Word: courtly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...issue: Did one or more of the supreme court's seven judges delay announcing decisions on politically sensitive cases that could have hurt Chief Justice Bird's chances of winning approval by the voters? Did any of the justices or staff members leak confidential information about the decisions to the press...
...ballot at the next statewide election. Although the confirmation vote is usually a rubber stamp, in Bird's case it became the occasion for pointed political protest. Contending that she was "soft" on crime, conservatives launched a $300,000 effort to oust her from the court. Bird survived the election with 52% of the vote, even though details of the court's potentially unpopular decision on an armed robbery case were leaked to the Los Angeles Times and appeared on the day of the election...
Within six weeks, the court released its actual decisions on this and three other controversial cases. Of the four, the robbery case became most notorious because of the apparent accuracy of the leaked information and the law-and-order aspects of the case. California's "use a gun, go to prison" law, signed by Governor Brown in 1975, mandates prison sentences for certain specific crimes in which a gun is used. In the case at issue, Harold Tanner used a gun in the robbery, but the weapon was not loaded. The trial judge dismissed the gun charge and placed...
Evidence presented last week shows how much squabbling and infighting are involved when the court arrives at a decision but indicates no specific delaying tactics. Documents do, however, support claims that the justices or members of their staffs may have leaked confidential information to the press...
...commission will determine whether charges should be brought against any justice. Whatever the outcome, the legal community frets that public airing of the matter may hurt the California judicial system. Says Stanford Law Professor Gerald Gunther: "In an immediate sense, it will add to the court's already damaged prestige." But, Gunther concludes, "in the long run, the hearings may help some of the justices search their souls and try to do better in their personal relations and at the quality level...