Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Ann Althouse Takes Judge Anna Diggs Taylor Apart
And she does it in the New York Times (which continues to send me free issues--pity really, because it is a well produced paper, but I'll never buy the traitorous rag). Professor Althouse notes the trade off Chief Justice Marshall created in Marbury v. Madison--we Justices will be the final word about the constitutionality of government action..but the judge so deciding must actually do some genuine legal analysis, including whether there is an actual controversy which concretely affected the plaintiff. Althouse thinks, rightly, that Taylor failed to do her job.
Money quote:
If the words of the written opinion reveal that the judge did not follow the discipline of the judicial process, what sense does it make to take the judge’s word about what the law means over the word of the president? If the judge’s own writing does not support a belief that the rule of law has substance and depth, that law is something apart from political will, the significance of saying the president has gone beyond the limits of the law evaporates.
There’s irony for you.
Money quote:
If the words of the written opinion reveal that the judge did not follow the discipline of the judicial process, what sense does it make to take the judge’s word about what the law means over the word of the president? If the judge’s own writing does not support a belief that the rule of law has substance and depth, that law is something apart from political will, the significance of saying the president has gone beyond the limits of the law evaporates.
There’s irony for you.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 8:05 AM 
