Court Opinion

ID: 9494481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:38:41.015653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:26.022323
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge
concurring in Order extending the Stay of Execution to October 8, 2001.
In light of Judge Boggs’ amendment to his previous dissent, I must add two rebuttals to assertions it contains. First, its challenge on the basis of “It is simply a lie”, the statement that “the exigencies of the circumstances required the prompt entry of the Order to preserve the status quo”, ignores the fact that the attempt by Judge Suhrheinrich to grant a stay until September 18 had failed. Neither Judge Batchelder nor I concurred in that part of the Order. That meant that the execution date of September 12 remained in effect. I deemed that to be an “exigent circumstance.”
The second rebuttal is note that the Clerk of Court was under a continuing directive from the Chief Judge to enter a stay Order he had previously prepared, at the appropriate time. The Clerk of Courts was fully cognizant of the Chief Judge’s desires with respect to that Order. When the Chief Judge was advised that a majority of the active judges (confirmed by the Clerk) had expressed a desire to join in the thirty day stay the Chief Judge had previously directed be entered at the appropriate time, the Clerk was advised to enter the Stay Order as modified to reflect the support of the en banc majority. He was to do so “at the direction of the Chief Judge.”
Finally, the concurrence’s reference to the tragic events of September 11 and their disruptive effects on proceedings of the Judicial Conference in Washington and access to Judge Martin there, was meant only to note the obvious. He sought to perform his administrative and judicial duties on and after September 11, away from his Chambers, under the severe handicap created by that tragedy.
This case has stirred a disturbing degree of acrimony within the court which reflects the politicization of the issues by some public officials with motives open to serious question. It creates a climate that Judge Cranch warned about in one of the most eloquent dissents ever written nearly two hundred years ago:
In times like these, when the public mind is agitated.it is the duty of a court to be peculiarly watchful lest the public feeling should reach the seat of justice, and thereby precedents be established which may become the ready tools of faction in times more disastrous. The worst of precedents may be established from the best of motives. We ought to be on our guard lest our zeal for public interest lead us to overstep the bounds of the law and the Constitution: for although we may bring one criminal to punishment, we may furnish *581the means by which an hundred innocent persons may suffer.
The Constitution was made for times of commotion. In the calm of peace and prosperity there is seldom , great injustice. Dangerous precedents occur in dangerous times. It then becomes the duty of the judiciary calmly to poise the scales of justice, unmoved by the arm of power, undisturbed by the clamor of the multitude.
As this court proceeds to examine the issues presented by the parties to this dispute, my hope is that we pay heed to the wise advice of Judge Cranch to “calmly poise the scales of justice.” We all should be prepared to live with the ultimate result.