Why Aren’t We Impeaching Some Supreme Court Justices?
Last week’s Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush will most definitely go down in our nation’s memory as a historic decision. While many, such as the ACLU and presidential candidate Barack Obama, are cheering this decision as one that rebukes our current administration’s anti-terror policies and “restores” America’s reputation and long standing respect for the rule of law, history does not show this. As John Yoo points out in the Wall Street Journal, Congress gave Guantanamo Bay prisoners more rights than any prisoners of war, in any war, ever.
“Judicial micromanagement will now intrude into the conduct of war. Federal courts will jury-rig a process whose every rule second-guesses our soldiers and intelligence agents in the field. A judge’s view on how much “proof” is needed to find that a “suspect” is a terrorist will become the standard applied on the battlefield. Soldiers will have to gather “evidence,” which will have to be safeguarded until a court hearing, take statements from “witnesses,” and probably provide some kind of Miranda-style warning upon capture. No doubt lawyers will swarm to provide representation for new prisoners.”
Not only does this decision ignore precedent, it sets an entirely new and dangerous one that has many possibilities for unintended consequences. While many are under the impression that this ruling was grounded the guarantee of habeas corpus and the right to a fair trial, America’s history has never granted such rights to non-citizens. What is even scarier is that this ruling has granted Constitutional rights to enemy combatants. As Justice Scalia said in his dissent, this will definitely be a decision America will regret.
Justice Roberts nails exactly what this is:
Roberts laments, “All today’s opinion has done is shift responsibility for those sensitive foreign policy and national security decisions from the elected branches to the Federal Judiciary.” He concluded that Congress’ balancing “the security of the American people” with detainees’ rights has been “brushed aside,” and that the American people have lost control of foreign policy to unelected and politically-unaccountable judges.
This is absolutely judicial tyranny, and a definite overstepping of the Court’s boundaries. Some are suggesting impeachment.
How many Supreme Court Justices have ever been impeached? A total of 1.
Any of the Justices who joined the majority could be brought up on impeachment charges for legislating from the bench. I only choose Kennedy because he so eloquently wrote the opinion.
In conclusion, I believe that our lack of oversight of the court in using the Constitutional checks we have been given represents an unconstitutional passive union between the three branches of government. This is dangerous. Hamilton states in Federalist 78; “liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments.”
Unless something is done right now and Justice Anthony Kennedy is made an example of and held accountable for this, consider ALL of the branches to be in an unholy, unconstitutional “union.”
Perhaps there is an unholy union, or perhaps there is a reason they call this generation of Congress the “do nothing” Congress. There will have to be a high cry from the people before you’ll find a politician with enough guts to call for any impeachments. I’m all for rallying the cry along with others, but forgive me if I think it will fall on deaf ears. However, someone needs to find some solution to this recurring problem of legislating from the bench….it is way past out of control.
Some of the effects of this ruling will be sooner. The courts will be flooded with habeas corpus petitions soon enough, and the ACLU will be lining their pockets with bloody money to defend the terrorists who want to kill us. Oh, and guess who pays the ACLU to defend these detainees? You do! The American taxpayer! If Bush is able to succeed in his renewed mission to capture Bin Laden, we may see him released if our courts continue to follow foreign law as an example.
Also, have no doubt that this opened the door for lawyers to argue that if foreign terrorist have habeus corpus rights, then they are also entitled to other constitutional protections.
Ed Morrissey reports of at least one suggestion in the right direction.
McCain’s longtime friend and political ally, Lindsey Graham, proposed amending the Constitution to make clear to the Supreme Court that they don’t have a role in conducting war. Hopefully, McCain will consider making that one of his causes on the campaign trail.
That would be a start. This decision will definitely put judicial appointments in the spotlight as a primary issue for many of us. Too many of us are tired of watching the Senate pretend they are powerless when all that they really are is gutless. We want someone to stand up and do something about this. The least we could do is get the ACLU off the taxpayer’s dole.
Meanwhile, our Presidential candidates are taking advantage of the issue to bicker on whether it was right or wrong. Of course Senator Obama utters the ignorance. But all of this is nothing but bickering. The Supreme Court has decided that it makes the rules. It would be nice if we could see a little conservative leadership to do something about this atrocity. John McCain? What will you do about this? What will you do to prevent this kind of judicial tyranny in the future? We need more than bickering. It is time for Congress and the President to take the authority and the responsibility given to them.
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Posted by Jay on June 17, 2008 10:38 pm
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Activist Judges, History, Islamicfascism, News, Politics As Usual, Revisionism, Stupidity, Treason, War On Terror, military, terrorism
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11 Responses to “Why Aren’t We Impeaching Some Supreme Court Justices?”
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Syndicate Me
What did Roosevelt do when the Court wouldn’t rule his way?
Wish I had a better answer to the first question, but more than a third of the Senate has thought since the end of World War II that it is the job of the Supreme Court to cram liberal bull<expletive deleted> that would never fly through Congress down our throats. Indeed, it now pervades a majority of both Houses of Congress.
Besides, the Lawgivers-In-Black ignored the portion of the Constitution that gives Congress authority over what the courts can decide on. Between that and a historic willful neglect of the 2nd, 9th and 10th Amendments, I wouldn’t expect a L-I-B-dominated SCOTUS to adhere to an explicit amendment.
As to the second, while FDR was unsuccessful in packing the Court, he did remove via bribery one of the Justices. That, along with the “growth” of a second Justice, allowed the New Deal to fly.
