A Chip Off the Roy Moore Block?
A justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court is in hot water for recommending that state courts resist the "judicial tyranny" of the United States Supreme Court.
In a gesture reminiscent of "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore (a former chief justice of the Alabama court), justice Thomas Parker flailed his fellow justices for "passively accommodating" the practice of judicial tyranny by "five liberal justices" on the U.S. Supreme Court. Parker went public with his charges by writing an op-ed for the Jan. 1 Birmingham News (see http://www.alliancealert.org/2006/20060106.htm).
At issue was a 1997 rape and murder case which Parker helped to prosecute. The criminal was sentenced to death, but in appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, was released from death row. The court followed the U.S.Supreme Court's 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision, a controversial ruling which cited "evolving standards of decency" and foreign treaties as a basis for declaring unconstitutional the capital punishment of an offender who was a minor when he committed the crime.
"You see," wrote Parker, "my fellow Alabama justices freed [him] from death row not because of any error on our part but because they chose to passively accommodate--rather than actively resist--the unconstitutional opinion of five liberal justices on the United States Supreme Court." Parker accused the top court of trying to "usurp political power," "force foreign legal fads on America," and "blatant judicial tyranny." One of the treaties alluded to by the Supreme Court, he pointed out, has not even been signed by the United States--putting the court in the position of usurping the treaty-making power of the President and the Senate.
The Alabama court should have declined to follow the Roper precent, Parker said, because "those decisions bind only the parties to the particular case." The justices, he said, should have upheld their oaths of office rather than follow the precedent.
The American Bar Assn. responded with an article in its journal (http://www.abanet.org/journal/ereport/j13oped.html) castigating Parker for preaching "nullification" a la John C. Calhoun, politicking for election as Alabama's next chief justice, and "undermining the public's confidence [in] the judiciary."
Parker did find one defender in John Eastman, a professor at Chapman University Law School, Chicago, who said he was "glad he's doing it... The notion that nobody can question Supreme Court pronouncements is not very well grounded, and it could amount to judicial tyranny."
To which we can only add, "Amen!" The judiciary needs to be rattled out of its complacency and needs to be questioned. Roper is only one of many egregiously high-handed Supreme Court decisions that amount to the court legislating from the bench.
In a gesture reminiscent of "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore (a former chief justice of the Alabama court), justice Thomas Parker flailed his fellow justices for "passively accommodating" the practice of judicial tyranny by "five liberal justices" on the U.S. Supreme Court. Parker went public with his charges by writing an op-ed for the Jan. 1 Birmingham News (see http://www.alliancealert.org/2006/20060106.htm).
At issue was a 1997 rape and murder case which Parker helped to prosecute. The criminal was sentenced to death, but in appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, was released from death row. The court followed the U.S.Supreme Court's 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision, a controversial ruling which cited "evolving standards of decency" and foreign treaties as a basis for declaring unconstitutional the capital punishment of an offender who was a minor when he committed the crime.
"You see," wrote Parker, "my fellow Alabama justices freed [him] from death row not because of any error on our part but because they chose to passively accommodate--rather than actively resist--the unconstitutional opinion of five liberal justices on the United States Supreme Court." Parker accused the top court of trying to "usurp political power," "force foreign legal fads on America," and "blatant judicial tyranny." One of the treaties alluded to by the Supreme Court, he pointed out, has not even been signed by the United States--putting the court in the position of usurping the treaty-making power of the President and the Senate.
The Alabama court should have declined to follow the Roper precent, Parker said, because "those decisions bind only the parties to the particular case." The justices, he said, should have upheld their oaths of office rather than follow the precedent.
The American Bar Assn. responded with an article in its journal (http://www.abanet.org/journal/ereport/j13oped.html) castigating Parker for preaching "nullification" a la John C. Calhoun, politicking for election as Alabama's next chief justice, and "undermining the public's confidence [in] the judiciary."
Parker did find one defender in John Eastman, a professor at Chapman University Law School, Chicago, who said he was "glad he's doing it... The notion that nobody can question Supreme Court pronouncements is not very well grounded, and it could amount to judicial tyranny."
To which we can only add, "Amen!" The judiciary needs to be rattled out of its complacency and needs to be questioned. Roper is only one of many egregiously high-handed Supreme Court decisions that amount to the court legislating from the bench.
