The Judge Report

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should...

    From a reader:

    I believe there is some confusion over what the court actually said. They did NOT say it was ok to enter without knocking. In fact, the parties conceded as a given that the entry in this case was improper.

    The discussion and the decision were entirely about whether the EXCLUSIONARY RULE applies in this case, and a majority decided that it did not. In other words, valuable and otherwise valid evidence of guilt could still be presented to the jury. The plurality decision pondered whether the exclusionary rule, adopted in the early 60's, was still necessary at all, pointing out that there are other remedies available to both serve as deterrents to police misuse of authority and remedy existing violations, such as federal 1983 civil rights actions and civilian oversight of police.

    Excluding evidence of guilt is, after all, a pretty draconian solution when you think about it. The Warren Court felt that it was the only way to control the police. This court is starting to think that maybe it isn't.

    On the facts of this case, I think that the existence of an actual warrant for the items seized is what brought Kennedy over. The others (i.e. The Good Guys) look plenty ready to declare the Mapp Rule an idea whose time has passed.

The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guarantied by the supreme law of the land are involved. It is therefore to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a state to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race.

In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers said in a speech more than a decade ago that “self-determination” should guide decisions about abortion and school prayer and that in cases where scientific facts are disputed and religious beliefs vary, “government should not act.”

In an undated speech given in the spring of 1993 to the Executive Women of Dallas, Miers appeared to offer a libertarian view of several topics in which the law and religious beliefs were colliding in court.

“The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women’s [sic] right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion,” Miers said.

Those seeking to resolve such disputes would do well to remember that “we gave up” a long time ago on “legislating religion or morality,” she said. And “when science cannot determine the facts and decisions vary based upon religious belief, then government should not act.”

“My basic message here is that when you hear the courts blamed for activism or intrusion where they do not belong, stop and examine what the elected leadership has done to solve the problem at issue,” she said.

Every time another columnist disses Miers a kitten goes in the rinse cycle.
(Let's see if this works)

Friends, Americans, bloggers, lend me your ears
I come to bury Miers, not to confirm her.
The evil that Justices do lives after them;
The good is oft preserved by rejecting their nominations;
So let it be with Miers.

The noble Bush hath told you Harriet is conservative;
If it be so, 'tis a glorious qualification,
And gloriously may Miers answer it in her hearings.
Here, under leave of Bush and the rest,--
For Bush is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men,--
Come I to speak before Miers' hearings.

She was an unknown, undistinguished and of no importance to me:
But Bush says she is conservative;
And Bush is an honorable man.
She hath brought unqualifed minorities home to our universities,
Whose enrollments did diversity expand:
Did this in Miers seem conservative?
When that the gay lobby has whined, Miers hath responded;
Conservativism should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Bush says she is a conservative;
And Bush is an honorable man.

Michael A. Carvin, the lawyer who argued the president's case in Bush v. Gore before the Florida Supreme Court, was riled by a newspaper article about Miers. The story reported that Miers had once been quoted saying she wouldn't belong to the Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal group, because she viewed it as "'activist' and 'partisan'." In an e-mail to the group, Carvin—who did not respond to repeated calls for comment—wrote, "This is becoming more embarrassing as every day passes."