Radiofree West Hartford - THE NEW TYRANTS by Tim Siggia

THE NEW TYRANTS

By Tim Siggia

February 04, 2005

The nation got an up-close and personal acquaintance with judicial activism when the ultra-liberal justices of the Massachusetts supreme overruled the will of the electorate and imposed gay marriage upon a hostile populace by judicial fiat, a classic example of the type of legislation from the bench of which liberals are so fond. During the past week in neighboring Connecticut, a similarly arrogant abuse of judicial power took place when a single judge decided on his own to reverse the decision of a full jury, again contrary to the will of not only the sentencing jury -- and Connecticut's governor, M. Jodi Rell -- but over 70 percent of Connecticut residents.

The case involves Michael Ross, a convicted serial killer who has spent 18 years on death row for the murders of at least eight women, most of whom he raped as well. The evidence against Ross was overwhelming and conclusive, and Ross confessed to the murders, even to the point of leading authorities to the burial sites of at least two of his victims. Ross himself indicated that he wanted to die, and waived further appeals in his case. Gov. Rell refused to commute the sentence, saying that though she had wrestled with her decision on moral grounds, anything less than death for Ross would constitute justice denied to the families of his victims. An overwhelming majority of state residents agreed with Rell's decision, though a very vocal coalition of liberals and church leaders voiced their opposition not only to Ross's execution, but to capital punishment itself. The execution was set for Jan. 26 at 2:01 a.m., by lethal injection.

It should have been a cut-and-dried case, but it wasn't. Though Ross had steadfastly expressed his desire for his own execution -- and was three times judged as competent to stand trial -- his lawyer, T. R. Paulding, arranged two consecutive stays of execution, the second citing a mysterious conflict of interest in the case -- a case which by now had gone up to the U. S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear it. It was soon learned that Paulding was being unduly influenced in his defense of Ross by Chief U. S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny, who threatened Paulding with loss of his law license if Ross were executed and later were somehow found to have been incompetent. The tactic enabled Ross's death warrant to expire, and, for the time being, at least, the condemned man continues to live.

When news of Chatigny's role in the matter became generally known, Connecticut residents were understandably outraged. So were Republican legislators, who petitioned U. S. House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) for an investigation which could result in Chatigny's being removed from the case, or even, possibly, from the federal bench altogether. General consensus is that Chatigny, in this instance, has clearly crossed the line -- this in a state whose voting patterns are traditionally liberal.

The final outcome of all this is yet to be determined. What is particularly disturbing about it is that this is no isolated incident, but part of a long-standing trend of judicial activism which threatens our very freedom as it systematically works toward a goal of turning our representative democracy into an oligarchy of black-robed tyrants bent on making their opinions and ideology the law of the land. It was for this very reason that our founding fathers set up the branches of government as they did, with a system of checks and balances specifically designed to prevent any one of those branches from gaining too much power and becoming, as it were, a government unto itself. The tendency these days of judges to usurp the role of legislators rather than simply interpreting existing law, which is their proper role, is one predictably decried by conservatives as it is cheered on by liberals. Putting it in a nutshell, our judiciary is out of control, and not being held accountable for its actions by the people it is supposed to serve.

It is in the nature of things for judges to make unpopular decisions from time to time. What needs to be recognized, however, is the difference between a decision which is merely unpopular and one that is bad. It is for this reason that judges are subject to impeachment, and should be impeached if found guilty of the kind of judicial misconduct of which Chatigny is currently accused. Judges should remember that they are men, not gods, and when they presume themselves greater than the law they are bound to uphold, then their removal from the bench is most definitely in order.