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State Judge Declares War on U.S. Supreme Court By Tony Mauro Last month, Parker wrote an op-ed in The Birmingham News, attacking the high court's "blatant judicial tyranny." The case that had gotten him roaring was the outcome in 2005's Roper v. Simmons, which tossed out the death penalty for inmates who were under 18 at the time of their crimes. It was a blistering opening salvo in what Parker hopes will be a wide re-examination of the role of the Supreme Court ahead of the fight over the next vacancy. And despite a certain level of nomination fatigue in Washington, in Parker's view that vacancy can't come soon enough. In the column, Parker called for what could be considered an act of judicial sedition. Because Roper was based, he wrote, on the application of foreign law (a notion its author, Justice Anthony Kennedy, would dispute), it was an "unconstitutional opinion" that his Alabama colleagues should "actively resist." But instead, Parker's own court, obeying the Roper ruling, last year set aside the death penalty for convicted murderer Renaldo Adams, who was 17 when he raped and stabbed an Alabama woman. Parker had to recuse in the Adams case because, as a prosecutor at the time, he had helped bring the case against the defendant. Still, Parker felt obliged to publicly criticize the colleagues who spared Adams' life. "State supreme court judges should not follow obviously wrong decisions simply because they are precedents," he wrote. "After all, a judge takes an oath to support the Constitution -- not to automatically follow activist judges who believe their own devolving standards of decency trump the text of the Constitution." Strong words from a state Supreme Court justice, even in a state with a history of defying federal dictates -- most notably, the late Gov. George Wallace's refusal to integrate the University of Alabama in 1963. It's also a place well known for the conservatism of its judiciary. But that didn't matter to Parker. "It does no good to possess conservative credentials," he wrote, "if you surrender them before joining the battle." Reaction to Parker's shot across the bow was swift. His fellow justice Michael Bolin told the Associated Press that Parker's column was "an unprecedented attack by a member of the Supreme Court on each fellow justice and an attack on the court as an institution." Bolin hinted that Parker had violated a state canon of judicial ethics that states judges should promote confidence in the judiciary. More than a month later, Parker now says no ethics complaint has been filed and his relations with his colleagues are as collegial as they were before the column appeared. Bolin's comments were made "in the heat of emotion, but they don't play out over time," Parker says, adding that he had "strong conversations" with all of his colleagues about the column. (Bolin did not return phone messages.) But Parker's attack on the U.S. Supreme Court has had a concrete legal effect. Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative, which represents indigent defendants and prisoners in Alabama, says he is aware of at least two cases in which Parker has been asked to step aside in reviewing pending death sentences. Parker declined to say how he will respond to the motions. "There is fear that he will not follow Supreme Court precedents," says Stevenson. "Judges express dissent or disapproval all the time, but they apply decisions they do not agree with. The idea that a judge can refuse to follow a decision he does not like seems to be the very definition of the kind of judicial activism he criticizes." Stevenson calls Parker's stance "pretty puzzling and outrageous."
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A Feast
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