John Hood's Daily Journal: Turning Judicial Selection Over to Special Interests

By Daren Bakst.

There’s an ongoing debate about the best way to select judges in North Carolina. Some people prefer partisan elections. Others prefer gubernatorial appointments. Still others want to see a system mixing appointments with retention elections. The list of possible scenarios could grow even longer.

But a recent development related to judicial vacancies outside of the election process should concern everyone interested in good government.

The North Carolina Constitution gives the governor exclusive power to fill judicial vacancies that arise between elections. Through a recent executive order, Gov. Beverly Perdue effectively has placed this appointment power in the hands of special-interest groups and partisan insiders.

The governor created an 18-person commission that will nominate three candidates for each judicial vacancy. The governor, regardless of whether she agrees with the slate of nominees, must select one nominee to fill the vacancy. Because Perdue is required to choose one of the commission’s nominees, it is the unelected and unaccountable special-interest groups and insiders who will be picking judges, not the governor.

The commission’s composition is completely political in nature. Eight special-interest groups nominated three attorneys each, one of whom the governor was required to pick for the commission. She chose the 10 remaining members herself. While there’s nothing unusual in a governor being influenced by partisan interests in performing her duties, she shouldn’t formally abdicate power to her political allies.

This is akin to the governor issuing an executive order compelling her to let special-interest groups pick three bills, one of which she must veto, or to let special-interest groups identify three prisoners, one of whom she must pardon.

In these situations, the governor is delegating away her express power to private and unaccountable interests. Citizens would not accept the governor passing the buck on those types of important decisions, and they should be even more outraged at Perdue’s attempt to avoid accountability for the selection of members of our judiciary.

If the commission merely made recommendations that the governor could accept or reject at her pleasure, there wouldn’t be a problem. Instead, Perdue is compelling herself by law to pick one of the commission’s appointees. This shows a lack of confidence in her own abilities and a disrespect for the state Constitution that has given her, and not anyone else, especially private parties, the power to execute the governor’s powers.

The executive order is just one part of an ongoing attack on our judicial system. The N.C. Bar Association has been pushing to amend the state constitution and implement a comparable commission model as a way to eliminate completely the citizens’ right to select appellate judges.

Under the proposed amendment, the governor would be forced to select one of two nominees appointed by a judicial nominating commission. The only person who could challenge the appointee in a subsequent election would be the other individual nominated by the commission. Either way, the commission gets a person it wants. The public would have no say as to who would be eligible to sit on the bench and would have to choose from candidates selected by special interests.

The proposed scheme would be far more political than our current election system because it would encourage — and, in fact, would require — behind-the-scenes lobbying as opposed to transparent elections.


http://www.carolinajournal.com/jhdailyjournal/

Federal Appeals Court Tells Voters Their Votes Don’t Matter Anymore

Federal Appeals Court Tells Voters Their Votes Don’t Matter Anymore

One of the most basic principles of freedom in America is the right to vote and to have your vote count. Thousands of lives have been lost and many more maimed to give us that freedom and to protect it. Millions of people in other nations would love to have the right to vote on matters that would affect their lives. To so many people worldwide, there is almost nothing more precious than the freedom to vote.

However, here in America, we are seeing a frightening trend where a court consisting of just one judge to as many as nine judges in the Supreme Court that take it upon themselves to tell American voters that their votes don’t count.

I recall a measure some years back where nearly 75% of voters in a southwestern state voted in favor of an English only bill. The bill was intended to save the state, county and city governments as well as employers thousands of dollars by not having to print everything in English and Spanish. It only took one liberal judge to declare the bill unconstitutional, thus telling the majority of the voters in that state that their votes didn’t matter.

There have been similar cases over the years and now we have another instance where the judicial system is telling Oklahoma voters that their votes don’t matter.

In 2010, 70% of Oklahoma voters voted in favor of State Question 755. SQ 755 was an amendment to the state constitution that barred courts from looking to the laws of other nations, especially Sharia laws when making their rulings in cases before them. The exact wording in the measure is, “Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia law.”

Sponsor of the bill, State Senator Anthony Sykes explained that the goal of the measure was intended to restrict judges in Oklahoma to apply only US and state laws when they render their decisions. This also meant that judges were not to turn to any laws, including religious laws from other nations.

Read more: Federal Appeals Court Tells Voters Their Votes Don’t Matter Anymore http://godfatherpolitics.com/3090/federal-appeals-court-tells-voters-their-votes-dont-matter-anymore/#ixzz1jHHk0pFJ

Senate to vote Thursday on LIBERAL Judges

Senate to vote Thursday on Road-side Strangler, Anti-Marriage Judges -- Please call 17 undecided Senators listed far below, to filibuster Liu and Chatigny

The lame-duck Senate Judiciary committee has announced it will vote Thursday on the nominations of 12 liberal judges appointed by President Obama, including the Road-side Strangler judge Robert N. Chatigny, who seeks promotion to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, despite his history of arguing "sexual sadism" is not a crime, but a disease.

