Once In A While, They Get It Right

Judges worth their salt are few and mighty far between. Seems like every day the papers carry stories of this wacko ruling in Massachusetts, that illogic opinion in the 9th Circuit in California, and some wrong-headed decision by the nation’s court of last resort, the U.S. Supreme Court. Seems like each judge adopts some sort of “Roy Bean” attitude, and sets out to leave their malodorous mark on the landscape, either by mucking up the works with some poorly reasoned case law precedent; or by ignoring the plain language of the Constitution, instead seeking the advice of foreign courts, or viewing the Constitution as a “living, growing and breathing document,” subject to fast and loose interpretations by liberal judges. I reckon it gets down to Lord Acton’s old saw, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Nowhere in the governing arms of this country is the power entrusted to individuals more absolute than on the various benches of the nation’s courts. Truly, it’s awfully hard to find any honor at all in “Hizzoner.”

Despite all that, a few right-minded and worthy folk do find their way into the black robes. A fine example of just such a case occurred this week when Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan rejected Rep. William Jefferson's argument that his congressional office is "exempt" from a warranted search by federal authorities. Judge Hogan drove the point home brilliantly and succinctly, saying that barring searches of lawmakers' offices would turn Capitol Hill into "a taxpayer-subsidized sanctuary for crime."

In case you don’t recall, the FBI had been investigating Congressman Jefferson on charges of bribery and other misconduct for nearly 17 months, when Judge Hogan issued the search warrant for the overnight “raid” of the Congressman’s office. When the news of the search of the Congressman’s office broke, legislators from both parties cried foul, claim protection from such searches by way of a constitutional provision known as the speech or debate clause, which protects elected officials from being questioned by the president, a prosecutor or a plaintiff in a lawsuit about their legislative work. The judge countered this over-broad interpretation, stating "…the power to determine the scope of one's own privilege is not available to any other person, including members of the coequal branches of government: federal judges ... or the President of the United States."

What it inescapably boils down to, once again, is that a member of Congress is bound by the same laws as any other citizen, and elected officials, at any level, shouldn’t do anything – in or out of their offices -- they wouldn’t want shown on the nightly news, printed on the front pages of the newspapers, or extolled from the pulpits of their neighborhood church back home.

Keep the honor in the Courts, Judge Hogan.