I wrote recently about the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has drawn the ire of colleagues in opinions for her rhetoric and extreme positions. Many have expressed alarm over her adherence to what has been described by a colleague as an “imperial judiciary” model of jurisprudence. Now, it appears that Jackson’s increasingly controversial opinions are serving a certain cathartic purpose for the far-left Biden appointee.
On ABC News, Jackson stated, “I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues, and that’s what I try to do.”
Her colleagues have not entirely welcomed that sense of license. The histrionic and hyperbolic rhetoric has increased in Jackson’s opinions, which at times portray her colleagues as abandoning not just the Constitution but democracy itself.
Her dissent in the recent ruling on universal injunctions drew the rebuke of Justice Amy Coney Barrett over what was described as “a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush.” Barrett wrote:
“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”
Jackson, however, clearly feels that opinions are a way for her to opine on issues of the day.
She is not alone. Across the country, liberal judges have been adding their own commentary to decisions in condemning Trump, his supporters, and his policies.
I previously wrote about this pattern of extrajudicial commentary.
District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, was criticized for failing to recuse herself from that case after she made highly controversial statements about Trump from the bench. Chutkan lashed out at “a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” That “one person” was still under investigation at the time, and when Trump was charged, Chutkan refused to let the case go.
Later, Chutkan again added her own commentary when asked to dismiss a case due to Trump pardoning Jan. 6 defendants. She acknowledged that she could not block the pardons but proclaimed that the pardons could not change the “tragic truth” and “cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake. And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”
One of Chutkan’s colleagues, Judge Beryl Howell, also an Obama appointee, lashed out at Trump’s actions, writing, “[T]his Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement.”
Then there is Judge Amit Mehta, another Obama appointee, who has been criticized for conflicted rulings in Trump cases and his bizarre (and ultimately abandoned) effort to banish January 6th defendants from the Capitol.
Last week, Mehta had a straightforward question of jurisdiction concerning a challenge to the denial of grants by the Trump Administration. While correctly dismissing the challenge, Mehta decided to add his own commentary on Trump’s priorities and policies:
“Defendants’ rescinding of these awards is shameful. It is likely to harm communities and individuals vulnerable to crime and violence. But displeasure and sympathy are not enough in a court of law.”
For Justice Jackson, her opinions have at times left her isolated on the Court. Weeks ago, Jackson and Sotomayor were alone in dissent over the defiance of a district court judge of the Court’s decision on universal injunctions. To her credit, Justice Elena Kagan (who voted with Sotomayor and Jackson in dissent in the earlier case) voted with her conservative colleagues in rebuking Judge Brian Murphy in Boston.
Kagan joined in the reversal of Murphy’s conflicting order and wrote the new order “clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial.”
This week, Jackson lost even Sotomayor and stood alone in her dissent in support of an injunction over plans to downsize the government. Sotomayor observed that the Trump order only ordered for agencies to plan for such downsizing and said that the courts could hardly enjoin such policy preparations in the Executive Branch.
However, Jackson could and would.
The controversial position of Jackson on the Court is not due to her liberal views. We have had many such liberal jurists. The difference is how Jackson views her role as a justice.
The danger is not confined to opinions. For years, justices have yielded to the temptations of public speaking before supportive groups. I have long been a critic of what I called the era of “celebrity justices” where members seem to maintain political constituencies in public events.
Such speeches can not only undermine the integrity of the Court by discussing matters that may come before it, but they can create a desire to maintain the adoration of supporters. The greatest danger is that justices will consciously or subconsciously pander to their bases with soundbites and inflammatory rhetoric.
Judicial advocacy from the bench has been a concern since the founding. Article III can have a corrosive impact on certain jurists who come to view themselves as anointed rather than appointed. Most judges and justices are acutely aware of that danger and struggle to confine their rulings to the merits of disputes, avoiding political questions or commentary.
