Activist Judges

With the revelation that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was among Tea Baggers demonstrating in Washington D.C. can there be any doubt that there is a extremist element who are influencing the decisions of the Supreme Court of the U.S.? I know some people will try to distance Clarence from his wife’s actions – although she wasn’t seen spitting on African-American Congressmen, screaming racial or sexist epithets or carrying signs advocating violent revolution – common sense tells us that those political views are apples that haven’t fallen far from the tree.

Justices Thomas, Alito, Roberts and Scalia have all made public comments decidedly not very judicial and revelatory of a radical agenda to overturn precedent and decide cases to promote the corporate takeover of our Government. Some, like me, recognize that when the Court overturned decades of legal precedents to allow unrestricted rights of corporations (even multi-national corporations) to fund political campaigns was the first step in allowing a “corporate coup”.

There is a movement to change the law allowing judges to be elected, because Corporate money has been used to elect judges who, in turn, make rulings that favor corporate interests over the right of individuals. In Michigan, we have seen how Insurance Companies and the Chamber of Commerce have gotten judges elected to the State Supreme Court with a devastating result to individual rights and the trial by a jury of peers system. Unfortunately, many of those same Justices were initially appointed by a Governor who was also elected by the same Insurance Companies.  A solution to the problem of activist conservative judges is not easy or apparent, but to those of us who spend our lives fighting for the rights of victims it is becoming an impossible task to get justice. I won’t back down or stop fighting for the people, but I worry when jury verdicts are overturned and victims are denied justice or a voice in deciding our government.