We Need An Independent Federal Judiciary

The federal judiciary is composed of judges who have been chosen on the basis of their political standing and not because of their legal acumen. The President nominates judges for the United States District Courts, and Congress validates or rejects those appointments. Generally, a Republican President nominates good party conservatives who have "toed the line" and been good political allies to the party's positions. A Democratic President will nominate slightly more liberal candidates but due to Republican obstructionism in the approval process, even Democratic Presidents must be very careful to appoint moderate or conservative nominees who will be approved by the Republicans.

Therefore, even a supposedly more enlightened President, such as Obama, will not be able to put in the judiciary those individuals who have a consistent record of standing up for civil rights, employee rights, union rights, minority rights, and essential civil liberties. Even one single state court decision, or a single speech by the candidate, that conjures up visions of civil libertarian justice or independent thinking "off the beaten path", can prevent that individual from ever serving on the federal judiciary. Take a look at President Clinton's record, for example, and you will see a failure to appoint "out of the box" thinkers. We, of the liberal stripe, thought that by electing Clinton twice in a row that we would at the very least improve the independence of the federal judiciary. But his appointments were mostly dismally political and 'neutral' in every sense of the word.

The federal criminal justice system is frankly a mess, as I will explain in some of the entries to follow. For now, let us make no mistake about it: the federal judiciary is one of the broken spikes in the wheel of American democracy. We get only the mediocre individuals who have succeeded in not pushing any buttons or speaking out on anything even remotely requiring an independent view of life. Nice people though they may be, we expect and we want more. We want to have federal judges who are serving their true destiny in the job. We want more of those rare federal judges who have led the way for legal reform, and who have fastened to the ground the social framework of a progressive body of case law. We want those who are not afraid to guarantee strong civil rights despite the constant glare and meddling of ignorant political forces.

Thus, the federal judiciary is currently populated by individuals who will not "rock the ship", those who do not have the habit of thinking for themselves, the people who have notable records for supporting all of the quirks and perceptions of the established system. And they support, nurture,and manifest, the injustices that permeate federal court decisions day in and day out currently throughout the United States.

So much needs to be done to correct this catastrophe. We need to change the method of choosing federal judges. If this requires a constitutional amendment, then so be it. As much as we practically can, we need to take politics out of the process of choosing our federal judges. We need to examine some of the proven methods of finding independent judges, such as may be found in the recommendations of the American Bar Association. Again, a federal judge should be in that job because it is his destiny to follow his soul's natural path to self-fulfillment. A federal judge motivated by nothing other than love for the job, and the calling of truth and justice, is the miraculous achievement of public service that we as Americans cherish in our idealistic vision of society. I call on those of you who know the folly of our current system to stand up, take a position, call for change, and act for what you know to be right. Let's obtain an independent, highly qualified federal judiciary that fully, or at least nearly fully, satisfies the visions of justice and American democracy that we always took for granted, but which we were shocked to find out no longer exists.