
 |
|
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Nov. 27, 2006
/ 6 Kislev, 5767
Now she tells us, OR: A Justice gets her swing back
By
Paul Greenberg
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The latest critic of a Supreme Court ruling turns out to be the justice who supplied the key vote in its favor: Sandra Day O'Connor.
Addressing a legal conference in Texas, the former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court had some second thoughts about her opinion in Minnesota v. White back in 2002, which struck down that state's restrictions on judges' expressing their political views in campaigns for the bench.
The case was decided 5 to 4, and Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion made all the difference. Renowned in her time on the court as its swing vote, she's now swinging back.
What do you suppose has changed her mind, or at least softened her opinion?
Well, the former associate justice has been on a crusade since she left the court. She's concerned about threats to the independence of the American judiciary, as all of us should be. As usual, the threat comes from those who believe we the fickle people should be able to repeal unpopular decisions at will, or recall judges who deliver unpopular opinions, and in general subject fundamental law to the transient moods of ever shifting public opinion.
It may have occurred to Mrs. Justice O'Connor, too late, that judges, too, can threaten the independence of the judiciary. Because when judicial candidates start holding forth on the issues of the day, they become like all other politicians, and the judiciary becomes just as politicized as the legislative and executive branches of government.
There's a reason judges, like military officers, accept restrictions on their political speech. Because they have the personal dignity and political impartiality of their profession to uphold. When the judiciary is no longer considered above the passions and machinations of ordinary politics, neither is the law, and something of inestimable value is lost to a society that rests on the rule of law.
Justice O'Connor says she isn't in the habit of revisiting her opinions on the bench, but it sounds as if she's making an exception for this one. Minnesota v. White, she notes, "has produced a lot of very disturbing trends in state election of judges."
She was doubtless referring to the unseemly electioneering, complete with vicious advertising, that has started to characterize judicial races across the country in the wake of Minnesota v. White.
Justice O'Connor long has opposed the election of judges in the first place. (After all, she was appointed to the judiciary, so that must demonstrate the superiority of appointed judges.) But in Minnesota v. White, she seems to have got carried away by her animus toward an elected judiciary. If some states insist on electing their judges, she ruled, then they must allow judicial candidates to campaign on the issues as freelyand irresponsiblyas other politicians.
States that elect their judges, Justice O'Connor as well as said, deserve whatever happens to themand to respect for their law.
It was not a very thoughtful opinion, which is what happens when judges get carried away by their passions, in this case a prejudice against an elected judiciary. By freeing judges of limits on their speech, Justice O'Connor invited the demagoguery that may be the greatest threat to the judicial independence she so cherishes. Hers was a very logical decision in Minnesota v. Whitetoo logical. Like any extreme of reason separated from experience, it lost touch with reality.
Here in Arkansas, there's a perfect example of a judge who, by taking political stands on everything from the war in Iraq to the University of Arkansas' basketball program, seems to have set out to systematically undermine the public's faith in the impartiality of the judiciary. Rather than being above political passions, His Honor Wendell Griffen of this state's Court of Appeals has come to embody them.
By now this Great Pontificator has handed down extra-judicial opinions on military tribunals, the federal government's performance in Katrina's aftermath, the suitability of John Roberts' appointment as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, the state's minimum wage … and, well, one loses count. Suffice it to note that Judge Griffen's political comments have inspired more than 10 investigations by the state's judicial discipline commission, plus at least one protracted court case.
Every time he makes one of his provocative speeches, the judge waves Minnesota v. White around like a permission slip to demagogue the issues as much as he likes. But courts do reverse course. Just as Sandra Day O'Connor seems to have changed hers. And couple of new justices have joined the Supreme Court since her time on the bench. There is hope that reason, the kind buttressed by experience, will yet triumph.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
Paul Greenberg Archives
© 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|