Litigation

NY Times Editorial Hits ?Dangerous Threats?

By Peter Hardin

It wasn’t a laughing matter when a Montana congressman urged that a judge with whom he disagreed should be put “on the endangered species list,” cautions a New York Times editorial, entitled “Dangerous Threats.”

Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg (photo at left) made the remark in a speech before the state legislature, when criticizing  a court ruling to keep the grey wolf on the Endangered Species List (see Gavel Grab).

The editorial says Rehberg was thinking about Judge Donald Molloy (photo at right) of the Federal District Court for Montana, whose children subsequently protested in a state newspaper that the words made a threat, ?either veiled or outright.?

The editorial goes on to criticize Rehberg:

“Mr. Rehberg, who likes to quote Thomas Jefferson when it suits him, should re-read the Constitution. The judiciary is a separate, co-equal branch of government. Federal judges have life tenure in order to make impartial and independent judgments. Mr. Rehberg should protect the judge from political pressure, not subject him to a nasty kind that encourages others to do the same.”

“It is a glory of American life that the law robustly protects the freedom to express political passions. When politics fans those passions rather than disciplining them, as happened last week in Montana where Representative Rehberg?s threat drew an eager laugh, the system protecting that freedom is also threatened.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 17, 2011 (boomark / email).