What is it with our more free-swinging judges? They can't seem to resist the temptation to deliver decisions out of the courtroom. Spouting off about various issues of the day, which soon enough become issues before their court, they traipse around the country prejudicing themselves by tossing off opinions in the most inappropriate venues. This kind of exhibitionism has grown epidemic in recent years.
Examples abound, unfortunately. It could be a small-time circuit judge in Pulaski County, the free-swinging Wendell Griffen, railing against the state Board of Education's decision to finally take control of Little Rock's long mismanaged school district. That was just before, predictably enough, he was selected to be an "impartial" judge in that very case. He still hasn't recused himself from it; it may take a while for his sense of propriety, if he has one, to surface. If it ever does.
Both jurist and preacher, the man switches judicial and clerical robes for his appearances with an alacrity that would befit a quick-change artist, but neither robe is long enough to cover his feet of clay.
The most recent example of this trend, as deplorable as it is widespread, is the appearance of The Hon. Antonin Scalia, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, at the museum being built on the banks of the Arkansas River at Fort Smith dedicated to the history of the U.S. Marshals Service. Even though Justice Scalia was quick to confess that his only connection with the Marshals was through the protection they provide federal judges like himself.
Instead, Mr. Justice Scalia went off on a discursive lecture about how the people or the states, not federal judges like himself, should decide a variety of issues--like abortion or the death penalty--that are sure to continue coming before the high court. His decisions in such cases are now easy enough to predict: Case dismissed. For he now has prejudged them as surely as The Hon. Rev. Wendell Griffen prejudged the Little Rock school take-over.
If simple discretion isn't dead among all too many members of the American judiciary, it is badly ailing. From top to bottom, as Brothers Scalia and Griffen keep demonstrating. Silence on their part would be golden. Instead, all their speechifying is just brassy.
Editorial on 03/03/2015