Senator links violence, judges

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Senator links violence, judges
Cornyn suggests 'political decisions' may be a factor in recent incidents at courthouses
By GEBE MARTINEZ

WASHINGTON - In an eyebrow-raising speech on the Senate floor Monday, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn suggested a connection between "political decisions" by some judges and incidents of courthouse violence across the nation.

The remarks by Republican Cornyn, a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court, prompted immediate criticism from Democrats.

Cornyn, citing recent cases of violence against judges, said he wondered "whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people ... engage in violence."

The violence is unjustified, Cornyn said, but is "a concern that I have that I wanted to share."

Cornyn, who also served as a district judge in San Antonio, delivered a blistering critique of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court has taken on the role of "policymaker" rather than enforcer of laws and had "generated a lack of respect for judges generally," he said.

In March, a state judge and three other people were killed by an escaping criminal suspect in an Atlanta courthouse. Days earlier, the husband and mother of a federal judge in Chicago were killed by a troubled plaintiff in a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Democrats respond
Cornyn's statement "shows a remarkable lack of sensitivity to the people involved and the families of these judges, who, by all accounts, were serving their communities in their capacities as judges," said Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "He owes these people an apology."

In response, Cornyn's staff pointed to introductory remarks in which he said that he meant no blanket criticism of the Supreme Court or the rest of the judiciary. Seven of the nine Supreme Court justices were nominated by Republican presidents.

The speech by the Republican senator, who has previously complained of "judicial activism," came just as the Senate braces for a possible showdown over Democratic efforts to block some of President Bush's more conservative judicial nominees. Cornyn is expected to play a role as a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Social conservative leaders, already poised to fight hard for Bush's picks, have elevated the political fight in the wake of the case of Terry Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman who died last week after federal courts refused to order the reinsertion of a feeding tube.

When Schiavo died, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, said judges will "answer for their behavior."

Judges 'mere mortals'
Vice President Dick Cheney, saying he had not seen DeLay's remarks, distanced himself from the call for retribution against the courts.

"I don't think that's appropriate," Cheney said in an interview with the New York Post.

Cornyn did not address the role of the courts in the Schiavo case Monday.

He cited a 5-4 decision last month by the U.S. Supreme Court that forbids executing convicts who committed their crimes before turning 18. The majority opinion noted the views of international courts had been taken into account.

"If this trend continues, foreign governments may have a say in what our laws and our Constitution mean and what our policies in America should be," Cornyn argued.

Referring to his 13 years of experience as an elected state court judge, Cornyn called members of the judiciary "mere mortals, subject to the same flashes of mediocrity, sometimes making mistakes, and sometimes displaying flights of brilliance."

Federal judges, who have lifetime appointments, should be held in check, he argued.

"It causes a lot of people, including me, great distress to see judges use the authority they have been given to make raw political or ideological decisions," he said. "No one, including those judges, including the judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, should be surprised if one of us stands up and objects."

gebe.martinez@chron.com

originally published April 4, 2005