This approach is often at odds with the legalistic approach, which frequently favors a highly contrived, insufferably strained examination of issues. Legal issues are often extant only in the mind of a judge. Lawyers are educated by Professors who run every simple fact pattern through a strainer seeking to find issues. Calling something an issue does not make it one , it just puts the handle on it. Tedious examination of the issues causes ever more fanciful treatment of the case as law students, complete and perfect sycophants to their mentors,try to impress all with their superior intellect. And it is true, lawyers exist for that role. Teachers, professors, colleagues, Senior Partner,Judges and sometimes even clients. Lawyers tend to try and show off sometimes they succeed, more often they come across as obnoxious and just as often as craven
Lawyers can't see the fallacy of their craft. Only those with a perspective outside of the law can see it. It is legalistic bull shit, and the nation got a good look at it the other night with the legal challenge to the immigration ban case. Cutting to the question? Does the President have the authority to bar ,temporarily,immigration from areas of the world that are perceived as potential threats to the nation?
Simple, it does not involve motivations outside of that question, it does not involve politics, popularity. Originated in Washington state, the case begs the question as to whom is really effected. Did a Microsoft H 1 B visa holder miss a meeting? But it does not turn on those "issues" or desire or opinion regarding the propriety of the action, it turns on Presidential authority. Yet the Judges took this off track and thus showed their complete impracticality.
The fear of criticism is so great that lawyers can not say anything much about a Judge.
So much so that lawyers are prohibited ,by their own set of rules, to make critical comments
Keep your mouth shut
So Judges and Judicial Process in general have become accustomed to being placed on some sort of pedestal. The reality is somewhat different. People become Judges because they do not want to have to work in the hard knock life of lawyering, chasing clients, payments, schedules and the like.
But in the real world , although many are ok, judges never hear a word of criticism. I never said a word about a Judge who regularly took the bench three sheets to the wind. Another I had a trial before had come out of re hab the week before and was on probation and not permitted to sit a jury. So of course the first thing he did was sit a jury and start the trial. When the chief judge of the County, a notorious womanizer in his own right, found out he came down and tore into the judge like there was no tomorrow. Of course sending the ju
ry out of the courtroom for the diatribe. Needless to say the rehab efforts unraveled by the end of the lunch break as our esteemed jurist came back blotto.Judge goes off the reservation
Point Well Made
They are human, they are frequently highly educated and have attained high academic honors, but just as frequently they are numbskulls . But the public rarely if ever gets the real view and as such they have allowed the myth of the judicial pedestal to grow inviolate. At the Federal Level they are highly political for their appointments come from high political sources. There is a quid pro quo present that the public is kept in the dark about. Expectations exist and are made known.
A well known lawyer by the name of Gerry Spence, once suggested that Judges should be drafted out of the profession of lawyers without regard to politics and affiliations. His thought was that there would be good and bad among the draftees, but that there would not be the politicking for the position which results in politicking in the position.
In my home state, the judiciary has entered into areas over which they have no particular knowledge or expertise, particularly in the area of affordable housing and education. The net effect is that we have a mess of epic proportions to the point that neither area is well served. It also begs the question as to what were these guys thinking when they started out designing affordable housing in an area where the tax per dwelling unit averages about 1000 per month.
It is no time to get all worked up over comments which were really rather benign. We should be more worried about the Judiciary that will broach no criticism of their conduct, that is the real danger.