters.
O'Conner should had said "We must be ever-vigilant against those justices who would strong-arm the people by revising the Constitution to do things never empowered upon the courts or Congress to do."
She has a lot of undefendable shabby rulings she left behind, such as that stupid Endorsement Test that was void of any support from the constitution. Whatever was the driving motive behind some of her rulings one thing was for sure; it had nothing to do with her oath.
I hope she leaves her brassiere on while she lap dances for Terd Kennedy...
Here's to breaking the mold!
Question:
Now that Justice Alito has "filled the seat" of Ex-Justice O'Connor how does the poor lady sit?
Please provide a working link for the article you posted in response #3 above.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1599037/posts?page=3#3
Thanks.
"Often wrong, never in doubt"
Yes, but there are others still on the bench who share her idiotic view. The courts have been out of control for years, and now they whine that anyone who has the audacity to criticize them is inviting a dictatorship.
You know, though, there is an issue in which I think judges should actually come close to that line, in a "destroy the village in order to save it" sense.The First Amendment intends that public issues be discussed on a level playing field where the government doesn't inhibit some people from spending their own money to promote their opinions, and the government does not help others to promote their ideas. The First Amendment intends that the government have no authority to censor political opinion, yet McCain-Feingold got 5-4 green light from SCOTUS. There is in fact no free speech in broadcasting; nearly everyone is censored completely while the few who have "titles of nobility" called FCC licenses issue fatuous statements about threats to their "First Amendment rights."
If the Supreme Court were to reign in those abuses of the Constitution, the promoters of those abuses would scream bloody murder. It was journalism, and not the public, which promoted McCain-Feingold; journalism would scream bloody murder if SCOTUS made a proper constitutional determination that the whole thing is arrogant trash. The broadcasters would obviously squeal like stuck pigs if the were deprived of the right to stand on the tops of their radio towers and throw brickbats down on the rest of us.
So in fact, IMHO, the Supreme Court should censor all broadcast journalism to eliminate all claims of objectivity from broadcasting. And it should censor all criticism of that decision on broadcast radio and TV. That would still allow you to assemble the biggest crowd you could muster, and rail against that decision to your heart's content. That would still allow you to print banner headlines in your newspaper, condemning that decision in the harshest terms. And that would still allow you to condemn that decision on your web site. It would only prevent the "title of nobility" from perpetuating itself.
I have no clue what you are talking about.
The thread leading article came from www.wfaa.com Channel 8 TV in Dallas and the second article came from www.azcentral.com, owned by Gannett Company Inc. (USAToday being their largest newspaper), not Azstarnet as you incorrectly alleged. - TAB
Judges are not exempt from criticism in this country and no judge has the power or right to violate an individual’s constitutional rights, especially First Amendment rights. Criticizing a judge is not a criminal act. It’s a free and robust exchange of opinion that our forefathers guaranteed us in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. No one is above the law, not even a judge.
The best paragraph in the article, without question. A strong statement of the thesis of the article, and true without question.
She even suggested the legal efforts constituted the beginnings of dictatorship.
Apparently this "great legal mind" has no understanding of governments, politics, and sociology. Given that that's the case, Ms. O'Connor, just make sure you and your cohorts keep the Second Amendment intact. We'll do the grunt work of keeping down any dictatorship that may arise. Oh, and BTW, "Bushitler" is NOT, nor is it tending toward, a dictatorship. Well, maybe toward a bit more socialism than is healthy with all the spending he's done. But you like socialism, don't you?
In response, Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life and one who was at Terri Schiavo’s bedside in her final hours and moments, declared, “Justice O’Connor has it backwards. Dictatorships begin with the idea that government can deprive people of their fundamental rights.
Ding ding ding.
It’s time to rein in the judicial tyranny which has existed all too long in this country.
Amen. Remember the judge in Kansas who levied taxes to make a school district more "accountable" to the children it was failing? Spent a billion dollars of taxpayer money and the school turned out WORSE? THAT'S a dictatorship, Ms. O'Connor, when someone can arbitrarily raise your taxes and you can't vote them out. Like a judge.
Ginsburg later said that she and O’Connor had received death threats. George Greer claims that he received death threats because he ordered the death of an innocent disabled woman.
Regrettable and despicable, but this kind of thing is going to happen to judges no matter how they rule. I'm sure none of them have ever been threatened by people they put in jail. /sarcasm
bump for later
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