State Courts & Judicial Outreach

• Published in: Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.) Vol. 137; no. 4; pp. 129 - 138
• Main Author: McGregor, Ruth V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209, USA The MIT Press 22.09.2008; MIT Press; American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Subjects: Analysis; Attitudes; Chief justice; Civic education; Committees; Community relations; Company business management; Court hearings & proceedings; Courts; Courts of law; Criminal justice; Education; Home pages; Judges; Judges & magistrates; Judicial process; Judicial system; Judiciary; Law; Law schools; Legislation; Outreach services; Political systems; Politics; Powers and duties; Public access; Secondary school teachers; Separation of powers; Social aspects; State; State court judges; State courts; Websites; United States
• DOI: 10.1162/daed.2008.137.4.129
• ISSN: 0011-5266

[...] congressional leaders and the president harshly criticized U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer for granting a suppression motion in a politically charged drug case, eventually urging his resignation and threatening impeachment.4 Shortly thereafter, Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Penny White was defeated in a retention election that centered around her concurrence in an opinion that remanded a death penalty case for resentencing.5 And on June 4, 1996, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge H. Lee Sarokin retired because he found himself contemplating whether and how opinions he was preparing would be used politically in light of persistent political criticism aimed at his work on the bench.6 These and similar incidents, followed by broad, general criticisms of judges and the judicial system, triggered a torrent of responses from the academy, the bar, and the bench. Several law reviews held symposia on judicial independence in the late 1990s, and on July 4, 1997, the ABA Commission on the Separation of Powers and Judicial Independence, formed in part as a response to these attacks, released its final report, which provided a historical overview of judicial independence and outlined several recommendations designed to ensure its preservation.7 State-court judges quickly put aside their frustration at being the target of attacks many perceived as unfounded and unfair and began developing initiatives designed to bolster judicial independence, foster a better public understanding of the judiciary, and identify areas in which the courts need to improve.