The “opportunity to tell people how I feel” can become a slippery slope where opinions become more like judicial op-eds. The Court is not a cable show. The price of the ticket to being “one of nine” is that you should speak only through your opinions and only on the narrow legal matter before you.
Opinions must remain “opportunities” to do simple justice, not a supreme editorial.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the best-selling author of “The Indispensable Right.”
This column ran on Fox.com
Mr. Turley……Where were you in 1803?
Why do you care?
Stop responding to the trolls. They will go away eventually.
No, we won’t go away.
We do this for a living
George Soros pays us a lot of money to do this.
I am making a fortune harassing the MAGA mob.
Normal people live their lives, raise their families. Leftist cult trolls waste their lives doing crap like this. This thing is not even inadvertently funny, she’s just pathetic and sad.
Thank you for the opportunity for another post.
Every post is money in my pocket.
Another day, another dollar.
It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.
I wonder at times what makes a person into such a sad loser that she lamely trolls a law professor’s blog site. I mean, what is the actual point? Nobody cares what she thinks, nobody will remember anything she said seconds after scrolling past it. Not that far into the future, after she dies with a needle stuck in her arm, nobody will even remember her. Eventually this site will go away and the content will be lost, and it will be like she never even existed.
I’m glad you agree that there is no actual point to this blog.
This blog is utterly pointless.
Its only purpose is to serve as meeting place for MAGA morons, in the same way that unhinged homeless people gather on street corners to scream incoherently at passersby.
That, and the opportunity for me to harass you and collect a nice paycheck from George Soros
Your pointless drivel harasses nobody. You are not even capable of noticing when you have been dismissed as intellectually incapable. There are people out there achieving in life, and here you sit, sad and lonely, trolling on a law professor’s blog, because you’re just not able to do anything more meaningful. You have to accept the fact that, just as in your real life, nobody here cares about your existence, or what you purport to think. You are a non-entity. Your disappearance will not be noticed, because you do not matter.
I’m achieving my goal of irritating MAGA morons like you, while making a few bucks courtesy of my good buddy, George Soros.
You on the other hand, apparently have nothing better to do than respond to my pointless drivel.
What a pathetic existence you must lead.
Soros is not stupid enough to pay for your pointless posts
Ketanji is 54 years old and graduated from law school in 1996. She is no spring chicken and you would have thought that she should have grown out of her adolescent idealism by now. In high school she was a “champion debater” and graduated as class president. At Harvard she took classes in drama and performed improv comedy and as a member of the Black Students Association, she lead protests. She was a supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. She has lived a life being told her poop doesn’t stink. And now it is clear as day that she has the legal mind of high school student. This is the result of being given preferential treatment and handed things you have not earned. And now she believes the world is on the edge of their seats wanting to know how she “feels”.
Once you remove DEI types from their protective bubble and they need compete against true merit, they inevitably expose their inadequacies for all (but those still in the bubble) to see. She can sport all the cowry shell neckbands over her black robe, but to the cogent world, she is in over her head and it is plain for all to see.
(sorry, just now noticed that you also had (rightfully) mentioned the cowrie shell necklace.)
BillyG: Nice comment. Is it “adolescent idealism” –or a learned chip-on-the-shoulder aggrandized sense of self-importance inspired by DEI, church, politics, etc.?
–I take particular note in, -whereas other female justices have worn respectable and benign collars with their robes, Jackson chooses to wear a “statement” necklace of cowrie shells, –identified by the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Smithsonian as a statement of resistance and protection against oppressive evils.
“Justice Jackson’s necklace wasn’t just beautiful; it was armor. It carried the weight of her cultural past and the silent rebellion.”
https://newsone.com/5870056/ketanji-brown-jackson-cowrie-shell-necklace/
Well said Professor. I am highly concerned around how our legal system seems to have lost its footing where justice is not the end goal, but, rather advocacy.
I understood that Justices were to objectively comprehend the law and constitution. Since when did it become a platform for subjective partisan speech?
