Turley Advances Nonsense About Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson To Appease His Racist Fanbase - Above the LawAbove the Law
Category: News & Politics
Via: steve-ott • 2 years ago • 64 commentsBy: Joe Patrice (Above the Law)
But he’s inside the tent. And we’re making s’mores later.
Interesting. When Amy Coney Barrett was up for the Supreme Court on the strength of less than three years of judicial experience, Turley made the talk show rounds explaining that her judicial philosophy was abundantly clear . He was even willing to reverse engineer her whole decision-making process:
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Judge Jackson lacks the experience Turley needs to divine a judicial philosophy... assuming you just ignore all the experience.
ByJoe PatriceonMarch 1, 2022 at 11:01 AMMarch 1, 2022 at 4:19 PM
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (Photo by H2rty via Wikimedia Commons)
You really have to hand it to Jonathan Turley.
The GWU Law professor has developed a refined sense of exactly how far he can bait the frothing at the mouth bigots lapping up his every appearance without saying anything explicitly reprehensible himself. He's just asking questions!He'd say the same thing about any nominee!
It's a lie, of course. He wouldn't say this stuff about any nominee, but he has a knack for making it seem like he could say this about any nominee. Which allows him to preserve the cloak of independence as a talking head that right-wingers crave as an ethos. It sounds twice as convincing when they can secure their dose of confirmation bias from someone ostensibly outside the tent.
But he's inside the tent. And we're making s'mores later.
Interesting. When Amy Coney Barrett was up for the Supreme Court on the strength of less than three years of judicial experience, Turley made the talk show rounds explaining that her judicial philosophy was abundantly clear. He was even willing to reverse engineer her whole decision-making process:
And I think that when you look at her work, you'll see that she tends to go back to these first principles, much like her mentor. In this case Kanter on the Second Amendment, for example, that received a great deal of discussion, I think you really see her methodology. She goes first to those principles and then works back from them.
Because this isn't really about reading tea leaves when it comes to social security benefits. Turley should be able to break down Judge Jackson's thoughts on statutory interpretation pretty easily, but this way he gets to stress her "thin" record and feed the conservative metanarrative that she lacks "worthy" experience. It's "lesser Black women" with a gentler touch. But the goal is the same.
Professor Steve Vladeck who already crunched all the numbers when it comes to judicial experience zeroed in on the subtext here and set the record straight.
But in the interest of not leaving well enough alone, Turley decided to subtweet Vladeck to rehabilitate his claim. The little Turley Tango here is that he's not objecting to her length of experience, he's just dismissing huge chunks of her experience for not giving him enough to divine her judicial approach. Again, it's not the length of experience, it's the worth of that experience.
Which, again, is exactly what his audience wants to hear.
The only generous read of this is that her trial court experience does nothing to illuminate her judicial philosophy and that Turley is only judging her on her year on the D.C. Circuit. The problem with that read is that you can absolutely learn a lot about a judge from trial court opinions. Especially on contentious calls that end up generating detailed appellate records. Which Turley absolutely knows.
And, again, Turley knew everything he needed to know about Amy Coney Barrett off 2.9 years of appellate service. He's not talking about "her views on specific thorny constitutional questions" that may not have arisen yet in her tenure, he's saying she doesn't have enough experience for him to figure out her "judicial philosophy." That's laughable.
But the best part about this retort is that Professor Vladeck… PRE-EMPTED IT.
It's not. It's a lot of opinions.
That tweet went up FIVE HOURS before Turley's response. And it was the first reply to the original tweet Turley's talking about.
But that's the value of the subtweet: he's hoping no one bothers to look up the Vladeck thread and just takes him at his word that it's "bizarre." Poison the well and move on.
The point is, Turley's really got this down to a science. He's rooted out the nub of what the "lesser Black women" crowd wants to hear and figured out how to pitch it with an air of detached observation. Everyone who points out that the emperor is naked is peddling "bizarre spin." He'll get his social media juice and a nice invite down to the cable news studio and all he had to do was lend his waning credibility to the narrative that the lengthy resume of a Black woman just can't possibly be good enough.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you're interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
Topics
Courts, Jonathan Turley, Law Schools, Steve Vladeck, Supreme Court
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Another take on the Turley post.
I must say, I prefer this one to the post of another member.
But, you know, that's what discussion is for.
Turley should immigrant to Russia. He'd fit right in...
And how could that be accomplished?
By applying to immigrate at a Russian Embassy.
Well, that sure makes more sense than saying he should immigrant.
A thin number of opinions!!!! WTF 500 is thin. Wonder what he thinks of the number of Chief Justice Robers's opinions (49).
turley probably means jackson doesn't have enough experience being a white male judge.
US district court judge opinions on the law contrary to precedent are not worth the paper they are written on....
Her two written appellate decisions are much more worthy of consideration... Her district court decisions are only worthy in seeing how her appealed decision were judged by the appellate circuit.... How many were overturned on appeal and how many were left to stand....
That is where her DC Judgeship is worth looking at... How often she was overturned and why...
Perhaps, perhaps not.
Do Circuit Courts Have "Supervisory Power" Over District Courts?
"From Justice Barrett's concurrence:
Barrett needs to read the Constitution again about the court's "pecking" order. None of the courts have "supervisory power" over any of the other courts.
"The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
Period. All courts are given equal weight based on their jurisdictional function as ESTABLISHED BY CONGRESS.
She's essentially musing on a very narrow aspect of the 'pecking' order, not the 'pecking' order itself.
It seems that some, including a current justice, disagree with you. But it's your opinion so there is that.
