Justice O’Connor Blasts Republican Congressmen and Warns of Dictatorship

Nina Totenberg, NPR legal affairs correspondent, attended a speech by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, at Georgetown University.  This speech was not available for broadcast, but Nina covered the high points. 

Nina quoted Justice O’Connor:

Attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms.

Our effectiveness is premised on the notion that we [judges] won’t be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts. 

The nation’s founders wrote repeatedly that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government, those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. 

Nina then reported that Justice O’Connor took aim at former GOP House leader Tom Delay, “She didn’t name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year, when Delay took off after the courts for rulings on abortion, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case.”   Nina quoted Justice O’Connor:

This was after the federal courts had applied Congress’s one time only statute about Schiavo as it was written, not as the Congressman might have wished it were written.  The response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint was that the Congressman blasted the courts.  

It gets worse.  Death threats against judges are increasing. 

Next Justice O’Connor went after U.S. Senator Cornyn from Texas and his comments on the Senate floor on April 4, 2005.

It doesn’t help when a high-profile senator suggests that there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with.

Nina closed with this final quote from Justice O’Connor:

There have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms.  Recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges.   Any of these might be debatable, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with.  I am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning.  

We must be ever vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

For a historical perspective on judicial impeachment, refer to Why the Founding Fathers Would Be Appalled at Tom DeLay’s Call to Impeach Judges at the History News Network.

To listen to Nina’s complete report, refer to O’Connor Decries Republican Attacks on Courts.