Well said. The dicta in her dissents will not serve as the basis to change precedent in any of these or similar cases. Pure, unadulterated ideology
She needs to find new clerks
I think a better solution would be for her to find a new job – perhaps on broadway.
I really don’t care about their feelings or their politics. All I want is a learned and rational interpretation of the law as it pertains to the case before them. Anything else is unimportant to the case. Her time to discuss her “feelings” was when she was appointed and then reviewed by the Senate. She should have been disqualified then.
She is starting to sound like the Israeli Supreme Court where decisions are made based on “Reasonableness”, whatever that is. They don’t even have to write up the case with and how itt conflicts with law, and can veto (allegedly) appointments of Cabinet members.
We already had a period of an activitist Supreme Court after FDR appointed 7 of the 9 (sounds like a Star Trek character) Justices and then Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren. At that time we had the Federal Court system into almost every facet of life including school bus routes. Some was good for Civil Rights but a lot was overbearing and subsequent Courts seemed to wish to back track to a degree.
Obama’s Judges were bad enough in many cases but Biden’s appointments certify that he was not in his right mind.
I know about Marbury vs Madison but where does it say specifically in the Constitution that the Federal Court System and Supreme Court can declare an act of Congress unconstutional or place a restraining order on a law passed by congress and signed by the president (even though not declared unconstitutional)
Section 181.2
By rights, Jackson should resign from the bench and either run for political office or become an attorney for a 501(c) organization aligned with her views. Obviously that won’t happen, though.
What seems to be lacking here is discretion; the ability or power to discern what is responsible or socially appropriate.
KBJ will likely go down in the history of the Court as being one of the worst, not to mention ineffective, jurists to have been placed there. However, her placement there potentially having been initiated by an autopen, that mishap is not altogether unexpected. Unfortunate, yes, but not unexpected.
Years ago, I was required to take a psychological test for employment. I was amazed at how bizarre some of the questions were.
I asked a friend, a psychology professor, why they wrote a test with such crazy questions. He said, “To a crazy person, these questions seem normal.”
Since the hard left lost much of their power (senate, house, Supreme Court majority) they have taken off their gloves, pulled out their tactical gear and baseball bats. They are Branch Davidian, People’s Temple crazy and radicalized.
The mayor of L.A. mayor has strong ties in her past to the radical Cuban Venceremos Brigade. Now a radical communist is on the ticket in New York. They gaslight, disrupt and ignore law. They were happy to say “nobody’s above the law” when it applied to somebody else. But when it applies to them, they’ve developed a sudden case of amnesia.
Justice Jackson is the poster child for what you get when your nomination process is, “Gotta be black; gotta be a female (because we’re not sure what a ‘woman’ is).”
Instead of getting a gifted, intelligent, responsible, qualified candidate, you get whomever is close to hand and meets those two requirements; requirements that have nothing whatsoever to do with the qualifications and prerequisites of the position.
We saw the same selection criteria applied to Kamala and that didn’t turn out well either. You’d think the Democrats would have learned better by now.
She has no business being on the SC………………
Its scary to think of what might happen to our great country if, God Forbid, more justices like Jackson are approved.
*. That is the transformation plan. Through affirmative action aka DEI the government has been peppered and salted.
kenji jackson check the boxes. Black, liberal to left-leaning, female — But as for merit? Clearly Biden’s handlers and the Democrat party did not take that into account.
Is this anything other than the fabled chickens coming home to roost? For the past several decades, the nation’s law schools have been heralding the teaching of this touchy-feely form of jurisprudence. Gone are the tenets of law, the concept of consistency or stare decisis, as it’s called in Latin, replaced by “opinions” of the day and of the person chosen to give them. Rubbish! Jackson is wrong, she knows it, her colleagues know it, and the people know it. We can surely survive her tenure on the Court and use it to caution similar selections of ideologues in the future. My prediction is that she will “negotiate” moving on to something new and better for her because it must be difficult sitting alone with her opinions while her colleagues expose her lack of scholarship in the law. Confronted daily by her own inadequacy is stressful, even for the most dedicated zealot. Ironically, her “opinions” may inspire her colleagues to provide additional dicta to decisions that not only differ with Jackson’s opinions, but in the process provides abundant grounds for doing so.
