Quantum Windbag
Gold Member
- May 9, 2010
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Clearly a judge or justice who rules un-cCnstitutiona the Pledge of Allegiance phrase declaring America a nation "under God," for example, is by no means engaging in conduct amounting to treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.[A]n evaluation of the limits on congressional investigatory oversight
authority requires an examination of the contexts in which Congress does have
authority over the federal court. There is little question that where Congress is
investigating the federal courts generally, its investigatory authority is broad, as
Congress has significant legislative authority over the structuring of the Judicial
Branch. However, where Congress is investigating individual judges or Justices,
then it would appear that Congress may need to articulate a legislative basis or some
other constitutional authority for such investigation.
[C]ircumstance under which Congress could exercise its oversight
authority over individual judges or Justices would be in anticipation of or during
impeachment proceedings. Federal judges are among those civil Officers of the
United States who can be impeached for engaging in conduct amounting to treason,
bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Congress clearly has no authority to impeach or otherwise interrogate a judge or justice simply because his decision is politically unpopular, or overturns legislation enacted by a given representative body or the people via referendum.[Chief Justice Rehnquist observed that] the appropriate means for challenging a judges decision on a given case is not the impeachment process, but rather the appeals process, which affords the parties affected an opportunity for review of the judges decision and correction of errors in that judgment. In addition, the reversal of a lower court decision does not generally mean that the judge below had engaged in conduct rising to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.
If, for example, there is evidence a judge took a bribe and allowed it to influence his decision, then hes obviously subject to criminal investigation and must answer to Congress accordingly.
But to subject a judge to a criminal proceeding simply because his ruling doesnt comport to ones subjective political dogma is the first step toward a dictatorship of Congress and the loss of our civil liberties.
Link to the quoted above.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32935.pdf
Is that a response to me? If so, you conveniently ignored the fact that the House has actually brought charges against judges for political, not criminal, reasons. By the way, the Supreme Court specifically ruled that, once impeached, there is no appeal because the power of impeachment, including its definition, lies solely with Congress, and is not subject to judicial review.
Judicial Review of Impeachments .--It was long assumed that no judicial review of the impeachment process was possible, that impeachment presents a true ''political question'' case. That assumption was not contested until very recently, when Judges Nixon and Hastings challenged their Senate convictions. 783 But federal courts, setting the stage for Supreme Court consideration, held the challenges to be nonjusticiable, that the Constitution's conferral on the Senate of the ''sole'' power to try impeachments demonstrated a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of trial procedures to the Senate to decide without court review. 784 Upon at last reaching the question, the Court has held that a claim to judicial review of an issue arising in an impeachment trial in the Senate presents a nonjusticiable question, a ''political question.'' Supp.6 Specifically, the Court held that a claim that the Senate had not followed the proper meaning of the word ''try'' in the impeachment clause, a special committee being appointed to take testimony and to make a report to the full Senate, complete with a full transcript, on which the Senate acted, could not be reviewed. But the analysis of the Court applies to all impeachment clause questions, thus seemingly putting offlimits to judicial review the whole process.
FindLaw: U.S. Constitution: Article II: Annotations pg. 18 of 18
Want to try to refute me again?