Comments
FEDERAL COURTS - In an ever-expanding assault President Trump and his allies pose a threat to our unique and uniquely successful system of justice unlike any in our history. Among the most dangerous and ill-conceived proposals is House Speaker Mike Johnson’s threat to eliminate Federal District courts.
The catalog of abuses is already staggering. The President and GOP leadership have openly threatened to impeach Federal judges whose rulings do not support Trump’s actions on health and welfare programs, free speech and press, helter-skelter mass firings and draconian cuts in Federal support for everything from food stamps to library funding. The leadership in the FBI and various Federal prosecutors have demonstrated an eager willingness to bring charges against those perceived to be “enemies” of the administration. The president has voided hundreds of convictions – including serious felony assaults – arising from the January 6 riot. At least one immigration official has been held in contempt of court for refusing to obey a court order. All this and more flows from a President who has been convicted of fraud and found civilly liable for assault and again for defaming the victim of that assault.
So it ought not come as a surprise that the Speaker suggests that district courts be eliminated, but a close examination of that proposal makes the idea remarkably sinister even by the low standards already on display. In floating his idea, Johnson urged a “dramatic improvement” of the federal court system on the grounds that injunctions which pause or block White House initiatives violate the Constitution’s separation of powers. That assertion is, by any measure, dead wrong – the Constitution is abundantly clear that our government is composed of three separate but equal branches. The independence of our judicial system collapses if Johnson’s idea comes to fruition: His concept replaces equal with subservient.
That bedrock premise alone ought to have convinced Johnson that his idea is an affront to the most critical principle of our system, but, in his own words, he doesn’t care: “We have power of funding over the courts. . .desperate times call for desperate measures and Congress is going to act.”
Acting to eliminate district courts would be a fatal blow to critical elements of the Bill of Rights. It would lead directly to abuse of the 5th Amendment’s guarantee of due process of law. It would gut the 6th Amendment right to a speedy trial and inevitably prevent accused criminals from being tried in “a district wherein a crime shall have been committed.”
If some Federal district courts in California, for example, are eliminated, there will be an immediate backlog of pending cases, and an instant flood of transferred cases coupled with more new cases to be tried in fewer courts. If some jurisdictions have but one court – small, sparsely populated states – defendants will be forced to travel great distances, adding excessive costs (an out-of-pocket “fine” before the trial begins) which effectively punish the accused before a trial takes place of a verdict is reached. Regardless of the location of courts, there is no doubt at all that “speedy” trial will be impossible – fewer courts will surely generate lengthy delays.
Speaker Johnson and every one of his colleagues swore upon assuming office that they would protect and defend the Constitution. Given the Speaker’s astonishing disregard for what the Bill of Rights says about separate powers and due process of law, it seems clear that the first action he should take is to read the damn thing.
(David M. Hamlin is a former ACLU executive who now writes full-time. His short fiction has appeared in various literary journals; his latest novel is Murder in Tolland, a mystery.)
