Left her sheet home for the day.
Where do these people come from? Why aren't they begging for spare change on street corners instead of drawing federal salaries? Never mind, that's rhetorical. We know where they come from.
Judge Edith Jones was appointed to the Fifth Circuit Court by none other than Ronald Reagan in 1985. And while most right-wing judges are smart enough to keep any racist views they may harbor to themselves, after 28 years on the bench, Jones apparently decided to let her freak flag fly. Fortunately, her alleged remarks at a February lecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law have sparked the filing of a complaint by a coalition of civil rights groups. The complaint says that her claims in the lecture, including the view that blacks and Latinos are more prone to violent behavior than other Americans, violated several of the canons of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges.
Jones's remarks were not recorded. But five students and an attorney in attendance at her lecture on the death penalty signed affidavits attesting to what she said:
Those were used to generate a 12-page complaint filed in New Orleans stating that Jones "has engaged in conduct that is prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts, undermines public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary, and creates a strong appearance of impropriety."
Jones is accused of saying that certain "racial groups like African-Americans and Hispanics are predisposed to crime," and are "prone to commit acts of violence" and be involved in more violent and "heinous" crimes than people of other ethnicities.
The complaint also states that Jones said defendants' claims of racism, innocence, arbitrariness, and violations of international law and treaties are just "red herrings" used by opponents of the death penalty, and that claims of "mental retardation" by capital defendants disgust her. The fact that those defendants were convicted of a capital crime is sufficient to prove they are not "mentally retarded," the complaint alleges Jones to have said.
That wasn't all. She dissed the entire Mexican legal system and said the death penalty is a service to those on death row because it spurs them to make peace with God before they are executed. Jones also
said in her lecture that "any Mexican National would rather be on death row in the United States than in a Mexican prison." She has long been known for wanting to speed up executions.
The complaint states that in her lecture Jones also made prejudicial remarks on cases that have yet to wind their way through the lower courts, cases in which she may have a say during any appeals.
The coalition includes the Mexican Capital Legal Assistance Program, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Texas Civil Rights Project, the Austin chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Houston affiliate of the National Bar Association.
In 1990, Jones was President George H.W. Bush's second choice for a nomination to the Supreme Court, an associate justiceship that went to David Souter instead. She was again considered for a nomination in 2005 by President George W. Bush.
If she'd managed to wangle one of those nominations and gain Senate confirmation, she would now be immune from the complaint filed against her since Supreme Court justices are not bound by the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges.
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tiimbitz4786 has posted a discussion on this subject.