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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paul_philp who wrote (67809)	1/22/2003 6:30:04 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

Interestingly, the US Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case involving the constitutionality of Virginia's cross-burning law. I would have thought that the 1992 case of R.A.V. vs. City of St. Paul had settled the issue. In that case, the US Supreme Court struck down a Minnesota statute that banned displaying swastikas and burning crosses, holding that it was an impermissible abridgement of free speech. After all, burning the US flag is permissible "free speech" (actions can be symbolic speech), so why isn't burning a cross free speech? But in the case Pickering is being castigated about, the defendant wasn't prosecuted for a hate crime. It was using fire in the commission of a felony (arson). That's the way cross-burnings are usually prosecuted these days, to get around the free speech issue. Not that I like cross-burning, but I'd fight to the death for your right to do it, just like burning the US flag, wearing swastikas, and waving the Confederate flag. In the case that is giving Pickering trouble, however, the defendants went further than that, as they did trespass on private property. I think they were definitely guilty of trespass and intimidation, and the man in question did serve time. Now, what in the world does any of this have to do with Foreign Affairs?

To: paul_philp who wrote (67809)	1/22/2003 8:36:26 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Here is both a New Republic and a National Review story. No surprise but they don't totally agree. Thanks. In the interim, I did a bit of checking and found a great many links, all Bill would consider of dubious ideological lineage, that argue Pickering reduced the sentence for the one guy who got a serious one and remarked that the charged cross burning was only a drunken prank. But the big thing, my little bit of research ran across, is that the issues Pickering raises are large. There's a great deal of negative stuff. The cross burning is only the tip of the iceberg. If we have a discussion about him later on, it will definitely need to be labeled off topic. And it may not even be a good idea to have it. It's going to be intense because the evidence against him is a bit like that against Lott, tracks back many years, but the more recent stuff is much thicker and more objectionable than that against Lott. I have to believe that Bush renominated him with the expectation of a grand rumble, as a way to do the nod and a wink back to the white southern base of the party.

To: paul_philp who wrote (67809)	1/22/2003 9:39:42 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

I'm back again to the same post, Paul, the link to the New Republic article and the National Review story. Interesting articles. My read is that they basically offer the same set of events but read Pickering's intentions differently. My small amount of research turned up some things that related more to the last paragraph of The New Republic essay than to the cross burning. Plus some other things. The cross-burning case is just the most flagrant example of Pickering's dubious performance as a judge. He has been reversed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (the one on which Bush wants to place him) 26 times, 15 of them for violating "well-settled principles of law"--an embarrassing rebuke in which the higher court finds the answer so obvious it doesn't even bother to publish its opinion. (By contrast, the last judge Bush named to the Fifth Circuit, Edith Brown Clement, had not one such reversal.) No, Pickering is not a racist. But he is a judicial activist who disregards both the letter and intent of the law when he doesn't agree with it. And, as such, Democrats have no reason to confirm him.