Choosing Justice over Party

Focus on Judicial Appointments

By removing the personality and political consideration from the selection of Judges and Justices, the United States may, once again, reclaim its birthright of striving for equal justice under law. Th equality of our judiciary is more important to the unification and stability of the United States than transient political consideration or influence.

1.      In recognition of the Constitutional requirement for the “advice and consent” of the United States Senate; there will, upon assumption of office, be three candidates offered to the Senate for each judicial opening in the Federal system;

2.      These recommendations will be of individuals already seated on other courts after having been examined by legislatures – including the United States Senate – for the seats they hold at the time of the recommendation;

3.      This will decrease any investigative burden by limiting its scope to the period since the last investigation;

4.      Offering three names for reach position will permit the Senate to examine the bona fides of and accept a secondary or tertiary recommendation without the delay inherent in recommending each individual separately;

5.      Reminding members of the United States Senate that a Constitutional duty, like any other duty, is a task required to be completed immediately in the absence of a more emergent or urgent superseding task;

a.       Illustrative of this would be a police officer or paramedic arriving on scene in a jurisdiction where Party "A" is in the majority and determining that care will therefore be provided to the injured of Party "A" before the injured of Party "B". Despite the Party "A" victim suffering a laceration to a hand and the Party "B" victim suffering a sucking chest wound.

6.      Affording the United States Senate a more broad based opportunity to execute Senatorial duty to advise and consent.

When fealty to party displaces fealty to Country, the entire nation suffers. In the instance that brought this failure of ethics on the part of the United States Senate was the appointment of Merrick Garland to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. While Senators may have felt Mr. Garland unqualified to take the bench, the Constitution places the burden of vetting squarely on the Senate as a “duty” not a schedulable task.

Senator McConnell failed his duty to the People of Kentucky by not executing his oath as a Senator from that magnificent Commonwealth:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Through Mr. McConnell’s failure to “bear true faith and allegiance, without mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and well and faithfully discharge the duties of his office, he has demonstrated a lack of ethical character.

The actions taken on those days – claimed to have been supported by a precedent – were not those of a Senator but of a partisan manipulator of the greatest document of our nation’s history. The precedent cited as permitting this behavior did not require the setting aside of a duty merely allowed some partisan action to supersede duty to the Constitution.

Of note, rather than permit Mr. Garland to become only one of nine opinions on the bench, only a year later 40% of the Republicans in the Senate agreed Mr. Garland was perfectly qualified to run the United States Department of Justice.

This does beg the question of whether Mr. Garland was qualified to be seated on the Court and was simply dismissed for partisan advantage – contrary to Constitutional duty as he managed to become so well qualified that a year later he was handed the Constitutional and Statutory authority to investigate, search, and seize property, enforce the laws as he sees fit until a court overturns his actions. These Senators made Mr. Garland Sheriff and gave him the tools of the job.

When absolute, unwavering, fealty or loyalty is demanded by an appointing authority, to include public declarations that no appointee would ever recuse for cause further call into question the integrity of the Court possessed of the final word on the interpretation of the only document that underpins our entire national structure.

There are currently two justices seated who, based upon public statements of their appointing authority, will not recuse for cause under any circumstance or matter before the court involving the interests of that appointing authority. Whether a lie on the part of the appointing authority, or the violation of an oath of office on the part of these justices, the sworn statements of these justices to recuse for cause when appropriate amount to lies of their own under oath. Additionally this implicates both for lying to Congress and potentially to Federal Law Enforcement officials during any vetting interviews.

The only questions then, are really, which government official lied, and to whom?

For these reasons I recommend that Judges and Justices be sent to the Senate with only the information the President is provided before making a selection of three persons for each seat.

Seating trial judges from other jurisdictions allows them to be vetted based upon whether their trial decisions have withstood scrutiny by their superior Appellate courts. Appointing Appellate justices whose opinions and decisions have withstood the scrutiny of Courts above will identify and select those whose rulings best reflect the concept that while the law must be ever-changing to keep up with current times, it must also be conservative in its approach to change to maintain societal stability.

There ought be no other consideration in this process to ensure only the best of the best are chosen. A Judge’s or Justice’s personal philosophy is irrelevant to the process of Justice and required to be the case for actual equal justice under law.

Know, also, that a President – and the Senate – ought require of any appointee an affidavit, the violation of which would necessarily be an impeachable offense, that every candidate will fully and completely, without hesitation, mental reservation or purpose of evasion follow the rules of professional conduct required of all members of the judiciary without exception.