President Obama continues to push five radically extreme left judges to appeals courts, and last month the Senate Judiciary Committee split along party lines when forwarding their names to the full Senate (again). National Public Radio (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) has labeled these judges "The Fringe Five," and repeated Republican concerns that they are far too liberal to be easily confirmed. For example, "My problem with Goodwin Liu is that I believe he'll violate his oath as soon as he takes it," said Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). Let's fax 100 Senators to help Sen. Coburn filibuster these judges when the lame duck session re-convenes, especially Chatigny and Liu:

The Washington Times editorials continue to rate President Obama's nominations for Judges as "The Worst Judiciary Ever: Obama's Judicial Nominations are Frightening." The two worst judges are now up for a full Senate vote: Goodwin Liu and Robert Chatigny. The Times rated the third worst Judge, David Hamilton, who ruled in Indiana case Hinrichs v. Bosma that the words "Jesus" or "Christ" were illegal words but prayers to "Allah" were totally legal. Why are Liu and Chatigny rated even worse than Hamilton?

SELECT HERE, SIGN PETITION, AND WE'LL AUTO-FAX YOUR PERSONALIZED PETITION TO ALL 100 U.S. SENATORS, OPPOSING BOTH LIU AND CHATIGNY
https://secure.conservativedonations.com/pijn_twojudges/?a=4918

The worst Road-side Strangler Judge Robert Chatigny (pronounced Shot-nee) attempted to free the "Roadside Strangler" Michael Ross, who had killed 7 victims, showing empathy for the killer (but not the victims) because the killer suffered from the "disease" of sexual sadism. No kidding, Chatigny wrote that sexual sadism was a "mitigating factor" warranting Ross be released from prison after raping and killing seven women. (Read Chatigny's detailed ruling on Ross below.) Thank God, Judge Chatigny was overruled and Ross was later executed. [Chaps comment: Jesus supported the death penalty in Matthew 15:3-4 and Mark 7:8-11.] But Judge Chatigny lived to continue his reign of insanity, imposing sentences "well below the recommended minimum in a series of child-pornography and sexual-assault cases and even tried to invalidate Connecticut's version of the Megan's Law sex-offender registry," according to The Wash. Times.

The second-worst Anti-Marriage Judge Goodwin Liu (pronounced Loo) "offered an amicus brief to the California Supreme Court in which he and others argued that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage (approved twice by the voters of California) was unconstitutional," according to Human Events. Liu also recklessly attacked Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito because they were allegedly "unfriendly to civil rights, abortion rights and the environment." (Can you say pro-abortion?) Finally in a 2008 Stanford Law Review article, Liu supported a judicial role in "establishing constitutional welfare rights—i.e., affirmative rights, to education, shelter, subsistence, healthcare and the like, or to the money these things cost," Human Events reported.

Both Judges face full-Senate confirmation soon, since Chatigny passed committee 11-7 (not even Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA would vote for him) for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, and Liu also passed committee 12-7 on a strict party-line vote for the 9th Circuit. Both can be stopped by a filibuster from all Republicans, so let's take action...

SELECT HERE, SIGN PETITION, AND WE'LL AUTO-FAX YOUR PERSONALIZED PETITION TO ALL 100 U.S. SENATORS, OPPOSING BOTH LIU AND CHATIGNY
https://secure.conservativedonations.com/pijn_twojudges/?a=4918

Read Judge Chatigny's legal opinion about "The Roadside Strangler" who killed 7 people:
JUDGE CHATIGNY: "This is a man [Roadside Strangler Michael Ross] who, before he went off to Cornell, was as far as I know okay. He's at Cornell, he has this classmate, this petite Asian girl who is sweet and he likes her and he winds up killing her because he has this affliction, this terrible disease [sexual sadism]. And having gratified this awful, uncontrollable, impulse to sexually brutalize this person he liked and then kill her, he realizes that he has done evil and he stands on the bridge and is going to kill himself before he does it again. But he doesn't jump. And today, he looks back at those days and he hates himself because he didn't jump. He was a coward...

"So for Michael Ross to be able to back out now, forget it. The only way Michael Ross is going to get his life back is if somebody like you [defense lawyer], and maybe only you, says, 'We realize you're no longer in a position to change your mind.' You're like the guy standing on the bridge back at the gorge in Ithaca, and you're not going to make the same mistake, the one you made back then because you went on and took seven innocent lives, and you know that you are responsible. You know you had sexual sadism. You know that you became a monster because of it. And you have now found a way to end this. And there's no turning back...

"I suggest to you that Michael Ross may be the least culpable, the least, of the people on death row. Michael Ross, by what I see in the record, suffered from these intolerable obsessional bouts with sexual sadism, which were not relieved until he began that regimen of chemical castration, whereupon they were relieved. And then when it was taken away from him, they came back. And it was only when he got the alternative regimen that he found relief again...

