Americans had better wake up. And that wake up call had better be a deeper understanding of the crisis our courts and our judges are facing.
Our courts are being starved to death, their funding choked, and now the judges that live in our communities…and who are accountable to you the voter….are being gagged.
GET INTO YOUR COURTROOMS, START SUPPORTING THE JUDGES AND THEIR STAFF….THEY ARE OUR ONLY HOPE!
I honor and respect my Supreme Court, but I want my elected circuit court judges speaking openly and freely to the general public, to press, to voters, to the people they took an oath to protect and serve.
WE MUST NOT ALLOW OUR ELECTED JUDGES TO BE GAGGED
“The majority in many ways takes the court system backward to recreate circumstances similar to those found by the citizens of Florida to be unworkable and abusive over 40 years ago,” Lewis wrote.
The reference cites a turbulent time on the Supreme Court when two justices resigned under threat of impeachment in the face of scandal. Historians have frequently pointed to the era as the court’s worst days.
The new rules, parts of which are effective immediately, expand the role of the Supreme Court’s chief justice, giving him or her the responsibility to serve as the primary spokesperson for all state courts.
While I think it may be good for the courts to speak with one voice with regard to budget issues, it is NOT good to silence the key players in the judicial system, the judges, when they need to speak out about the systems failures and needs.
Judges are NOT employees of the Supreme Court, therefore attempting to enforce employer like rules over their right to comment, or get fired, seems both unseemly and probably unenforceable.
The idea that judges would serve, essentially at the pleasure of the Chief Judge of the FL Supreme Court, suggests an attempt to run the courts like a monolithic corporation, not a branch of the government.