'Cause you just had to see this coming...
Sep. 8th, 2005 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockActivist judges?
Judges refusing to hear abortion petitions
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A pregnant teenager went to the county courthouse in Memphis early this summer, saying she wanted an abortion. The Circuit Court judge refused to hear the case and said he would recuse himself from any others like it.
"Taking the life of an innocent human being is contrary to the moral order," the judge, John McCarroll of Shelby County Circuit Court, wrote in June. "I could not in good conscience make a finding that would allow the minor to proceed with the abortion."
The teenager was in court because Tennessee, as with 18 other states, requires minors to get a parent's permission before they can have an abortion. But the state also allows another option: The teenagers can ask a judge for permission to decide for themselves.
Judges, however, are starting to opt out. Other judges of the Shelby Circuit Court have recused themselves like McCarroll, and now, according to one judge, only four of the nine judges on the court hear such abortion applications.
Judges in Alabama and Pennsylvania also have said they will not take such cases.
The actions, similar in some ways to pharmacists' refusal to dispense drugs related to contraception or abortion, have set off a debate about the responsibilities of judges and the consequences of such recusals, including political ones when judges are elected rather than appointed.
McCarroll's decision prompted 12 experts on judicial ethics to write to the Tennessee Supreme Court in late August. The experts called his action lawless and said they feared his approach could spread through the nation and to subjects such as the death penalty, medical marijuana, flag burning and divorce.
"Unwillingness to follow the law is not a legitimate ground for recusal," the letter said.
[...]
"I didn't swear to uphold all of the laws of Tennessee except for X, Y and Z," Bailey said. "You're sworn to uphold the law whether you agree with it or not."
[...]
Professor Susan Koniak, who teaches legal ethics at Boston University and signed the letter to the Tennessee Supreme Court, said judges were free to express moral disagreement with a law but were not free to decline to enforce it.
"I expect them to bring their moral sense to a case," Koniak said in an interview. "But the law comes first."
Judges refusing to hear abortion petitions
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A pregnant teenager went to the county courthouse in Memphis early this summer, saying she wanted an abortion. The Circuit Court judge refused to hear the case and said he would recuse himself from any others like it.
"Taking the life of an innocent human being is contrary to the moral order," the judge, John McCarroll of Shelby County Circuit Court, wrote in June. "I could not in good conscience make a finding that would allow the minor to proceed with the abortion."
The teenager was in court because Tennessee, as with 18 other states, requires minors to get a parent's permission before they can have an abortion. But the state also allows another option: The teenagers can ask a judge for permission to decide for themselves.
Judges, however, are starting to opt out. Other judges of the Shelby Circuit Court have recused themselves like McCarroll, and now, according to one judge, only four of the nine judges on the court hear such abortion applications.
Judges in Alabama and Pennsylvania also have said they will not take such cases.
The actions, similar in some ways to pharmacists' refusal to dispense drugs related to contraception or abortion, have set off a debate about the responsibilities of judges and the consequences of such recusals, including political ones when judges are elected rather than appointed.
McCarroll's decision prompted 12 experts on judicial ethics to write to the Tennessee Supreme Court in late August. The experts called his action lawless and said they feared his approach could spread through the nation and to subjects such as the death penalty, medical marijuana, flag burning and divorce.
"Unwillingness to follow the law is not a legitimate ground for recusal," the letter said.
[...]
"I didn't swear to uphold all of the laws of Tennessee except for X, Y and Z," Bailey said. "You're sworn to uphold the law whether you agree with it or not."
[...]
Professor Susan Koniak, who teaches legal ethics at Boston University and signed the letter to the Tennessee Supreme Court, said judges were free to express moral disagreement with a law but were not free to decline to enforce it.
"I expect them to bring their moral sense to a case," Koniak said in an interview. "But the law comes first."