*. She fashions herself as a thorn in the crown and intends to stay. She enjoys being a thorn. As an earlier commenter pointed out, “to a crazy person the questions are normal”. (Not the exact words but..)
The illusion is to the crown of thorns. The crown was without diadems, jewels. The Roman attempt at humor and an image of the people the Romans didn’t want. She imagines she’s an advocate of and for the thorns.
Why am I saying this…
This is the direct result of identity politics. When the “best and brightest” aren’t chosen, but people who check certain boxes, you get ideologues and extremists on the bench, for life. How and why should anyone expect to be treated fairly and impartially by these activist judges?
“Justice” Jackson is the very model of the liberal treasonous takeover of our education systems. She was not taught to think but to “feel”. As the elder justices begin to retire I fear that we will see more of her uneducated ilk be appointed to the bench. The Schumer statement about installing “liberal” justices is born out as the lower courts issue “feels” instead of erudite rulings.
@Michael
I do too, we can’t pass the torch. Things are going to get very interesting as competent people begin to age out over the next 10-15 years. Not good. So many of us were fools in 2008.
Yes. I never voted for Obozo and his merry band of traitors. When I didn’t follow the crowd I began to lose friends and family. My oldest son, to this day, still does not speak to me. Heartbreaking.
You and me both! I have family members who have lost their minds with TDS. Started somewhat with Obama. I was polite but pointed out the dangers of his policies. We all still got along but when Trump was elected all objectivity went out the door as I was all of sudden a racist. Justice Jackson is just another step towards increased tribalism which will destroy this country
Yes, the TDS has cost me 3 of my 4 children, so far. I’m cast aside like some piece of garbage.
Absolutely nothing says more about being trapped in a cult, than the willingness to abandon family relationships.
This is the defining feature of ALL cults.
You are the ones with a derangement syndrome.
I agree.
Michael and Dollar Bill are trapped in the MAGA cult and refuse to admit it.
When you are willing to abandon family relationships you are in a very bad place.
Very, very sad.
And another one. What kind of person cuts off a family member due to politics? Pretty much every time that I hear this, it’s leftists like you doing it. It’s almost never folks on the right that cut off family. So, tell me, who’s in the cult again? When was the last time that you read anything that disagreed with your leftist programming? You live in a hermetically sealed bubble, and you have the gall to say that anybody else is in a cult? Look in the mirror, but take the Kamalalalalala stickers off of it first.
That’s your takeaway? Really? Michael’s children have cut him off due to their cult, and you’re blaming the victim? Where in his posts did Michael suggest that the estrangement was anything other than one-sided? Did he suggest that he has no desire to reconcile with his family? No, that’s all your projection.
It used to be that families could disagree about politics and still be family, but then actual cultists like you came along. The problem is that cultists, like you, don’t know that you’re in a cult, and to you and your fellow cult members everyone else looks crazy. Michael is being completely normal and rational, it’s nutjobs like you are destroying the civilization.
Classic responses of cult members.
Textbook examples of how cult members are programmed to attack outsiders at all costs.
All cults have the same mindset that “we are the normal ones”, and outsiders must be attacked vociferously and demonized and insulted using extreme language.
This how cultists reinforce allegiance to the cult.
This is why the children of Michael and Dollar Bill are alienated.
Michael and Dollar Bill make no mention of attempts at reconciliation. It appears that they just accept the situation
Again this is typical cult behavior.
No where did he mention attacking his own children either. You are projecting more than a multiplex theater. Break free of your cult.
A cult? Do you mean like this? 🙂
“Obama Kids: Sing for Change (Pyongyang Remix)” – ReasonTV (YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2naSzb1psU
Or do you mean like calling a certain someone a “lightworker?”
