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The
Senate Must Reject Judge Terrence
Boyle
by
Marc
H. Morial
President
and CEO National
Urban League
Marc
H. Morial,
President of the National
Urban League, is the
former two-term Mayor of New
Orleans, former President of the U.S.
Conference of Mayors, and
author of TO BE EQUAL. He
is a Columnist for MaximsNews.com.
Hear his weekly Radio Commentary Online.
See
Marc Morial's bio.
MarcMorial@MaximsNews.com
Please
see All of Marc
Morial's MaximsNews
columns below.*
UNITED
NATIONS - 24 February
2005
/ www.MaximsNews.com
/ Does a United States
District Court judge who has
demonstrated extraordinary
hostility to laws protecting the
rights of Americans deserve
appointment to a U.S. Court of
Appeals?
Does
a U.S. District Court judge of
extremely conservative views
deserve advancement to the U.S.
Court of Appeals for his
jurisdiction when more than 150 of
his decisions have been reversed
on appeal by that very Court of
Appeals -- a panel which itself is
universally regarded as the most
conservative Appeals Court in the
country?
Does
a U.S. District Court judge who
fails to turn over thousands of
his unpublished civil rights
opinions to the Senate Judiciary
Committee, which is to review his
nomination, deserve a lifetime
seat on the nation's second
highest court?
These
and other questions surround the
Bush Administration's nomination
of U.S. District Court Judge
Terrence Boyle for a seat on the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Fourth Circuit.
Its
jurisdiction covers the states of
North Carolina, South Carolina,
Virginia, West Virginia, and
Maryland
We
think the answers to those
questions add up to a resounding
no -- and we urge the Senate
Judiciary Committee, which is
about to formally consider the
nomination, to reject it.
Judge
Boyle, of North Carolina, has been
a Federal District Court judge
since 1984, when he was appointed
by President Reagan.
He
was first nominated to the Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991
by President George H. W. Bush, but
the Judiciary Committee let his
nomination lapse.
Now,
Judge Boyle, long supported by
former Republican Senator Jesse
Helms, of North Carolina, on whose
staff he once served, and the late
Republican Senator Strom Thurmond,
of South Carolina, has been
re-nominated to the Fourth Circuit
by President George W. Bush.
But
the Senate Judiciary Committee's
answer must still be no.
Judge
Boyle's decisions overwhelmingly
display an astonishing disregard
for the rights of individuals and
the proper exercise of judicial
authority.
As
his record of reversals on appeal
proves, even a significantly
conservative review panel has
found his rulings unacceptable far
too often.
In
cases involving race that come
before Judge Boyle, the plaintiffs
rarely reach the trial stage.
He's
dismissed numerous cases even
before trial -- decisions which
have prompted numerous reversals
by the Fourth Circuit Court.
For
example, in one case, Rogers v. Lee, the Fourth Circuit reversed Judge Boyle for not
following the established law on
discriminatory jury selection
practices.
In
that case, Judge Boyle allowed the
prosecution to strike every black
juror, leaving the
African-American defendant to be
tried and subsequently convicted
by an all-white jury.
In
another case, Franks
v. Ross, the Fourth Circuit
reversed Judge Boyle for summarily
rejecting a claim of environmental
racism by plaintiffs seeking to
halt construction of a landfill in
a predominantly-black area.
The
Fourth Circuit cited numerous
errors by Judge Boyle, including
his abuse of his discretion in
denying an amended complaint,
incorrectly calculating when the
statute of limitations had begun
to run, and wrongly concluding
that state officials were immune
from being sued.
Judge
Boyle's errors in one civil
rights case led the U.S. Supreme
Court to reverse him twice in that
same case.
The
case was Cromartie v. Hunt, in which a group of white North Carolina voters
challenged the drawing of
boundaries for a district
represented by Democrat Mel Watt,
an African-American.
First,
the High Court declared in a
unanimous 9 – 0 decision that
Judge Boyle had erred in ruling
without a trial that the North
Carolina legislature drew the
boundaries of the district
primarily for racial reasons.
Judge
Boyle then held a trial—and
again ruled the district's
boundaries had been drawn for
racial purposes.
Again,
the Supreme Court declared that it
had not been proved the state
legislature had drawn the
district's boundaries primarily
for racial reasons, and reversed
Judge Boyle's decision.
Judge
Boyle's record is replete with
examples of his seeking to protect
the State from civil rights
lawsuits that don't involve
race, too.
For
example, in a suit against the
North Carolina department of motor
vehicles, Judge Boyle was one of
the first judges in the country to
assert that a state's sovereign
immunity protected it from suits
filed by employees under the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
Later, he ruled that
Congress did not have the
authority to apply the ADA to
state prisons.
The
Supreme Court, taking up a similar
case involving Pennsylvania,
subsequently declared that states
could be sued under ADA
provisions.
Judge
Boyle's record on the bench
marks him as being significantly
out of step with mainstream
American jurisprudence, be it
conservative or liberal, and with
the need of all the residents of a
Circuit Court jurisdiction that
has more African-Americans
residing within its boundaries
than any of the nation's
twelve other Circuit
Courts.
Certainly,
the Bush Administration, which has
seen more than 200 of its judicial
nominees approved by the Senate,
can do better than Judge Terrence
Boyle.
The
Senate Judiciary Committee must do
its duty in reminding them of
that.
MarcMorial@MaximsNews.com
*Marc
Morial's Columns in MaximsNews
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