[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5555]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   NEED TO REIN IN FEDERAL JUDICIARY

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, the President signed into law a bill ordering 
courts to take a new look, a de novo look, at the Terri Schiavo case. 
In legal terms, this means that a court must approach a case as if they 
have no prior knowledge of the facts. In a death penalty case, a de 
novo order reopens the entire case, and the judge issues a stay on the 
execution.
  Instead, in Terri's case, they took a cursory look at the case, did 
not issue a stay and affirmed her death sentence.
  The problem here is not Congress; it is the courts. These judges 
abandoned Terri's humanity on a technicality, and they blatantly 
ignored the law that Congress passed.
  Since when do judges get to ignore the laws of the land? The fact is 
that they have been doing it for a long time, in ways that should 
concern both sides of the aisle in this body.
  When judges are viewed as above the law, as immune from 
accountability, we have ceased to be ruled by the consent of the 
governed, the people. We need to get courts under control before we 
slip further towards a Nation ruled by judicial fiat.
  The problem is that though judges are the arbiters of legal disputes, 
they have become lawmakers just like us. We do not live in a land 
governed by judges. We live in a land governed by the people; and if we 
continue to ignore that, we have only ourselves to blame.

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