“Is Obama an enlightened being? / Spiritual wise ones say: This sure ain’t no ordinary politician. You buying it?” – SFGATE
https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/morford/article/Is-Obama-an-enlightened-being-Spiritual-wise-2544395.php
It seems to me that it’s your side are the ones who’s in a cult and have been for nearly 20 years. “VoTe BlUe NoMaTTer Who!” 🤪
I was 1 unanswered question away from voting for Obama. When he said we are x number of days away from a fundamental transformation, I asked, “into what!?” I could not find an answer. Well, we have the answer now and I made the right decision.
“days away from a fundamental transformation”
It sounded like a cult to me at the time, and it still does. Wonder if the two losers above still have their Obama shrines?
@Michael
Same with my brother. It really is a mental tic. Literally nothing else that was fine before has changed in either of us. It’s heartbreaking madness.
Like so much that was inflicted on us by the Biden cabal, this needs to be nipped in the bud *right bleeping now*. May she go down in history as the only one.
The levels of sheer absurdity we were reaching by 2024 are tough to wrap one’s head around. Jackson is not a scholar, an expert, or even a particularly intelligent person.
Her appointment was and is a travesty, and at least she’s making that clear. I’m sure it falls on deaf ears for the similarly emotionally and intellectually stunted, but at least we can now see exactly who these people really are and what they intend.
Well said James.
Isn’t she the one (during confirmation) who could not define what a woman is?
I wish one of the Senators questioning her during nomination hearings had said this: “Ms. Jackson, referring to when you said you’re not a biologist, I must ask what seems to be a rather simple question. Are YOU a woman?” I would have liked to seen her response or lack there of.
*. Not that she couldn’t but that she would not define a woman. She would not define a woman because all people are equal in every way, in every circumstance or event as her interpretation. The principle for her is “equality”.
My interpretation of equal addresses a form of government established by Kings as kingdoms. Kingdoms have political systems. The new political system established by the United States is not a kingdom. The idea of democracy and citizens wasn’t new but reapplied by the founders.
Law is also interpreted by how do you feel about it and not what do you think about it by Jackson’s approach. The response to define woman by Jackson was clever by half. I think that means a smarty response.
Equality, equal references a form of government in reality but became far flung through time.
People like Jackson feel citizenship should be deleted because it’s adversarial in that I’m a citizen and you’re not. Same for borders, I’m an American and you’re not. Same for natural born you’re not. I can be president and you can’t. Goes on to absurdity…
Now some smart person with double my intelligence and education will come along and set me straight. We’re not equal indeed. I’ll never build rockets either.
*. ^ ^ Jackson’s focus is “equality” as the principle of her concern. Because equality became an absurdity outside of understanding it references a political system, Jackson and friends took a new approach thinking it can’t mean we’re all equal because some are short and others tall.
Then the aha moment. It must mean equal in what we receive, have in money to purchase goods and services. They kept the old meaning and applied the new meaning, too, and ushered in socialism and ultimately communism.
A true thorn she is as redistribution proceeds throughout the political octopus – better than none starve than a few overfed. It’s global.
People roam through homes now while you sleep hunting for and gathering food, clothes and accessories.
The good guys don’t always win.
“equal” “identical”
We are the human race. No clones need apply for membership.
James
or even a particularly intelligent person.
______________________________
She keeps proving that, every-time she opens her mouth.
Justice Jackson, Chutkan other Left Wing Radical DEM have no business being Judges, may better Judges for “Night Court TV”. They do not rule on the law but on Left Wing Views/Politics. Their needs to be a clean sweep of the courts. Get rid of these Political Left Wing Judges and replace with the Real Deal who know the law and Constitution and are Blind to Politics. Impeach them all.
Yes please, tell us how you feel.
https://youtu.be/53VUs8dlUt4
-Oddball
Prof. Turley does tell his what he thinks. That, after all, is the purpose of HIS blog.
Not the Professor. Rather, our wonderfully brilliant newbie to the SCOTUS bench who is desirous of sharing her every whimsical thought.
-Oddball