Michael Gaynor
Obamacare decision comments show Susan Estrich is still an idiot
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By Michael Gaynor
July 1, 2012

There's no exception under the judicial oath for a Chief Justice who wants to violate it because he thinks making the right decision would be politically incorrect and/or have an adverse effect on the reputation of the Court (or himself).

When it came to the Duke case, Susan Estrich, best known as the manager of Michael Dukakis' unsuccessful 1988 presidential race, got it horribly wrote, treating the crazed (black female) accuser (Crystal Gail Magnum) as a victim and condemning the (white male) members of the Duke lacrosse team, together with their parents and lawyers and even called for "A Special Prosecutor for the Duke Rape Case" (that involved a false accusation, not rape, not because the prosecutor, Democrat Mike Nifong, was an opportunistic political hack desperate to keep his job by becoming a hero to Durham County, North Carolina's black voters, the truth be damned, but because the defense lawyers were more skilled than Nifong.

Estrich:

"Is Mike Nifong, the local prosecutor, really any match for Bob Bennett, the legendary Clinton defender hired by the Duke team parents? Should we expect him to be? So why not hire Bennett's equal to represent the state?"

"There simply must be a fancy lawyer or law firm in North Carolina that has not been involved in this case to date, and would agree to take it on, devote the resources necessary, match the defense in every way, and give the accuser and the people the same high quality representation that the defense will receive."

In "Duke case: Susan Estrich, not a hoax heroine," posted January 3, 2007, I wrote:

"[T]he record shows that Susan Estrich was very late in calling false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum 'a liar.'

"Did she do so because she saw the light? Or because she had to do so, in order to be credible and to promote, with some credibility, her feminist views that Ms. Mangum is a victim and the rape law reform she championed that excludes certain truths from consideration in rape cases should remain intact?"

It seems more likely that Estrich was trying to salvage her own "legitmacy" and reputation.

Now Estrich is gloating about predicting the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision.

Last March Estrich predicted that the United States Supreme Court would uphold Obamacare, 6 to 3.

She expected Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy to join the Obama appointees, Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, and former ACLU attorney and now Justice Ginsberg to rule it constitutional under the Commerce Clause.

Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy actually ruled that the Obamacare individual mandate is not permitted by the Commerce Clause.

She was wrong about Justice Kennedy completely. He opined that Obamacare should be strucj down in its entirety because the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

But she was right about Chief Justice Roberts finding the individual mandate constitutional (albeit under the taxing power).

Estrich is enthusiastically applauding Chief Justice Roberts for preserving "the legitimacy of the Court."

What nonsense!

Essentially Estrich is saying that the Left would be railing that the Court was political if Obamacare was declared unconstitutional by five Republican Justices and avoiding that trumped Chief Justice Roberts' statutorily mandated judicial oath.

Bulletin for Estrich: That decision was bound to have political implications, whatever it is, and its political implications are not the business of the Justices.

The judicial oath set forth in 8 U.S.C. Section 453 states:

"Each justice or judge of the United States shall take the following oath or affirmation before performing the duties of his office: 'I, XXX XXX, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as XXX under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."

There's no exception under the judicial oath for a Chief Justice who wants to violate it because he thinks making the right decision would be politically incorrect and/or have an adverse effect on the reputation of the Court (or himself).

© Michael Gaynor

 

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Michael Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member... (more)

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