If Lawyers and Legislators Undermine Judges, Small-fries Will Play Gods

I am sorry, the polarization in this country make me to declare: I am not writing this article because I like somebody or hate somebody. One need not be a Latino to write articles like this.

Yes, Justice Sotomayor did make an inopportune comment that gave rise to the avoidable insinuations that she is anti-White.

But that doesn't mean that in all the thousands of cases she presided over, she pronounced only anti-White judgments.

If any of the lawyers in the firemen's case did insinuate that she is unfit to hear the case because of her Latino background, then she had every right to make that statement.

And I am not surprised if such insinuations were made because sometimes such dirty tricks are played out to win cases by making the judge insecure.

I still remember what a person who went on jury duty once said. When a foreign Christian mission wanted to open a church in the neighborhood, the opposing lawyer asked the bishop,"Does your mother know English?"

Also, in a case against a doctor too, she heard another lawyer asking the same question,"Does your mother know English?"

My friend said that both times she voted for the guys whose mother didn't speak English because each time the judge too laughed with the lawyer about that inopportune joke.

I had all these memories coming back when I saw one of the "witnesses" behaving in the Capitol Hill hearings as if he is sitting in judgment over a sitting judge. His facial gimmicks were unbecoming for such a solemn constitutional process.

It is highly shameful that legislators make a mockery of such august legislative actions by seeking the help of such people. People who don't know how to keep up the decency and decorum of a legislative process should not be allowed into such processes.

Such prompting of "witnesses" called to "pass judgment over the judge" is unwanted. Allowing me to depose against a judge because he or she passed a judgment against me is the ultimate form of intimidation of the court system.

If I have any complaints against his or her judgments, I should approach the higher court. And I have no right to make public attacks against the previous judge. Otherwise, democracy will be supported by of a marginalized, fearful judiciary.

Each time I pass billboards and signs "beseeching votes for a judge", I cringe with a sense of shame and guilt. Because, that a future judge has to beg for votes is the ultimate form of subversion of impartiality.

Shameful that we brand a judge as "liberal" or "conservative" even before he or she is elected. That is equivalent to branding him or her as "partial." The judiciary is supposed to take cases one by one and decide on the merits of each.

At no time in the history of the world a judge was considered a condescending or fearful servant of the people. That may be for political representatives. A judge's loyalty is to justice only. That is why we need judges. We all are partial to ourselves. So we raise judges to a higher pedestals above us.

The problem is that our judge selection process still retains some of the vestiges of the days of the Way West where anybody with a gun, the facility of the tongue, an air of scholarship and a bible in hand would be elected judge. We didn't have our own Law Schools then.

Those days are past.

But if judiciary needs to retain its independence from politicians, that effort should come from the law professionals. This sorry state of affairs should not continue because some lawyers want to become politicians. If the latter were good at their professions they won't venture out into politics, isn't it?

If the present state of affairs continue, every potential judge will have to promise to go bambi-hunting with politicians with misfiring guns, to get selected.

Just because Sotomayor made a comment, timely or untimely, it doesn't mean that the judge selection process be made a street-side free-for-all.

Judges will come and go but the judiciary endures. And at no time should subvert judiciary by intimidating judges using the man on the street.

Oh yeah, I forgot to ask,"Does your mother know English? No problem if you don't know English. But your mother definitely needs to learn English even if she is lying six feet deep.If she is,dug her up and teach her!"

Sounds weird, isn't it? If it sounds like it, it probably is.

Constitution is not a worthless paperback. Otherwise, so many would not have given up their lives or so many law-enforcers won't still be giving up their lives, just for a book.