Little-Acorn
Gold Member
Neil Gorsuch made a significant point in his acceptance speech following President Trump's nominating him to the Supreme Court yesterday.
"A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge, stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.”.
Gorsuch is pointing out that some so-called judges try to substitute their own desires for what they wished the law said, for the fact of what it actually says. Many times a judge will encounter a law he disagrees with. However, it's still the law. And Gorsuch points out that it's the judge's job to obey and enforce that law, not some imaginary code he wishes it says.
Ironically, this very issue came up when now-Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated by W. People pointed out a case where he rendered an opinion. A 12-year-old girl was in a DC subway station with a package of French fries. She ate one while waiting for a train, and a subway cop saw her do it. There was a DC law saying no one can eat anything in a subway station, and there was a sign in this particular station pointing that out. The cop called it in, and some loopy dispatcher sent a squad car. She was cuffed and shoved into the back of the squad car, taken downtown, and went through a lengthy, unpleasant procedure before she was finally wrist-slapped and released to her mother's custody.
It came before the DC Court of Appeals, and Roberts wrote an opinion saying that he was very unhappy about what had happened and considered it grossly excessive. But he then pointed out that the law as written did authorize the police to do what they did, and that the law was duly written and passed by the DC City Council, and so was a legitimate law. (The law was shortly repealed and re-written.)
But here, Gorsuch pointed out that it wasn't the judge's job to ignore or repeal a law he didn't feel was appropriate to the particular case in hand. That was the legislators' job, not the court's. All the judge could do was decide if the law was duly written and enacted by authorized authorities, decide if the accused had indeed violated that law, and decide if the procedure the authorities followed was authorized by that law. If those things were all true, then the judge had no choice but to uphold the law and what the authorities had done, regardless of whether he personally found the result repellent.
Gorsuch was correct. It's up to the lawmakers (whether a local city council or the Congress of the U.S.) to be careful what laws they wrote, and to call for appropriate response for people who violated it. Not the courts' job.
With liberals making crazy laws on every conceivable subject and throwing the weight of government into every corner of people's lives, strict and honest judges like Gorsuch aren't going to like some of the rulings they have to make... as he pointed out yesterday. But they have no choice but to obey and uphold the laws made by those legislators... and hope that the legislators have the smarts to make GOOD laws instead of the kind we too frequently find. The judges can protest and object to the laws, as Roberts did in that case, but only after they follow the law.
"A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge, stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.”.
Gorsuch is pointing out that some so-called judges try to substitute their own desires for what they wished the law said, for the fact of what it actually says. Many times a judge will encounter a law he disagrees with. However, it's still the law. And Gorsuch points out that it's the judge's job to obey and enforce that law, not some imaginary code he wishes it says.
Ironically, this very issue came up when now-Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated by W. People pointed out a case where he rendered an opinion. A 12-year-old girl was in a DC subway station with a package of French fries. She ate one while waiting for a train, and a subway cop saw her do it. There was a DC law saying no one can eat anything in a subway station, and there was a sign in this particular station pointing that out. The cop called it in, and some loopy dispatcher sent a squad car. She was cuffed and shoved into the back of the squad car, taken downtown, and went through a lengthy, unpleasant procedure before she was finally wrist-slapped and released to her mother's custody.
It came before the DC Court of Appeals, and Roberts wrote an opinion saying that he was very unhappy about what had happened and considered it grossly excessive. But he then pointed out that the law as written did authorize the police to do what they did, and that the law was duly written and passed by the DC City Council, and so was a legitimate law. (The law was shortly repealed and re-written.)
But here, Gorsuch pointed out that it wasn't the judge's job to ignore or repeal a law he didn't feel was appropriate to the particular case in hand. That was the legislators' job, not the court's. All the judge could do was decide if the law was duly written and enacted by authorized authorities, decide if the accused had indeed violated that law, and decide if the procedure the authorities followed was authorized by that law. If those things were all true, then the judge had no choice but to uphold the law and what the authorities had done, regardless of whether he personally found the result repellent.
Gorsuch was correct. It's up to the lawmakers (whether a local city council or the Congress of the U.S.) to be careful what laws they wrote, and to call for appropriate response for people who violated it. Not the courts' job.
With liberals making crazy laws on every conceivable subject and throwing the weight of government into every corner of people's lives, strict and honest judges like Gorsuch aren't going to like some of the rulings they have to make... as he pointed out yesterday. But they have no choice but to obey and uphold the laws made by those legislators... and hope that the legislators have the smarts to make GOOD laws instead of the kind we too frequently find. The judges can protest and object to the laws, as Roberts did in that case, but only after they follow the law.
