[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 28 (Thursday, March 10, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H1336-H1337]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SUPREME COURT NOT FOLLOWING PRECEDENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, there have been times in this Nation's 
history when the United States Supreme Court was composed of 
distinguished jurists who were extremely cautious to avoid inserting 
the justices' will or desires in place of legitimate decisions and 
legitimate legislation. That, sadly, is no longer the case.
  One of the cornerstones of an effective judicial system is fair and 
impartial judges and juries. At the top of that system, we have come to 
the point in our history when a majority of the court has come to think 
of themselves as error free. However, even considering oneself 
faultless is an inexcusable fault for a court, any court, but most 
especially the U.S. Supreme Court.
  One does not have to be a judge or a chief justice, as I was, to know 
that a fundamental principle of the United States common law has been 
that prior court decisions have priority and control the same 
situation. It is called following precedent. A huge problem for all of 
us is that this Supreme Court cannot follow precedent.
  For example, this very court ruled only 15 years ago that the 
sentencing guidelines were constitutional and must be followed. Now 
they have completely disregarded their very own precedent, even though 
it was their own.
  Additionally, these judges, who consider themselves jurists, act in 
some ways like the worst form of renegades. They have disregarded the 
Constitution and its precedents and instead follow the fleeting whims 
of a daydreaming child. They cite changing opinions and evolving 
opinions; not about law that they have researched, oh, no; about 
various feelings of the general public in America that they have 
somehow vicariously perceived.
  But even that is not all. No. Certain judges of this highest human 
court in the land have been reciting opinion polls, not based on 
legally or factually based or scientifically recognized computer 
protocols or data or scientifically derived information. No, these are 
based on their feelings of what is going on.

                              {time}  1615

  Here the U.S. Supreme Court sets itself up as the final arbiter of 
what is or is not accurate polling. The trouble with this is, no court, 
especially an appellate court, is ever supposed to have been a witness 
in the case it is trying. Apparently, however, the Supreme Court is the 
expert pollster for all who come near. Every other expert is required 
to be cross-examined. It is called being allowed to confront the 
witnesses against a party. This Court, however, places itself above 
such fundamental notions, even when the polling the Supreme Court has 
done consists figuratively of wetting its finger and sticking it into 
the air to try to discern which way the wind is blowing.
  Though the Court has become a witness, an investigator, a pollster, a 
wind gauge, the Supreme Court denies the fundamental right of the 
parties to have due process and question the witnesses against it. The 
Supreme Court allows itself to go out and poll and investigate or 
report behind the scenes without anyone knowing. It hides behind the 
Constitution at the very time it is depriving the parties of their 
rights under the same document.
  As Congressmen, we are out in our districts constantly talking, 
questioning, never forgetting that a constant campaign is ongoing. A 
good Congressman knows what his district thinks. So how dare you, 
Supreme Court, try to sit in Washington and lecture us on what is or is 
not the will of the American people. We listen to the people. We go 
home, and we live with the people. We get e-mails and calls and letters 
and visits from the people, and we do not hide in an ivory tower.
  How dare you tell us about the changing will of the people. You are 
the last to have any idea of what the real people's attitudes are. You 
go try running to get elected back to the Supreme Court, and then you 
can come talk to us about the changing opinions in America. If you ever 
had to run for office, you would find out ever so quickly just what the 
opinion and will of the American people are.
  At a recent session of the Supreme Court in which the parties argued 
their respective positions, one Justice, in a bit of high-brow effort 
to sound both intellectual and computer literate said, as I understood 
him, that he had been on the Internet looking for more facts about the 
case or about the 17 monuments involved in that case. He is so far 
removed from the legal profession that he does not even realize how 
morally wrong he is acting, or he has such great contempt for the need 
of a fair and partial judiciary that he is killing it and its former 
credibility.
  Such a judge should remove himself and allow only those who are not 
self-made witnesses to rule. If any juror in a local case or a judge in 
a local case were to go out and investigate the facts of the case, the 
case would be thrown out. There would be a mistrial. It is one thing 
for a judge to investigate the law of precedent or legislative history; 
it is quite another for him to be a fact witness. Shame on you.
  In the Supreme Court's decision regarding juvenile eligibility for 
the death penalty, the Court showed not only that it could not follow 
precedent, it could not even follow its own precedent of the same 
Court. The majority of judges have caused the system to be so out of 
whack that it flips its own rulings to and fro in a whimsical sort of 
destruction of civilized and constitutional jurisprudence. People must 
have stability through court decisions, yet we are forced to have one 
whose constant reversals of itself remind one more of the policy shifts 
of a nation that has a coup every year or so than a nation of laws. 
This particular Nation deserves much better for its educated people.
  It should also be noted by any jurist worth his or her salt that when 
a court continuously cites changing opinions of the populous or a 
national consensus, or an evolving national standard, it is saying that 
the issue at hand is clearly one for the legislature. It is the 
legislature that has to decide issues that are based on the will or the 
consensus of the people, and not the judiciary.
  So here is a rule of thumb: if you find yourself as a court sometime 
trying to discern the will of the people internationally or nationally, 
then leave it alone. It is not your business. It is the business of the 
legislature.

[[Page H1337]]

  If part of the problem is that our Justices attend too many national 
conferences, then perhaps we should legislate against them attending 
any conferences outside the country whose Constitution they are sworn 
to follow. After all, when they cite international opinion that was not 
in existence at the time the Constitution was written, they are going 
beyond the legislative history. They are legislating themselves. If 
they want to do that, they should do as some of us who were judges have 
done in Congress: we left the bench and we ran for the legislature to 
have that opportunity.
  You want to deal with the Ten Commandments? Well, you took an oath to 
defend the Constitution. Try the commandment that says ``thou shalt not 
lie.''
  When our highest Court seeks international opinion on what is right 
or wrong, it should ask itself where international opinion was when the 
Nazis were killing millions of people. It should ask itself where was 
the international opinion when Saddam Hussein was killing thousands of 
his own people. Some of the sources of this international opinion they 
rely on were selling equipment and supplies to Saddam Hussein as he 
murdered people.
  Friends, I have not mentioned the propriety or impropriety of the 
actual outcomes of these recent Supreme Court decisions, but I call to 
account the disgustingly subjective and arbitrary process that has been 
guiding this Supreme Court. The majority on the Supreme Court has 
figuratively been a bunch of emperors with no clothes. The few judges 
left on the court with judgment must find it difficult working with a 
bunch of naked self-crowned autocrats.
  In England, devoted patriots are fond of saying, ``God save the 
Queen.'' In America, it is time for devoted Americans to say and to 
pray in earnest, ``God save us from this Supreme Court,'' and then 
remove those who have ceased being judges and have become the worst 
nightmares of our Founding Fathers.

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