. . .
a “The Supremes open the doors today.”
b “Didn’t His Excellency Chief Justice John G. Roberts close the doors to the Supreme Court years ago.”
a “He did. They will let themselves in to resume their part-time jobs receiving full-time pay and lifetime tenure via a side door, the service entrance if you will.”
b “That is the gig of a lifetime.”
a “The Supremes have not only closed the doors to the Court, they are closing the doors on the American dream.”
. . .
a “Hard to dispute that courts exist to incarcerate the underclass and to insulate the ruling class from responsibility. That isn’t all bad, I guess. Seems to depend on whether you have class.”
b “Courts exist to give the pretence of the peaceful resolution of disputes and thereby to keep the masses from rioting.”
. . .
a “Rating the characteristic judicial attributes is a close call. Some days it is arrogance, other days it is anger. It is always a close competition – anger, arrogance, arrogance, anger.”
b “I have endured many a nasty temper but few a calm judicial temperament. Nothing will ruin a morning like appearing before a judge who is mired in a sterile marriage and fulminating over a fertile daughter. He can use the bench as a bully pulpit for his undigested anger.”
a “Or she for hers.”
b “Or she for hers. Some of these cats are as angry as a fer-de-lance with a hangnail.”
. . .
a “Some days the judges sport a sourcaustic attitude, other days a condescending tone. It is always a close competition – sourcaustic, condescension, sourcaustic, condescension.”
b “I have collected court decisions in a file over the last few years. The ‘Festschrift of Fear and Anger’ is in galley proofs.”
. . .
a “We equip police with batons and judges with gavels. Both are used to beat. There must be something in the fabric of the black moo-moo that transforms a person on the bench.”
b “With increasingly few exceptions, judges are little more than tedious technicians and boorish bureaucrats reaching tendentious decisions.”
a “Respect is an admixture of admiration and fear. I don’t admire our judges; I do fear them.”
b “They are not serving a useful function, yet they consume tremendous resources and waste a tremendous opportunity. I have increasingly less use for them, yet they are drawing a regular paycheck and will draw a pension and do everything while on the bench to protect their paycheck and pension.”
. . .
a “The wrong lawyers are securing judgeships. The wrong persons are obtaining political office. Any attempt to reform the legal system must rely on the same raw material. There is not much there.”
b “Nothing like what I thought in law school.”
a “What’s happened?”
. . .
[See the “e-ssay” titled “On Respect, Fear, Admiration and Irreverence (December 17, 2007)” and the “e-ssay” titled “Congress Should Increase Congressional and Judicial Pay; Shareholders Should Reduce CEO/CFO/COO Pay (March 5, 2007)” written at a time when the courts seemed to appear to offer the possibility of being part of the solution.]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Judge = FePb
Laws are not etched in stone today, they are concocted with an Etch A Sketch (R)
“. . . And Justice For All” movie with Al Pacino (1979)
e-commentary 