Veteran Judge Resigns from Supreme Court Bar
A good weekend read, Slate has published the resignation letter to John Roberts from James Dannenberg, retired Hawaii state judge, law professor, and member of the elite Supreme Court Bar. His reasons are the radical partisanship that now pervades the majority of the court has made it impossible for him to remain on the bar. Here’s his letter in full:
The Chief Justice of the United States
One First Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20543
March 11, 2020
Dear Chief Justice Roberts:
I hereby resign my membership in the Supreme Court Bar.
This was not an easy decision. I have been a member of the Supreme Court Bar since 1972, far longer than you have, and appeared before the Court, both in person and on briefs, on several occasions as Deputy and First Deputy Attorney General of Hawaii before being appointed as a Hawaii District Court judge in 1986. I have a high regard for the work of the Federal Judiciary and taught the Federal Courts course at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law for a decade in the 1980s and 1990s. This due regard spanned the tenures of Chief Justices Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist before your appointment and confirmation in 2005. I have not always agreed with the Court’s decisions, but until recently I have generally seen them as products of mainstream legal reasoning, whether liberal or conservative. The legal conservatism I have respected– that of, for example, Justice Lewis Powell, Alexander Bickel or Paul Bator– at a minimum enshrined the idea of stare decisis and eschewed the idea of radical change in legal doctrine for political ends.
I can no longer say that with any confidence. You are doing far more— and far worse– than “calling balls and strikes.” You are allowing the Court to become an “errand boy” for an administration that has little respect for the rule of law.
The Court, under your leadership and with your votes, has wantonly flouted established precedent. Your “conservative” majority has cynically undermined basic freedoms by hypocritically weaponizing others. The ideas of free speech and religious liberty have been transmogrified to allow officially sanctioned bigotry and discrimination, as well as to elevate the grossest forms of political bribery beyond the ability of the federal government or states to rationally regulate it. More than a score of decisions during your tenure have overturned established precedents—some more than forty years old– and you voted with the majority in most. There is nothing “conservative” about this trend. This is radical “legal activism” at its worst.
Without trying to write a law review article, I believe that the Court majority, under your leadership, has become little more than a result-oriented extension of the right wing of the Republican Party, as vetted by the Federalist Society. Yes, politics has always been a factor in the Court’s history, but not to today’s extent. Even routine rules of statutory construction get subverted or ignored to achieve transparently political goals. The rationales of “textualism” and “originalism” are mere fig leaves masking right wing political goals; sheer casuistry.
Your public pronouncements suggest that you seem concerned about the legitimacy of the Court in today’s polarized environment. We all should be. Yet your actions, despite a few bromides about objectivity, say otherwise.
It is clear to me that your Court is willfully hurtling back to the cruel days of Lochner and even Plessy. The only constitutional freedoms ultimately recognized may soon be limited to those useful to wealthy, Republican, White, straight, Christian, and armed males— and the corporations they control. This is wrong. Period. This is not America.
I predict that your legacy will ultimately be as diminished as that of Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who presided over both Plessy and Lochner. It still could become that of his revered fellow Justice John Harlan the elder, an honest conservative, but I doubt that it will. Feel free to prove me wrong.
The Supreme Court of the United States is respected when it wields authority and not mere power. As has often been said, you are infallible because you are final, but not the other way around.
I no longer have respect for you or your majority, and I have little hope for change. I can’t vote you out of office because you have life tenure, but I can withdraw whatever insignificant support my Bar membership might seem to provide.
Please remove my name from the rolls.
With deepest regret,
James Dannenberg
I don’t think Roberts or anyone in the GOP is going to shed a tear over this. When a highly-organized group of reactionaries decide to take over a country, principled resignations are what they cheer for. Roberts is the best thing to happen to America since Roger Taney– if you happen to like national self-destruction.
In fact, Roberts and his ilk are probably very happy to get another one out of their way.
1Wow! Shared to Facebook!
2Only one thing could improve that letter: delivery by crossbow with flaming arrows straight to the SCROTUS bench.
3Honest. Direct. Heartbroken.
This won’t do a thing to protect the millions this SCOTUS wants to take rights from. If Roberts could be reached, then the voting rights act would be in place and corporations wouldn’t be people, too.
So. In that excess of time coming up, maybe we should work on GOTV…
4That is a beautiful piece of writing. Even used the word “casuistry”. Agree with Jane & PKM#3 on the flaming arrow, BTW.
5Jane & PKM @3, There’s one minor improvement/correction that should be made to Judge Dannenberg’s description of the tRump regime, imo.
Change the word “little” to ‘NO respect for the rule of law’ below. The judge is being way too polite and respectful.
“You are allowing the Court to become an “errand boy” for an administration that has –little– NO respect for the rule of law.”
6That is a powerful letter, and should cause Roberts and his cohorts to think twice about their actions. But it won’t.
7“Feel free to prove me wrong.”
8That should leave a mark.
DAYUM!
9cgregory says: Bingo!!!
10Thanks, it is critical to understand how horrifying and real this actually is.
Read this of sitting Federal judge writing article that says same thing.
11So when will the Bar association move to disbar not just roberts and his cotorie of liars but solicitor general and ag as well?
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/federal-judge-condemns-roberts-courts-assault-on-democracy.html
Magnificent! It does not require Roberts to feel a pang, for this letter (shared enough) to inflict some injuries that will hurt, whether or not the target has a conscience.
12Unfortunately, I am forced to agree with Mah Fellow Murkuhn, up at #7. Mr. Dannenberg’s letter should have an effect on Chief Justice Roberts and the rest of the Court, but it won’t. They’re too far gone.
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