Earlier today I commented on Batocchio’s “Vanity of Vanities! All is Vanity” post that I felt sitting U.S. presidents are given way too many powers. I also think we should take a closer look into how we pick and install Supreme Court Justices. Case in point: the Florida recount decision. Is it proper for a sitting Justice to ‘gloat’ about having a hand in choosing the presidency in 2000, when so many of our top legal scholars say that the SC shouldn’t have taken this case to begin with? Justice O’Connor even acknowledged “justices probably could have done a better job with the opinion if they hadn’t been rushed.” What does this say about our legal system? It says to me that it’s an embarrassment and one big joke.

Justices defend Florida recount decision

WASHINGTON - Three of the five Supreme Court justices who handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 say they had no choice but to intervene in the Florida recount.

Comments from Justice Anthony Kennedy and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor are in a new book that was published this week. Justice Antonin Scalia made his remarks Tuesday at Iona College in New York.

Scalia, answering questions after a speech, also said that critics of the 5-4 ruling in Bush v. Gore need to move on six years after the electoral drama of December 2000, when it seemed the whole nation hung by a chad awaiting the outcome of the presidential election.

“It’s water over the deck - get over it,” Scalia said, drawing laughs from his audience. His remarks were reported in the Gannett Co.’s Journal-News.

The court’s decision to halt the recount of Florida’s disputed election results, thus giving Bush the state’s electoral votes, has been heavily criticized as an example of the court overstepping its bounds and, worse, being driven by politics.

Rather than let the recount take place and leave state officials and possibly Congress to determine the outcome of the election, the court’s five conservative justices decided to intervene.
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Legal scholars and the four dissenting justices have said the Supreme Court should have declined to jump into the case in the first place.

In a decision made public on the evening of Dec. 12, 2000, the court said the recount violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause because Florida counties were allowed to set their own standard for determining whether to count a vote.

Source: Yahoo! News