There’s a bit of a problem with today’s Mississippi Supreme Court opinion reprimanding Judge Solomon Osborne for a speech that all the justices who wrote agreed was reprehensible, and Justices Dickinson and Kitchens in dissent (joined by Justice Graves) see what’s wrong. Here’s a summary:
- Judge Osborne made a speech. That’s always a good indicator you have a possible First Amendment issue.
- The speech was made during a political campaign, and it referred in a critical way directly to appointments by a elected public official. Somewhere I recall the phrase “core value.” If the First Amendment is about anything, it’s about statements criticizing elected public officials.
- To achieve the result of condemning this speech, the Supreme Court talks about the content of the speech and nothing else– not behavior, but what he chose to say about the public official.
- Everyone acknowledges that the United States Supreme Court has held that elected judges do not surrender their First Amendment rights by becoming judges.
This is not like the time Judge Osborne was involved in the attack on the repo man, or the time he practiced law frm the bench. This is straight-up political speech, which, like it or not (actually, I like that it is protected), is protected by the First Amendment.
Justice Dickinson, by saying he doesn’t like what Judge Osborne said but resoundingly protecting his right to say it, gets it absolutely right, as does Justice Kitchens in a very similar dissent.
Concur. The court blew this one.
Pathetic, Solomon’s speech and the Court’s opinion.
What are the odds for a writ on this one?
In the interests of full disclosure: I filed the lead complaint against Osborne. I did it because I don’t want to have to be judged, as a white man, in his court knowing he holds such sentiments against my race.
We all know that if a supervisor or city council member or mayor or police chief or sheriff exhibits racial prejudice in his speech, the voters are responsible to remove him. If they do not, the racial minority must suffer the verbal abuse (and actual, palpable but unprovable discrimination by the official) as one of the glories of the democratic process.
Only if that racial animus in those offices results in a PROVABLE violation of rights may relief be sought in the courts.
If the canons of judicial performance are to be stripped of these requirements for judges, how can the public have confidence in the judiciary when it is administered by confessed racists like Judge Osborne?
What are white parties before a judge like Osborne to do? Seems to me that they all have a right to a recusal, given his expressed prejudice against their entire race.
Where this ends is that the entire justice system would grind to a halt in Leflore County.
If the canons cannot discipline a judge who clearly expresses prejudice against large classes of people that appear before him, then they are useless as a tool to ensure the integrity of the judiciary.