DENVER—Judicial independence is crucial at a time when courts and judges, under fire from lawmakers and the public, are tackling such crucial issues as the war on terror and detentions of terror suspects, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said Wednesday.
O’Connor cited a ballot proposition in South Dakota that would have stripped immunity from judges, exposing them to the possibility of lawsuits, fines and even jail, and a Colorado amendment that would have limited judges on the Colorado Court of Appeals and the Colorado Supreme Court to three four-year terms. Both failed.
“There is no lack in the Congress of the United States of resolutions affecting federal courts and judges, resolutions proposing to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over certain specific categories of cases, resolutions to impeach judges if they cite a judgment or opinion from a foreign court,” O’Connor said in a speech to University of Denver law students.
“We see (the same thing) in state legislatures and from ballots in state elections. It seems to me citizens have forgotten why we have courts and judges and why they matter and what service they perform in our system,” she said.
Independence is essential as the judiciary works its way through issues such as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, detentions of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay and the rights of the accused at military tribunals, O’Connor said.
“This is an amazing and interesting time to be looking at the legal system. We’re going to have some answers, probably, but it comes down the road,” she said.
“What is the power of the president vis-a-vis the Congress at a time of a war that hasn’t been declared to be a war, but there has been congressional action authorizing response by the president” to the 9-11 attacks, O’Connor asked. “The courts are by no means finished with that.”
O’Connor said she has no regrets about stepping down from nation’s top court in 2006 because family came first after her husband of 54 years, John, came down with Alzheimer’s. She was replaced by Justice Samuel Alito.
“I did what I should do,” O’Connor said to a round of applause.
Her address was sponsored by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, a nonpartisan legal reform organization headed by former state Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis.
Rebecca Wilkins, a third-year law student, said she was sorry O’Connor stepped down and that she believes two major cases decided by the Supreme Court this spring would have turned out differently if O’Connor were on the bench.
She said O’Connor rejected an attempt in Nebraska to ban partial birth abortions but that the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban. The court also rejected a challenge to equal pay, saying people only had 180 days to challenge, a standard she believes O’Connor would have rejected.
“She was a lot of times a voice of reason. I think the court is a lot worse off,” Wilkins said.
O’Connor told the students she wasn’t going to second-guess the current court.
