News Hounds

According to Samuel Alito, Judges Have Immunity to Protect Them From the "Threat of ... Political Reprisals." Hannity & O'Reilly Haven't Gotten the Memo Yet

As Ellen pointed out below in her post below, FOX News hosts like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity have quite a track record fulminating against any judge or district attorney they personally disagree with. O'Reilly in particular occasionally gloats about how he "brought down" Judge Harry Rapkin of Florida. In the past two years he's mounted offensives against District Attorney Paul Howard of Georgia, Florida State Attorney Brad King, Judge Alvin Hellerstein of New York, Judge Walter Heinrich of Florida, Judge Margot Botsford of Massachusetts, Judge Thomas Schroeder of Minnesota, District Attorney Bill Davis of Iowa and the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the western United States.

in light of this, my ears perked up on Wednesday the 10th when I heard Judge Samuel Alito say the following during his questioning by Sen. Ross Feingold on the topic of immunity:

"Judges have absolute immunity for their judicial decisions. Members of Congress and their staff have absolute immunity for things that they do that are integral to the legislative process. The President has absolute immunity from civil damages for the President's official acts. ... [P]eople who are involved in lots of things that make other people angry - judges deciding cases, members of Congress passing legislation, presidents doing all sorts of things - would otherwise be subjected to the threat of so many political reprisals that they would be driven from office. And it's a policy judgment our law has made, that some people should have absolute immunity, but it's used very sparingly."

So there you have it. Straight from the mouth of one of the heroes of the right.

Judicial immunity is in place to protect our judges from people just like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and other loud-mouthed boors who latch onto one mistake in a lifetime career of public service and then threaten judges with impeachment, massive emailing and calling campaigns, personal threats by messianic couch potatoes and daily ridicule on the FOX News Channel.

Since I think Rupert Murdoch must pay his FOX people by the insult, don't bet on any of these leopards changing their spots anytime soon. Life is sweet in the jungle when you own the machine gun!