[November 21, 2003 — The U.S. Senate recently spent 30 hours in filibuster over the issue of appointment of judges to federal courts. The filibuster is over, but nothing has been settled. Since the possibility exists for President Bush to appoint judges during the holiday recess period, we thought we would bring this February 2003 publication back to the front page.]

How do we break the partisan logjam and nominate candidates that not only respect our constitutional principles but can be accepted by both parties?

The Judiciary Committee of the Senate is currently reviewing candidates for appointment to the Appellate Division and District Courts across the United States. There are currently around 60 vacant seats in the District and Appellate Court systems.

It is a rare occasion when the historic religious community speaks out on the issue of the appointment of judges. As a 501-c-3 organization, we are prohibited from lending support or opposition to a particular elected or appointed public official. However, it is not beyond the scope of our authority to say something about a process where there may be an injustice or disregard of civil rights.

The advocacy community has been quietly watching the judicial nomination process over several years and now has begun to come forward to raise distinct concerns that go beyond the individuals who seek appointment to these benches.

Civil rights, through the interpretation of law, are in the balance with each appointment to the courts. Out of a deep concern for the fundamental civil rights of all people, the religious community lifts up our concerns on this topic.

Over recent years, our democracy has matured. We now accept the fact that certain rights and privileges must be available to all who claim this nation as their own. As judicial candidates are reviewed, we urge the Senate and the President to seek those persons who would evaluate the behavior and actions of an individual, a corporation, or even a legislative body — as to how the questions of fact in a case may have either violated or upheld the agreed upon laws of society. This requires judges who start with profound respect for our constitutional principles.

Within the religious traditions of the interfaith community, we understand the position of judge to be the one who stands as the protector of the traditions and tenets that have been handed down to us by our prophets, apostles and revered adjudicators.

At the same time, we would be the first to say that our laws have not always been perfect. They have, in the past, denied civil rights to women and people of color. But we corrected many of these blemishes through the legislative process, based on the advocacy of the people. To name just a few:

• The right to worship and speak freely;
• The right to express our political opinion by our vote;
• The right to equal protection;
• Equal access to housing; and
• Equal opportunity to employment.

We join our voice with others who call your attention to civil rights, women’s rights, environmental, worker, consumer and disability rights. We ask that the Judiciary Committee in the Senate appoint justices who would be fair and balanced. We need a federal judiciary that will protect the rights and safety of all Americans.

Those who come before our court system must not come to understand that their fate rests in the interpretation of the law based on the personal bias of the judge before whom they stand, instead of being judged by the law resulting from many public debates, debates that lead to the development of the law under which they are being judged.

We understand the primary responsibility of a judge to be one that does not judge the law itself, but judges the behavior of the person who stands before him or her as the one who has been accused of being in violation of the law. Neither do we understand it to be the prerogative of a judge to make new laws based on an ideology that may be seen as either conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, right or left.

We have witnessed the stalemating of appointments during both a Democrat- and a Republican- controlled process. The stalemating has hurt the very people our civil rights have been designed to protect. Empty judicial benches have led to backlog and only serve to deny both the plaintiff and the defendants the right to a speedy trial.

On the other hand, we know that our constitutional rights are too important to rush these appointments. We urge the Senate to make deliberate, well-informed decisions in considering confirmations for United States Appellate and District Courts, and to refuse to act on any nomination that has not received full and complete scrutiny to assure fairness.

Judicial appointments are lifetime. The long-term consequences could be devastating with the wrong person in place. These judges are often the court of last resort for virtually all Americans. Senators have a constitutional duty to make these determinations carefully.

Suggested Action:

Contact your Senator. Urge him or her to take seriously the confirmation process so that our court system reflects fairness for all who may come before it and invokes respect from all citizens. The information above can be the basis of your letter or phone call.

The number of vacant seats changes as appointments are made (following confirmation in the Senate). To keep up-to-date on the latest numbers and particular seats, you may want to visit www.uscourts.gov and type in ‘vacancy’ in the search feature. You may want to see if your regional courts are filled.

