Michigan has the Soo Locks. Iowa has Sioux City. But South Dakota may soon be known as Sue State. The American Stupidity Award isn't in Kansas anymore, Toto. Unintelligent Design in that midwest backwater has given way to something even more unintelligent just a few hundred miles north - the right to sue judges.
In our great country, anybody can sue anyone for anything. Well, just about anyone. You can sue your doctor, your lawyer, your neighbor, your family, your church, big business, governors, senators, and even the President. The only people totally immune from litigation are our judges. And rightfully so.
But even this may change if a little-heralded constitutional amendment is passed this November in that cutting-edge frontier of legal thought, South Dakota. Proponents of JAIL (Judicial Accountability Initiative Law), known as Amendment E, have gathered over 48,000 signatures to force a vote on the question of whether state judges could be sued for various kinds of "misconduct".
The website of the amendment's initiator, JAIL4Judges, says "Judges decide all issues in their courtrooms and...laws become what judges interpret them to be - regardless of the state or federal Constitution. This is known as Judicial Activism. We believe that South Dakota citizens want common-sense limits on Judicial Immunity and want to eliminate Judicial Activism."
The law would create a special grand jury that would have the power to allow a judge to be sued for "misconduct" in a civil or criminal case. And exactly what is "misconduct"? "Deliberate violations of the law", "Intentional violations of due process", "Deliberate disregard of material facts", and, best of all "Willful rendering of an unlawful judgment or order". In other words, just about anything that a courtroom loser might complain about.
With that courtroom loser image in mind, who exactly is behind this idea, and why South Dakota? According to the well-respected political news website Slate, JAIL4Judges is an "Internet-era creation, pulling together a disparate national network of tax protesters, conspiracy theorists, jury-nullification supporters, and assorted others with grievances against the courts and modern government." Like so many single-issue groups, it claims to speak "for the people", but doesn't tell you who is speaking.
Its website mentions only one person, sixty year old Californian Ron Branson, who refers to himself as the "Five-Star National JAIL Commander-In-Chief". Branson's biography details his lifetime of unsuccessfully suing state and federal officials for alleged conspiracies, including his own trials for burglary and a traffic offense. His cases, including a parking ticket, have been refused by the U.S. Supreme Court 14 times.
JAIL4Judges claims to have chapters in every state. Supporters have picketed the homes of offending judges and generated e-mail campaigns - sometimes laced with electronic viruses and worms - against the Anti-Defamation League, reporters, and legislators who displeased them. The chapter leader in Alaska, who is pushing his own "Fully Informed Jury Amendment", wears black judicial robes, and a noose around his neck.
After Branson failed three times to get his proposed amendment on the California ballot, he set his sights much lower. South Dakota allows residents to initiate laws, and since there are less than 800,000 folks living there, it is much easier to gather the required number of signatures. He teamed up with Bill Stegmeier, a disgruntled businessman, who was fighting the state over $7,000 in taxes he allegedly owed.
But Branson and Stegmeier acknowledge that they have no real complaint with South Dakota courts. It was merely the easiest place to get on the ballot. Especially if the issues were fudged a bit. Paid door-knockers seeking signatures were told to ask people if they were mad about Roe v. Wade (not a state issue anyway), or the decision upholding eminent domain powers (in Connecticut, not South Dakota), or if they just generally wanted to hold judges accountable.
It should be obvious to anyone (except maybe the 48,000 South Dakota residents who signed the petition) that the notion of being able to sue a judge is absurd. Yes, they make mistakes. Occasionally serious ones. But there are already safeguards in place. Most of those mistakes are eventually rectified on appeal. There are judicial conduct boards in every state, legislators have the authority to act when necessary, and state judges do face periodic re-election.
But the bottom line is that judges are human beings, hearing cases brought by human beings represented by human beings. The system is as imperfect as we are. But until someone invents the absolute truth-and-justice machine, it is the best we have. "Judicial Activism" is a term usually reserved for invocation by the losing side, who no doubt would have been quite satisfied if that Judicial Activist had ruled in their favor. Creating a system to judge the judge doesn't improve anyone's judgment, it just substitutes one for another.
The JAIL amendment goes on to prohibit the state from paying the attorneys' fees of judges who are sued. And, in our great society, you can bet that many, many, many angry, humiliated, hostile courtroom losers, including every criminal ever convicted, would be lined up to take revenge on their judges. If we made those judges personally liable for alleged "mistakes", no one would have any interest in sitting on the bench. And, of course, the taxpayers would foot the bill for all of those judge-judges.
It takes a certain personality to be a judge. They rarely earn as much as many attorneys who appear before them. Their days are filled with endless deceptions, bickering, and conflict, and we expect them to always be perfect in their evaluations. At least half of the litigants go away angry at them. And now South Dakotans would allow them to be sued? Let's hope this madness stays far, far away.