A lying justice
Published Wed, Nov 26 2008 10:35 AM
Technorati Tags: Courts, Annoyances, Politics
U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed while giving a speech last week. This made a small bit of news, but the big news in the blogosphere was the heckler that stood up and yelled “Tyrant. You are a tyrant.” as he was speaking. Speculation quickly arose that it was Washington State Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders, although this was unconfirmed. Of course, when pressed Justice Sanders denied it.
Sanders said he did attend the gathering of the Federalist Society last week, but had gone back to his hotel before Mukasey made his evening address.
Today though, Justice Sanders has a different story.
After listening to Mukasey defend the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies — its detainment practices at Guantánamo Bay, its interpretation of the Geneva Conventions' reach — Sanders stood and shouted "Tyrant! You are a tyrant!"
"Frankly, everybody in the room was applauding or sometimes laughing, and I thought, 'I've got to stand up and say something.' And I did," Sanders told The Seattle Times on Tuesday. "I stood up and said, 'Tyrant,' then I sat down again, then I left."
Either Justice Sanders left before the speech as he said in yesterday's article, or he left after heckling Mukasey during the speech. Either he was there to make his little political statement or he wasn't. Either way, in at least one of his public statements after the event he knowingly told the public a lie. He'd make a great politician — he already exhibits one of the primary character traits of the class.
This man is a State Supreme Court Justice! It leaves me wondering — how can the citizens of the State of Washington expect justice and integrity in case law when we can't trust the people meting out that justice to tell the simple truth?
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Christopher Hamilton responded with:
Angel responded with:
 | on a lighter note: Happy Thanksgiving and keep fightin the good fight my friend !! :-) |
David responded with:
 | Justice is no longer blind (in a good sense), but it does have a tin ear that cannot discern truth and a forked tongue that cannot speak it. No, "justice" is now guided by "The Martha Rule" ("We can 'get' anybody for something. All we have to do is want to and either lie (or suborn perjury) or twist the law to our own ends) and by personal ambition.
OTOH, I can recall as recently as a quarter century ago hearing with my own ears a state district court judge say, before handing down the harshest sentence he was allowed by law, "I never knew a cow that deserved to get stolen, but I've known some men who deserved to be hung."
The rustlers (backed a livestock trailer up to a fence, lowered the ramp over the barbed wire and drove as many cattle as they could up into the trailer) recoeved as many years incarceration as the judge coule mete out. If he could have hung 'em, he would have. Sadly, the punishment of theft of private property is no longer viewed as a genuine concern of government, any more than truth or justice are any longer concerns of the courts. |
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