Retired Supreme Court Justice hits attacks on courts and warns of dictatorship
Raw Story | March 11 2006
Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day O'Connor no longer faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenge the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. O'Connor's speech at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast but NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there.
Nina Totenberg: In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, O'Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms. O'Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents or the Congress or governors, as she put it ``really, really angry.'' But, she continued, if we don't make them mad some of the time we probably aren't doing our jobs as judges, and our effectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we won't be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts. The nation's founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said O'Connor, as the founding fathers knew statutes and constitutions don't protect judicial independence, people do.
And then she took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didn't name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortions, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said O'Connor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress' onetime only statute about Schiavo as it was written. Not, said O'Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written. This response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said O'Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts.
It gets worse, she said, noting that death threats against judges are increasing. It doesn't help, she said, when a high-profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with. She didn't name him, but it was Texas senator John Cornyn who made that statement, after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Illinois murdered in the judge's home. O'Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she said, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with.
I, said O'Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O'Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.
Posts: 856 | From Texas | Registered: Jan 2005
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David95928
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 3521
posted
Tequeslady, Here we are, agreeing with a Reagan appointee. Things just keep getting more and more interesting.
-------------------- Dave Posts: 2034 | From CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
"we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."
This is truly an astounding statement coming from a former Supreme Court Justice.
Mo
Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
To have a Supreme Court Justice who was on the court for 24 years, who was appointed by a Republican, and who was a definite centralist make Sandra Day O'Connors talk to Georgetown U. very remarkable. We should all listen. She is warning us that our country is being destroyed from within.
Think: Will America be America when the constitution and separartion of powers is gone?
CA Quest
Posts: 101 | From CA, USA | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
No. It won't be America as we know it anymore.
Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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3greatkids
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 3838
posted
It sure is not the America we use to know.O'Conner is one sharp lady.Wish we had more like her.
With the explosion of internet issues,google,Myspace,Facebook,etc,coming into big time play,our rights are being tested every second.
Student rights are next to nothing.If administrators view these places and want to call a student in for an interrogation,they can and will do it.This can happen w/ out parental knowledge and students are not given any representation.Don't think for one second this applies only to the BAD ones out there.ALL kids are falling prey to this new style of school watchful eye.All kids are subject to scrutiny.
There is a run away train w/ this one.Administrators w/ power are taking this over the top in some cases.
I'm afraid the public schools are already in a dictator style of running their schools.
Make sure your kids know their rights,watch what they post on all journal sites.Even the hip slang to simple hip symbols can raise eyebrows and lead to major interrogations.Cheerleaders to gang members,this nets all of them.
Yes,a few bad eggs are being rounded up w/ this new reach of power,but the abuses that are occuring w/ this power are more in number.
Our country has a real hot potatoe w/ these issues and the rights we are sacrificing w/ them.
Administrators can and do question/interrogate the most innocent on up.They can question,humiliate,interrogate,w/out parental knowledge.Basically our schools have turned into police states.
There is a huge problem,administrators making assumptions,perceptions and dealing w/ them w/ gestapo style discipline.
Make sure you know all of your school policies about web page browsing and the roll they play in your schools discipline actions.
Most of all,make sure your kids do not post at ALL on these sites.The risk is just too great.Innocent remarks and fun comments(What their generation does)can be twisted and used to ruin their futures.
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treepatrol
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 4117
posted
There taking away our freedom standing by by by by by byb byb ybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybybyby
Where can i get my mark?
NOT
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