"He explains that the only people in the system who showed him any kindness were two women. The only ones who didn't treat him like a monster were these two women, yet in the grip of this disease he would lie awake all night thinking about sexually brutalizing them and killing them. So is he a sick man? Boy, oh, boy...

"So when he says, I feel that I'm the victim of a miscarriage of justice because they didn't treat it as a mitigating factor, I can well understand where he's coming from...

"Going beyond that, we have a guy who, having gotten beyond the sexual sadism, is nevertheless trapped in this environment at Northern [prison] where you have no human contact to speak of, you're locked up in a seven by twelve foot cell where you get to ruminate about all these things that you did, you get to think about how the world hates you, despises you."--Judge Robert Chatigny about Roadside Strangler Michael Ross.

SELECT HERE, SIGN PETITION, AND WE'LL AUTO-FAX YOUR PERSONALIZED PETITION TO ALL 100 U.S. SENATORS, OPPOSING BOTH LIU AND CHATIGNY
https://secure.conservativedonations.com/pijn_twojudges/?a=4918

Goodwin Liu is an extremely liberal professor from Berkeley, who, according to a top homosexual blog in San Diego, "signed onto a friend-of-the court brief, prepared by lesbian law scholar Kathleen Sullivan, in the same-sex marriage lawsuit before the California Supreme Court in 2008. The brief argued that the California constitution’s guarantee of equal protection required same-sex couples have the same access to marriage licenses as straight couples."

Liu told the Los Angeles Times, "there is no question that [Proposition 8 traditional marriage] targets a historically vulnerable group and eliminates a very important right [to gay marriage.]" Liu predicted same-sex marriage will "become an unremarkable thread of our social fabric" and Christians who oppose it are a "narrow and ultimately temporary majority."

Liberals praise Liu's pro-abortion, pro-environment, and extreme pro-welfare views, noting he finds welfare [i.e. Obamacare] a Constitutional right, which even Justice Sonia Sotomayor rebuffed. Liu clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and served the Obama-Biden transition team, and the ACLU-Northern California.

Liu co-authored a book "Keeping Faith with the Constitution," which praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 decision, Lawrence v. Texas, striking down sodomy laws.

Liu wrote in his book: "In worrying that criminalization of private homosexual conduct invites public discrimination against homosexual persons... the Court understood that the lives and identities of gay people transcend what they do in their bedrooms to encompass who they are in civil society. Protecting gay people’s choices within the intimacy of their homes serves essentially as a safeguard of their dignity in a more public sphere."

[Chaps comment: Liu is eternally wrong. Courts should never 'protect' sin, which hurts all homosexuals eternally, and costs their very souls. Judges should always reflect Divine Justice, and prepare all men for God's final Judgment. Thus Liu opposes God Himself.]

WE MUST TAKE ACTION TODAY. So please sign our new fax-petition, but then PLEASE MAKE 17 PHONE CALLS TODAY to each of the undecided Senate votes here, asking to oppose and filibuster both Judge Liu (Loo) and Judge Chatigny (Shot-nee), because they both oppose traditional family values and pervert justice:

x Ben Nelson, D-NE 202-224-6551 y George Voinovich, R-OH 202-224-3353
x Bill Nelson, D-FL 202-224-5274 y Judd Gregg, R-NH 202-224-3324
x Kay Hagan, D-NC 202-224-6342 y Richard Lugar, R-IN 202-224-4814
x Mark Pryor, D-AR 202-224-2353 y Olympia Snowe, R-ME 202-224-5344
xz Blanche Lincoln, D-AR 202-224-4843 y Susan Collins, R-ME 202-224-2523
z Chris Dodd, D-CT 202-224-2823 xy Kit Bond, R-MO 202-224-5721
z Barbara Boxer, D-CA 202-224-3553
z Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY 202-224-4451 z Michael Bennet, D-CO 202-224-5852
z Mark Kirk, R-IL 202-224-2854 z Byron Dorgan, D-ND 202-224-2551

(x = Lives in the South. y = Voted for Sebelius. z = Seat up for election in 2010.)

But remember, 100 emails = 10 phone calls = 1 fax in political capital, since the Senate staffers must handle each paper and usually write a reply. So please join our automated fax-petition campaign first, WE WILL ESPECIALLY FAX THE 17 ABOVE. Then please forward this email to your friends in the states with Senators listed above, and to all pastors in all 50 states.

SELECT HERE, SIGN PETITION, AND WE'LL AUTO-FAX YOUR PERSONALIZED PETITION TO ALL 100 U.S. SENATORS, OPPOSING BOTH LIU AND CHATIGNY
https://secure.conservativedonations.com/pijn_twojudges/?a=4918

Bless you, in Jesus' name,
Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt

P.S. Time is urgent! The full Senate will vote on both Liu and Chatigny soon. Select and sign today, & we will forward your name immediately. Please don't wait another minute. Life, Liberty, and Morality are too important to be banned by two extremist judges