Posted on 09/20/2019 4:54:32 PM PDT by T Ruth
Her writings on faith and jurisprudence should worry conservatives.
The left is engaged in full-on panic over control of the U.S. Supreme Court—which Justice Scalia once described as having become a de facto sitting Constitutional Convention, subjecting every law in every state to the views of five lifetime appointees: an oligarchy of lawyers from Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health concerns continue to loom, liberals are trying to spook Speaker Mitch McConnell into swearing off confirmation hearings for any Trump appointee during an election year. At the same time, The New York Times and The New Yorker are trying to drive Brett Kavanaugh off the court with still more unsupported, second- or third-hand allegations. The spectacle is positively Orwellian.
The next Supreme Court appointment, assuming Trump gets one, will be pivotal; we can’t afford for him to waste it by choosing a justice whom he thinks will be “easier to confirm,” despite his or her weaknesses.
Trump should recognize that no conservative appointment will be “easy.” The left has already shown us their playbook. It reads: treat as “literally Hitler” any jurist who might return to an honest reading of the Constitution on Second Amendment rights, abortion, or executive authority on immigration.
President Trump should not take the salacious nature of the smear campaign against Brett Kavanaugh to mean that he must appoint a woman. Why believe that leftists are incapable of crafting an obscene smear of either sex? Put nothing past these people. Nothing.
***
There will be no easy appointments; Trump should make it count. Trump’s presumptive choice is Judge Amy Coney Barrett, currently sitting on the Seventh Circuit. But I have profound questions about Barrett’s suitability for the high court, ...
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
For one thing, Zmirak is a very knowledgeable, and very politically active, orthodox Catholic who --- note this ---- vehemently agrees with most of Amy Coney Barret's moral principles.
He does not raise question marks about this judge because she is Catholic, NOR because she has Catholic principles, but because --- unlike the excellent Scalia and Thomas --- she wrote an essay 10 years ago in which she doesn't seem to navigate the difference between "moralist" and "jurist" very well.
It would be worth discussing the essay in question, rather than to try to slap down John Zmirak, of all people, as --- this is ludicrous --- an anti-Catholic.
Shut up, stupid
I’ll take a open Christian over an atheist any day - since when is Christian conviction anathema to the Constitution?
Zimrak gave no example in his analysis for Ms. Barrett recusing herself, or deciding a case outside the relevant law, based on her Catholicism.
She’s shown herself capable of doing what’s right legally, while holding and expressing a different opinion personally.
My reading was neither superficial, nor incorrect.
The Constitution IS subservient to God’s law. All of mans law is subordinate to God’s law.
Also the mention of "God" is not the Christian concept, rather of the Deist "Creator". Else Blackstone would be out of step with the original intent of the Deist authors of the Constitution.
Begin Omitted
Natural Law and Sir William Blackstone
QUESTION: Natural Law and Sir William Blackstone
ANSWER:
One of the greatest treatises on Natural Law comes from Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England. Blackstone’s Commentaries was required reading for law students in Great Britain and the United States for over a century.
Begin Quote
Natural Law – Commentaries on the Laws
MEANING OF LAW
Exactly. The deep state didn't hold a pillow over Scalia's face because he was "too Catholic" or "loved opera". A Conservative Catholic is not an oxymoron.
Well, at least she will be an anti abortion hardliner.
She’ll be great.
Pro-life, baby-loving women of faith are entitled to their opinions, not just feminazis.
No but as one example, she co-authored a scholarly legal article stating this conclusion: “[W]e believe that Catholic judges (if they are faithful to the teaching of their church) are morally precluded from enforcing the death penalty. This means that they can neither themselves sentence criminals to death nor enforce jury recommendations of death.”
That statement alone would give me pause.
But she WOULD be hearing cases arguing the constitutionality of the death penalty itself, and circumstances where it could be applied, which would impact whether the death penalty would be imposed in the case being appealed.
List of United States Supreme Court decisions on capital punishment
Unlike Thomas and Scalia who firmly believe that as a judge they must rely exclusively on the Constitution for any and all rulings as opposed to Barrett who, through her writings, has expressed the “clear” obligations of a Catholic judge when there is a direct conflict between her views of what the Church teaches and the U.S. Constitution dictates: they must recuse themselves.
