Rowan's Future of Choice

Fear on the bench

It is sad to consider that judges' decisions are influenced by personal fear, but since 1970, seven state and federal judges have been murdered in job-related incidents. The fact is, there is a long history of criminals taking retribution on judges. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) seemed a bit disingenuous yesterday when he said:

"It causes a lot of people, including me, great distress to see judges use the authority that they have been given to make raw political or ideological decisions," he said. Sometimes, he said, "the Supreme Court has taken on this role as a policymaker rather than an enforcer of political decisions made by elected representatives of the people."

Sources:  Today's Washington Post story. NYT Op-Ed by John Kane, senior judge in the United States District Court for

Colorado.

 

Decisions awaiting

We have no shortage of decisions waiting to be made. Here are a few:

President George Bush again confirmed today from his home in Crawford Texas that no decision has been made about Iraq.' Link

The FBI has not decided whether to scrap its Virtual Case File effort, despite an outside evaluator's recommendation to do so, said director Robert Mueller today during a Senate hearing. "We are looking at that," Mueller said while testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee. Link

Still No Decision On Caspian Sea. More than 13 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea have still not reached agreement on dividing the sea and its resources among themselves. Link

No decision made on presenting [World Series] championship rings. Manager Terry Francona said it was his understanding that the ring ceremony would be held on April 2, the day before the Red Sox open the season at Yankee Stadium, then said that may have changed. Club spokesman Glenn Geffner said no decision has been made. Link