Memo: Sandra. You got us into this mess. Too late to be whining about it now that your permanent legacy will be as The Swing Vote Who Brought Bush To The Presidency.
===
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is not moving quietly toward retirement.O'Connor's speech Nov. 7 to the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers in Washington, D.C., was a rip-snorting defense of judicial independence that criticized – without naming them -- former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and even the late president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom she described as "the fellow on the dime."
Her speech was the talk of the academy's meeting. The Court recently released the text of the speech, which was similar to one she gave at the University of Florida in September....
O'Connor went on to describe threats to judicial independence worldwide -- including an episode in the mid-1990s in Russia in which presidential guards killed the chief judge's pet cat. But threats exist closer to home, O'Connor said, and she described them specifically. She recalled the speech of "a prominent House leader" -- DeLay -- before a conservative conference in which he criticized court decisions that struck down school prayer and other rulings that invoke foreign law. DeLay spoke of "a judiciary run amok," in the wake of the federal courts' handling of the Terri Schiavo case; O'Connor described that case as a "flagrant display of judicial restraint."
Then, referring to a floor speech made by Cornyn on April 4, O'Connor said: "It doesn't help when a high-profile senator, after noting that decisions he sees as activist cause him 'great distress,' suggests there may be 'a cause-and-effect connection' between such activism and the 'recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country.'" Cornyn later softened his remarks....
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1132740311603
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