That distinction is both significant and worrisome.
Yes, that is concerning.
It’s, as of now, only a scholarly opinion, but could very well be a precursor to a bad judicial opinion. Her opinion is nonetheless quite prevalent among Catholics.
How is this then, not “I don’t trust her because she’s too Catholic”?
From what I have always understood, Scalia was a “staunch” Catholic. He however, was able to divorce his religious convictions from performing the duty of a Scotus jurist to divine Constitutional intent and apply it to the law.
He took the “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” ... For there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.” position and depended exclusively on the Constitution for his job and Catholic dogma for his life.
The whole “too Catholic” label is at it’s core a misnomer.
I agree with you on Scalia.
The author of this article did not demonstrate that Amy Coney Barrett is unfit to be considered as a CONSERVATIVE JURIST based on her judicial record.
His concern trolling was based exclusively on the Pope being a liberal goofball, and some statements she has made in articles.
My opinion on Barrett hasn’t been revealed in this discussion. I’ve only opined on the article and it’s author.
That being said, if indeed she would be unable or unwilling to totally separate her religious convictions from her judicial rulings as a sitting SCOTUS jurist, that would indeed preclude her from the position.
We can't be having a reliable conservative member of SCOTUS recusing themselves every time a case to be decided contains irreconcilable differences between what the Constitution and her Catholic dogma dictate. There likely will be several over the course of a lifetime appointment.
Im catholic and still able to uphold the constitution. This is a bunch of what if scare talk.
[Zmirak writing here]
"What answer do Barrett and Garvey offer to the dilemma of a Catholic judge who is unwilling to enforce the clear dictates of the U.S. Constitution on capital punishment? To avoid “formal cooperation with evil,” she must recuse herself from ruling:
[Barrett][Zmirak]
The moral impossibility of enforcing capital punishment in the first two or three cases (sentencing, enforcing jury recommendations, affirming) is a sufficient reason for recusal under federal law. (p. 306)
The answer gets more emphatic further down:
[Barrett][Zmirak]
[T]he principle at stake in capital sentencing is a moral one, not a factual or simply legal one. And the judge is asked to violate it—not to reason from different legal premises to morally unobjectionable conclusions (like Justice Brandeis did in Whitney). There is no way the judge can do his job and obey his conscience. The judge’s conscience tells him to impose a life sentence; federal law directs him to impose death. Because the judge is unable to give the government the judgment to which it is entitled under the law, § 45 (p. 334)
It is clear what Judge Barrett believes about the obligations of a Catholic judge when there is a direct conflict between her views of what the Church teaches and the U.S. Constitution dictates: they must recuse themselves."
So the questions to be addressed are:
Is it true that, in a case of conscience like that outlined by Barrett, the only responsibility is recusal? Is it not rather that, as Scalia argued, the Catholic judge is to rule on the basis of the Constitution, and then make a serious appeal to his fellow citizens to amend the Constitution so that injustice will not be enshrined in its principles?
As well, the question likewise arises whether Barrett still believes her only option is recusal, or was that an opinion she believed 10 years ago but does not believe now?
It's a live and important point, because I know by my religious training, and I teach as a parish catechist, that the Catholic Church has a whole raft of teachings which impact public policy, some of them involving exceptionless norms (esp. the teachings on life & death, and on sex/gender/marriage), and if Catholic judges or SC justices are obliged to recuse themselves on cases which touch upon these things, then a Catholic can hardly serve as judge at all --- or even, for that matter, a juror--- in the American system of justice.
Please tell me you see the problem.
Blackstone’s Commentaries predates the founders, he was not a Deist. Neither were the majority of the founders. You’ve swallowed the propaganda.
Yes, and this goes to the question of whether she would hew to the Constitution, not the red herring of whether she would impose the death penalty, which she would not be in a position to do.
Thank you. Yes, I do see the concern, as I stated earlier. I do not however, see this as a reason to question Barrett’s capability to serve as a Supreme Court Justice to any greater degree than one would with any faithful Catholic.
Her academic opinions are public, whereas others are not.
It’s, in my opinion, concern trolling designed specifically to poison conservative opinion against a really solid conservative justice, and does in fact make that argument BASED ON HER CATHOLICISM.
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