Actually, Barrettt is not disagreeing with me... She is wholeheartedly agreeing with me...
Steve Posted....
No they don't..
All the appellate court can do is rule on the law, the exact same thing the district court can do... They can no more impose their vision on a district judge as a district court judge can impose their vision on a case at bar.. The lower courts rule on the law based upon the past precedents and the rules of procedure... The only court that can state or impose an opinion on a case, a matter of law in a case, or the rules of procedure before the federal bench is the Supreme Court...
Barrett in the extant case agrees with the majority holding but is writing a concurring opinion based on her belief that such a "Supervisory" power of the appelate courts does not exist...
That is 100% in accordance with how I stated the court structure is as far as court procedures and judicial authority precedence...
In this case, it appears that the district court judge ruled a certain way on a request to ask questions in a media driven way, (against) the Court of Appeals ruled for the plaintiff, (approval) forcing to judge to comply, and the Supreme Court overruled the Appeals Court, (final judgment against) The only court that can set procedural rules is the supreme court, and that goes for all courts, including state courts... The Supreme Courts, National and of the various states, is the sole arbiter of how courts work in their jurisdiction and the extent of their authority... And such rules carry the full weight of law...
EXACTLY how 1stwarrior described it... It's actually the absolute first rule you will be taught in civil procedures class in your first semester of your first year of law school...
If you can't understand that you don't understand anything about how courts interoperate with each other.... And to really understand what courts do, you NEED to understand basic civil procedure and the rules of the court...
And Barrett agreed with what you just wrote...
Sounds like 100% agreement to me my friend....
I wasn't aware that you had a law degree, but once again it's your opinion. It also seems that 1st disagrees with Barrett.
You and 1st should get together and figure out who is on first or second or even third.
I don't, but I do have three years of law school, and was offered an opportunity by a states attorney to be sponsored to take the bar exam... He and several others (which included a federal bankruptcy judge) thought I would pass without problem... Which I gracefully declined...
I decided I didn't want to become an attorney...
Wow, three years of law school to add to your other many accomplishments.
After deciding that you didn't want to be a lawyer what did you become?
Not arguing with you NWM - BUT - The Supreme Courts, National and of the various states, is the sole arbiter of how courts work in their jurisdiction and the extent of their authority... And such rules carry the full weight of law... - not so. There are numerous factors involved that serve/have served as the basis for how courts work in their jurisdictions. Common Law and Napoleonic Law both play/played a big role in that/those determinations, as did/do the legislative bodies of each.
Sorry my friend...
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ... are created by the Supreme Court, they are then passed to Congress to enact them (without change) into the federal statutes... This procedure has been in effect since 1938, prior to that it wasn't required for congress to write them into the Federal code... The Court maintained them themselves...
The Supreme court sets its own rules and they have the force of law.. State Supreme Courts do the same in all 50 states except the formality of passing them to the legislatures for approval is not required...
Please use links if you are quoting a source...
Is that a rule, I failed to see that in the sites COC or any of the meta? Can you give me a link on that? It doesn't seem to be in the Terms of service either.
That way i can review the rule and make sure I personally follow it.
If you're quoting a source or person you need to credit them with a link or a reference otherwise the NT site's owner could be possibly be charged with plagiarism.
The Supreme Courts, National and of the various states, is the sole arbiter of how courts work in their jurisdiction and the extent of their authority... And such rules carry the full weight of law
When I do, I do. The above sentence is a summary of my readings.
Differences in Civil vs Criminal?
Yes this is where it gets confusing for most... Yes there are different rules for criminal causes vs civil causes... Cause there are necessarily differences in the way they are handled... The rules for criminal trials and criminal courts still fall under the Rules of Civil procedure section of laws... Civil in the context of court rules means "Gentlemanly" is probably the best way to put it.... The Procedure law is broken into two different categories, "Criminal Procedures" and "Civil Procedures" Civil in this case meaning Non-Criminal causes...
The rules for both however are found under the same category of laws...
She's written two opinions as an appellate Judge
Besides her extensive academic publications, here's the list of Barrett's appellate decisions:.
Being a trial judge is not the same as an appellate justice. Giving their opinions equal weight is idiotic.
Where Turley is wrong is that we absolutely know her judicial philosophy. She will, like every other Democrat appointee in living memory, be outcome oriented. It's why it really doesn't matter who the Democrats nominate. Nominate the assistant garbage collector, so long as he's an activist democrat, and the vote will be the same. The garbage collector just must be more coherent than Sotomayor. Conservative justices have coherent philosophies that often lead to their differing amongst themselves. . Democrats almost always vote the same as a poll of the democratic party.
Every Supreme Court opinion that has ever been rendered is an interpretation of the constitution. Every one.
Conservatives tend to favor one interpretation and the liberals another, but they are both interpretations.
Personally I think all Supreme Court appointments should be of moderates, which I think would create more objectivity, but until the conservative movement relinquishes the belief that they should control the federal judiciary on an ideological basis moderation is out of the picture.
[deleted.] You don't think the far leftists believe the exact same thing; and don't want to "control the federal judiciary on an ideological basis moderation". Remember which party spoke seriously of getting rid of the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court.
But it’s totally different and ok when they do it! Typical of their hypocrisy and double standards.
That's quite the generalization there. It also seems to assume that republican nominees are not outcome oriented.
Please, I need citations. Generalizations are not acceptable arguments.
Lol, you act like experience should even be considered. Barrett is on the court.
Maybe Turley is nearing retirement or seclusion and he just wants to cash in a little more on conservative media before he slinks away. Nothing else explains him.