John Roberts Gets an F on His Annual Report

[marmar]

John Roberts Gets an F on His Annual Report
The chief justice’s year-end appraisal of the federal judiciary reads as innocuous at first glance—it’s anything but.

By Elie Mystal


(The Nation) Every December, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States composes a “Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary.” Despite the apparent ambition indicated by its title, it is meant to be boring. It is meant to be anodyne. It is not supposed to be the judicial version of the State of the Union so much as a trite message about how “great” things are going on the bench, usually with some boilerplate stats that show how hard judges are working.

On first read, John Roberts’s 2021 review does not disappoint. Opening with a history lesson about the Judicial Conference—an advisory body founded 100 years ago that oversees the administration of the courts—it has all the stylistic markings the media consistently praises Roberts for: It is good-natured, reassuring, and banal to the point of hokey. Never mind that things are far from OK within the judiciary—that the judicial branch has been captured by an army of conservative hacks and the Supreme Court has veered so sharply to the right that even the general public has noticed, dragging its poll numbers to record lows. Roberts’s nine-page report concerns itself with none of this. To the untrained eye, it reads as totally innocuous.

I know better, however. Roberts’s annual review has all the charms of an old country goose: ordinary and unassuming from a distance, but an irritable, irascible beast that will peck your eyes out if you get too close.

Roberts fashions it as an earnest plea for the “institutional independence” of the judiciary—or “the Judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs.” Toward this end, he extols the virtues of the Judicial Conference and the notion that the courts can and should police themselves. But like a child who agrees to be grounded before the full extent of their misdeeds can be revealed, Roberts isn’t making this suggestion for some aw-shucks innocent reason. He raises the issue of judicial independence because Congress is finally considering reining in the rampant corruption he himself refuses to stop and punishing the ethics violators he refuses to hold accountable. Of course Roberts wants people to think the judiciary should police itself, because that means judges will not be policed at all. ............(more)

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/john-roberts-report/

[mountain grammy]

1. K & R fort the great Elie Mystal.

Who is never wrong.

[SharonAnn]

2. "Insular groups of men [people] often do bad things. From an article about clerical sexual abuse.

Insular, meaning no outside oversight. Insular meaning the members protect themselves against outsiders.
Insular meaning not accountable to anyone else.
Insular meaning Police departments not accountable to anyone but "Internal Affairs"..
etc., etc., etc..

From a Newsweek article about priest's sexual abuse of minors, April 2010.
https://www.newsweek.com/catholics-time-break-all-male-club-70645