General Assembly:

The Church and Criminal Justice: Toward a Theology of Criminal Justice (excerpts from the 1978 statement of the PCUS, pp. 194-204)

… While the Christian Faith in itself cannot provide the details of a good justice system, it can and should speak about the fundamental motives and final goals of a criminal justice system . . . and some criteria for evaluating actual practices . . .

. . . the crucial question is whether and how we can put justice and love together.

A. The Justice and Love of God

1. The loving justice of God. . . . God’s justice is justice that is openly biased in favor of those who are weak, vulnerable, and helpless; justice is exercised to give rights to those who have no rights. In other words, it is loving justice.

. . . The New Testament view of God’s justice is even more offensive than that of the Old Testament. It is not just justice in behalf of people who are underdogs but justice for lawbreakers, disturbers of law and order.

Moreover, it is not just Jesus but God himself who is like that. . .

2. The just love of God. . . . Both the Old and New Testaments emphasize not only that God’s justice is loving justice; they emphasize with equal strength that God’s love is just love. . . God is the terrible Judge whose wrath burns against the unrighteousness of all kinds of sinners- those who are moral as well as those who are immoral, rich as well as poor, religious as well as irreligious. All will . . . hear the same verdict: Guilty! And all will receive the same sentence: “The wages of sin is death.”

. . . the question of divine justice and love and the question of human justice and love come together in the cross of Christ.

. . . The Good News by which the Christian faith stands or falls is that God’s . . . justice, is executed in such a way that he takes it on himself rather than let it fall on those who deserve it. In Jesus Christ the Judge lets himself be judged. . . The verdict and sentence are carried out in such a way that the guilty are forgiven, set free, given new life. Justice is executed in such a way that it is not against but for the unjust. . .

. . . have we taken the doctrine of God’s justice and love in the atoning death of Christ seriously at all if we do not relate it also to the question of criminal justice and prison systems? If it does not apply there, does it really apply anywhere? . . .

B. Implications of God’s Justice and Love for a Criminal Justice System

1. We have to be careful when we begin to apply the Biblical-Christian understanding of the loving justice and just love of God to the question of our justice system. There can be no direct correspondence . . . for several reasons:

a. The concept of justice we have lined out is a uniquely Christian (perhaps Hebrew-Christian) concept . . . Bible faith cannot and should not be imposed on our pluralistic society that is held together and governed not by the Bible but by a constitution which is religiously neutral . . .

b. It would be disastrous to make a direct analogy . . . because [all those involved in our justice system] are not little gods or Jesuses, or even direct representatives of God or Jesus. . . No person or group is a bigger threat to real justice and love than that person or group who gets themselves confused with God, their judgments about right and wrong confused with his judgments.

c. Finally . . . because there can be no exact parallel between God’s justice in the “substitutionary atonement” on the cross and human justice. . .Nevertheless, . . . we can make an indirect analogy.

2. a. Human justice which reflects God’s loving justice and just love will be especially concerned to guarantee, maintain, and defend . . . [those who cannot defend themselves for whatever reason]. . .

d. Human justice . . . will at least indirectly reflect [God’s justice as outlined above] . . . a just human community can and should willingly take on itself responsibility to understand and help the weak, needy, guilty members of our society. . . not just because we are to reflect [God] . . . but also . . . because our society is at least partly responsible for the social, political, economic, moral, and spiritual conditions which make some of our members weak, threatened, helpless, sick, and tempted to anti-social behavior. . .

e. Finally . . .even the best justice system we can devise will inevitably reflect to some extent the personal and social prejudices, limited understanding, and self-interest of those who administer it, and will continually stand itself in need or correction. . .

II. Guidelines for Evaluating the Criminal Justice System

1. Justice should guarantee and defend especially the rights of those who are the weakest, most vulnerable, most likely to be forgotten, exploited, or oppressed, most unable to help or defend themselves.

2. Since the criminal justice system is part of the social fabric, injustices and social ills should be addressed within the larger context of political, social, and economic realities in our society; the criminal justice system should not be expected to cope with the results of various social problems.

6. Discretion is an essential element of justice, but . . . should be guided and checked.

7. Everyone should exercise humility and self-criticism themselves as well as compassion toward those involved in the criminal justice system.

8. Influences and practices of discrimination based on racial, ethnic, sexual, or political identification should be eliminated.