Jake Highton

Defrocking the Supreme Court Jake Highton

A series of newspaper articles written about the Supreme Court decisions. Contents: On Roberts Court Rulings More Woeful Decisions Worst Supreme Court Decisions Magnificent Dissents The author, Jake Highton is an Emeritus journalism professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. His articles are published weekly in the Sparks Tribune and occasionally in the Reno News & Review. The problem with the Supreme Court is that the justices are lawyers. That is not a nightclub comedian's joke. It's a searing truth. Lawyers are legalistic rather than humanistic. They are narrow-minded rather than broad-minded. They favor corporations rather than consumers. Most federal judges are rich. In two terms President Reagan appointed 279 U. S. judges. The majority had a net worth of $400,000. One fifth of them were millionaires. Such judges are unlikely to favor ordinary people. The great socialist leader Eugene Debs pointed out that a member of the working class has never been out on the federal bench let alone on the august Supreme Court. Most justices have been mediocrities. President Washington named 10 justices, "a thoroughly undistinguished lot," Peter Irons wrote in "A People's History of the Supreme Court." Jake Highton