What? I know what the father of the Democrat party, Jackson, did when the Supreme Court ruled for the American Indians against him taking their land. He said, the court has made their ruling, now lets see them enforce it. He went on to send the Indians on the trail of tears.
I’m going to have to disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision. It seems as though we keep giving criminals (or in this case terrorists) more and more rights. With this decision, the Supreme Court has decided to protect suspected foreign terrorists instead of protecting the American people.
In a time of war a government may sometimes do things that seem unreasonable to protect its people. The people may deem it to be unreasonable because of the fact that the people are not given the information that the government has collected. Government (in a nutshell) is created to protect its people from foreign and domestic troubles.
In this case the Supreme Court has given aliens the rights of American citizens. I don’t know about you but I think that it’s pretty pathetic that the Supreme Court has put me in the same category as suspected foreign terrorists. However, are they really suspected foreign terrorists or just foreign terrorists?
“It’s a different kind of war”, isn’t it? It’s a perpetual war where the enemy might be your next door neighbor. I think it should go without saying that there might be significant differences in the way we prosecute it.
If you detain a German man in France in late 1944 you can easily assume by at least a preponderance of the evidence, if not beyond a reasonable doubt, that he’s participating in the war. Even if you’re wrong, the war is likely to be over within a few years, so as long as you don’t abuse him, there’s not a terrible amount of harm done by detaining him until the war is over.
That simply doesn’t fly with this war. If you’re going to detain someone forever or, God forbid, execute him, you darn sure better be able to satisfactorily demonstrate that he is who you think he is.
Habeas corpus simply gives our courts a chance to evaluate whether or not the tribunals gave the detainees a fair shake. If it’s a meaningful process capable of differentiating between someone who was probably a combatant and someone who was probably not a combatant, the results will be upheld and life goes on.
If it can’t at least do that, the results shouldn’t be upheld. That doesn’t even mean you have to release the guys. It just means you have to come up with a better process.
That is absolutely and unequivocally false. The Constitution repeatedly refers to “persons.” It only distinguishes between citizens and aliens in reference to eligibility for public offices.
You would have better luck arguing that Guantanamo is outside of our jurisdiction, but really it’s pretty silly to suggest that we don’t have total control of it.
Habeas corpus simply gives our courts a chance to evaluate whether or not the tribunals gave the detainees a fair shake.
I’m not absolutely sure of where you are coming from, so to get a better understanding; I have a few questions that may, dependent on the answer, clear it up.
Given our relatively long history of civil and military law – why are so many people fuzzy on “Habeas corpus” in context of military law, yet same people are so crystal clear on military law and “Posse Comitatus”?
In the same vein; why was the importance of ’stare decisis’ and precedent, given such widespread coverage and so thoroughly discussed on the net and MSM during the SC nomination process for both Roberts and Alito, and yet noticeably absent concerning this latest decision?
Do you have any clear evidence of ‘original’ intent to extend habeas corpus to this country’s enemies? Any cases of it being done in the past?
That is absolutely and unequivocally false.
Then refute it with facts. Any reasonably intelligent person is capable of understanding “We the people of the United States” and “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”.
The Constitution repeatedly refers to “persons.”
Are these “persons” you are referring to, serving on our juries, voting in our elections, paying our taxes?
Do you actually expect me to answer such vague questions? What is it you really want to know?
Your choice of the word “enemies” was mistake. We have granted full due process to the Rosenbergs, Timothy McVeigh, Jose Padilla, and many more, I’m sure.
Look at the context of those words. They comprise the preamble and state who is creating document (and by extension, the nation) and why they are doing so. Those particular words shed no light on who exactly the document applies to.
Intent can be deciphered by examining the words that are included and omitted. If we scan further down, we see a section on the qualifications for officeholders. It distinguishes between citizens and non-citizens. If your interpretation was correct, making such a distinction would have been superfluous. Yet we must assume that every written word was chosen for a reason unless there is very clear reason to do otherwise. If we don’t lend great weight to each chosen word, you give the courts far more ability to legislate from the bench than you are currently accusing them of.
Some, but not all. Regardless, the Constitution is merely a framework and does not get into the such details; they were left for Congress to decide.
All 5 judges need to be impeached, or tarred and feathered, literally. This is tyranny, and it is a good point that if this stands, if the other branches limit their objections to impotent whining before the same court, it constitutes an entire gov’t that is acting out of control. But then the Sandy Berger plea bargain and the fact that he was never put on the lie detector tells us already that the administration lacks the will to do it’s job. Congress of course is so out of control that if every member was tarred and feathered and evicted by force from their offices, we would be better off.
Jeff, make sure you distinguish between US citizens vs. foreigners, and between people who committed crimes on US soil vs. foreign soil, and people who were captured on US vs. foreign soil.
Besides, non-uniformed combatants in a war zone are subject to execution in the field, according the the Geneva Convention. Any mercy extended to them afterwards should not be subject to the courts.
I guess the answer is to just not take any prisoners.
Smarty,
You can make a case for those distinctions, as the dissent did. You can also make a case against them, as the majority did.
If you look back at my original post and lobo’s response to it, you’ll see that my only goal was simply to refute the erroneous distinction between “citizen” and “non-citizen”. The Constitution clearly covers a great many non-citizens, so one should take the time to sort through various categories of non-citizens rather than making blanket statements.
The solution to this communist judgment by communist judges is simple. Simply take no prisoners.