The Justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court heard arguments on May 7 in the Cabildo's Sala Capitular, the court's home from 1853 to 1910. The temporary change of venue commemorated both the bicentennial of Louisiana's statehood and the establishment of the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1813. Seated for court are Associate Justice Greg G. Guidry, Associate Justice Jeannette Theriot Knowl, Associate Justice Bernette J. Johnson, Chief Justice Catherine D. Kimball, Associate Justice Jeffrey P. Victory, Associate Justice John L. Weimer and Associate Justice Marcus R. Clark. (Photo by Eliot Kamenitz, The Times-Picayune archive)
"Justice Johnson will have no more urgent task in her new position than ensuring that the court never again issues such a lame opinion as this one."
The state "constitution is color-blind, written in black letters on white paper, which occasionally produces grey areas."?A high school kid would get an F for such ponderous non sequiturs, but so says the state Supreme Court in its latest opinion. There's plenty more drivel, covering 22 pages.
Why it took so long to reach a conclusion is a mystery, because the upshot of the court's deliberations was that a simple provision of the Constitution means what it says. Most everyone else figured that out months ago.
The court has only now acknowledged that, because the Constitution says the "judge oldest in point of service on the Supreme Court shall be chief justice," the job must go to Bernette Johnson. The decision was unanimous, with ad-hocs replacing three recused justices, who included Johnson and her challenger for the top spot, Jeffrey Victory.
Johnson will have no more urgent task in her new position than ensuring that the court never again issues such a lame opinion as this one, which features clunky and repeated statements of the obvious.
Where it is not platitudinous, it is nonsensical, as in that bizarre suggestion that typography symbolizes an absence of racial prejudice that can lead to legal uncertainties.
The court evidently felt obliged to note that the Constitution is color-blind because Johnson is black, Victory is white and their dispute has spawned racial discord at the bar. But just in case any doubt lingers, the opinion assures us due process is the cornerstone of the law, and the court must be "fair, just and impartial." Well, stop the presses.
Such considerations as race, gender and politics count for "not so much as a feather's weight on the scales of justice," the opinion avers, verging dangerously on the poetical, although "commentators have loudly emphasized them." The opinion does not identify those big mouths, and I would not want to guess, but the court is pure and "unswayed by partisan interests, public clamor or fear of criticism."
All right, already. We get the point.
Elsewhere it is hard to see the point, as when the opinion tries to claim a precedent-setting significance: "The issue currently before the court poses a discrete and unprecedented matter which, although arising in this matter, could also potentially arise in other contexts."
No it couldn't. The dispute here arose only because, when Johnson was elected in 1994, she occupied a temporary seat created by a consent decree in a federal voting rights case, and was technically styled an appeal court judge on permanent appointment to the majors.
Those circumstances will never be repeated. A footnote to the opinion notes that a couple of Supreme Court stand-ins remained for six months, but offers no clue as to how that raises the possibility of another dispute about which of seven justices is the "oldest in point of service." Electoral terms are 10 years.
The opinion was bound to be an anti-climax, after so many months of rancor and bruised egos, because, as many a loud commentator has remarked, the only possible conclusion was that Johnson must be the next chief justice. The opinion's rationale -- that the law makes no distinction between elected and appointed members of the Supreme Court so the first one there is senior -- could have been explained in a page or so. The gist of the opinion is that the entire issue was a no-brainer.
Of course, a Supreme Court opinion has to be dressed up with a little jurisprudence here, a constitutional convention minute there, to achieve the appropriate sense of gravitas and scholarship. And when the dispute is between two of its own justices, the Supreme Court can hardly come right out and say a decent regard for the dignity of the court would have led to a private settlement.
An amicable accommodation should not be too much to ask from such eminent jurists especially when, as the opinion overwhelmingly confirms, Victory never had a legitimate claim anyway. The dispute spawned federal litigation too, and an intervention from Gov. Bobby Jindal's lawyers, so the taxpayer took a pretty decent hit for judicial vanity.
Still, we do have a Supreme Court opinion to show for it. "This court," it explains near the start, "is constitutionally tasked with resolving legal matters. This issue represents one more matter to be resolved."
Similar insights are scattered throughout.
James Gill is a columnist for The Times-Picayune. He can be reached at jgill@timespicayune.com.
Source: http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/10/supreme_court_didnt_distinguis.html
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