Please Keep Shit-Talking Judges

Ad hominem it up

Chief Justice Roberts is concerned about violence … sort of.

No, he’s not concerned about kids getting gunned down in schools because the Supreme Court invented the right to walk around with an automatic rifle on his watch. He’s not concerned about women being harassed by mobs when they access healthcare. And he’s sure as hell not concerned about thugs descending on the Capitol in an effort to prevent the peaceful transition of power.

No, he’s concerned about violence against federal judges, particularly Supreme Court justices. And by violence, he means criticism.

The disquisition on “the vulnerability of judges who sign their names to the decisions they render each day and return home each night to communities, where they remain involved as neighbors, volunteers, and concerned citizens” came in the Chief’s end of year “report” on the federal judiciary. Previous EOYs have covered anodyne topics such as AI: So Confusing, Not Like Wise Judges! and You Can Thank Judges For Desegregation!

But this year, the Chief’s mind was on the plight of federal jurists and the heavy cloud of “intimidation” that hangs over them.

He started by noting the “significant uptick in identified threats at all levels of the judiciary.” And, sure, we can all agree that threats of violence are bad. Don’t do that! Of course, threats to more or less every public figure are up, and most of them aren’t protected by US Marshals. But the Chief Justice isn’t concerned about the rape threats every prominent female reporter fields from internet randos. He’s concerned about “intimidation.”

“Today, in the computer era, intimidation can take different forms,” he tut-tuts, before going to describe a whole panoply of behavior protected by the First and Second Amendments (at least according to SCOTUS).

Disappointed litigants rage at judicial decisions on the Internet, urging readers to send a message to the judge. They falsely claim that the judge had it in for them because of the judge’s race, gender, or ethnicity—or the political party of the President who appointed the judge. Some of these messages promote violence—for example, setting fire to or blowing up the courthouse where the target works. Occasionally, court critics deploy “doxing”—the practice of releasing otherwise private information such as addresses and phone numbers—which can lead to a flood of angry, profane phone calls to the judge’s office or home. Doxing also can prompt visits to the judge’s home, whether by a group of protestors or, worse, an unstable individual carrying a cache of weapons.

Chief Justice Roberts knows damn well that the only person claiming that judges have it in for them “because of the judge’s race, gender, or ethnicity” is the incoming President of the United States. As for the complaint that people say mean words about judges and call up their chambers and protest at their houses? Wow, they’re just like every politician in America! Call the cops!

Is the intimidation in the room with you right now, Your Honor?

Public officials, too, regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges—for example, suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations. Within the past year we also have seen the need for state and federal bar associations to come to the defense of a federal district judge whose decisions in a high-profile case prompted an elected official to call for her impeachment.

Judge Aileen Cannon. He’s talking about Aileen fucking Cannon. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is mad because people filed judicial complaints about Aileen Cannon’s hackery, which he has the gall to label “intimidation.”