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Chauvin Judge Freak Out About Maxine Waters Is Prime Judicial Branch Inferiority Complex

With great power comes great whining about people questioning that power.

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(Image via Getty)

Maybe it’s all those years being branded the “least dangerous branch” or maybe it’s just the fact that public perception is catching up with the fact that, at the highest levels, “objective” legalese is a fig leaf for naked political action, but the judiciary has an overactive inferiority complex. And it’s sad. Maybe we need some more puff pieces about how smart and pretty all these judges are so they can patch up their fragile egos.

Let’s just compare and contrast two passages from a specific CNN story — though it could be just about any mainstream media account — put out last night describing Derek Chauvin trial judge Peter Cahill’s reaction to comments made over the weekend by California congresswoman Maxine Waters. First up, Judge Cahill:

“I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned,” Judge Peter Cahill told defense attorney Eric Nelson on Monday….

Cahill said that he was aware of Waters’ comments about “the unacceptability of anything less than a murder conviction and talk about being confrontational.”

That does sound troubling as presented. Now let’s contrast that with what CNN reports Waters actually said:

“We’ve got to stay in the street and demand justice,” Waters said to reporters, according to video posted on social media.

“We’re looking for a guilty verdict and we’re looking to see if all of the talk that took place and has been taking place after they saw what happened to George Floyd. If nothing does not happen, then we know that we got to not only stay in the street, but we have got to fight for justice,” she added.

Keep marching and don’t lose faith if the verdict goes the wrong way? Wow, how will the jury system survive if jurors know that there might be… marches? And is the judge suggesting that jurors just learned that over the weekend? Were they in comas over the summer when this exact case resulted in marches? That’s unfortunately a serious question — COVID can unfortunately do that.

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Now make no mistake, CNN doesn’t go to the trouble of pointing out the disconnect between Judge Cahill’s account of these comments and the reality. It’s just all mashed together under a headline that makes it sound as though Waters had ordered the storming of the Bastille.

There are obviously racial dynamics involved in assuming that when a small, 82-year-old Black woman says “fight for justice” this constitutes some sort of threat, and I’ll leave unpacking that to others. But it also speaks to a sad sense of judicial inferiority — a complex that manifests in viewing any question of its sole and infallible capacity to act as the arbiter of “justice” as an assault on the bedrock of democracy.

“I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function,” Cahill added later. “I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution, to respect a coequal branch of government.”

“Their failure to do so, I think, is abhorrent, but I don’t think it’s prejudiced us with additional material that would prejudice this jury,” he said, adding that “a congresswoman’s opinion really doesn’t matter a whole lot.”

My heavens, this is steeped in self-important nonsense. The romanticism of the legal profession may present itself as all “Elle Woods and 12 Angry Men,” but it’s just as often yelling at the proverbial bouncer of life, “Do you know who I am?” Except in Latin.

Yes, an acquittal, after what we all saw, is likely to spur protests. That’s something already baked into the jurors’ decisions. There’s no “additional material” here?

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And what we learned from the protests over the summer is that the more pre-organized and well-attended marches are, the more likely crowds are to self-regulate and avoid legal transgressions. Unsurprisingly, when protests are organized in the open they’re less likely to go sour than when they’re organized on message boards among people who think the renewable energy credits are just a front for trafficking children to have their blood drained by Hillary Clinton. It’s all about reading the room, and telling people peacefully marching for days that they need to stay out there and keep confronting injustice is materially different from telling yahoos with zip-ties and nooses to storm the Capitol. If you’re incapable of identifying that — it’s actually a discredit to the word “nuance” to call it “nuance” — basic reality then there’s a whole panoply of anti-psychotics available on the market for you.

But more to the point, Judge Cahill seems prepared to call out the troops to disperse activists gathering on the Supreme Court steps. Fun fact: it is not “disrespectful to the rule of law” to encourage protests. It’s kind of the whole point of living in a free society. “Criticism is disrespect” is a creepily authoritarian sentiment.

The thing is, part of being a coequal branch of government is realizing that you’re part of the system and not above it. This is just a chef’s kiss of back to back statements — “[she needs] to respect a coequal branch of government” and “a congresswoman’s opinion really doesn’t matter a whole lot.” Respect apparently only flows one way, and all those meanies really need to start respecting judges more! In the word’s of the immortal Wes Mantooth, judges need us to rub Vaseline all over their heinies and tell them that it’s special and different from everyone else’s.

The judicial branch can and will render decisions. And those decisions will be respected. If Chauvin is acquitted, no protest is putting him in jail over the will of the jury. But the people don’t have to like decisions and they’re well within their rights to protest them.

Recognize, and I cannot stress this enough, if there are protests, they won’t be challenging the judicial system. If Chauvin is acquitted after that trial, it says more about how the country regulates police as a profession and police reform is very much within the realm of the political branches. A protest in that event would, in fact, be quite respectful of the rule of law by saying, “I guess our laws don’t account for that conduct, so we need to change our laws.” Public protest is a constitutional form of impressing upon those branches the need for action.

Judge Cahill’s take boils down to “if the jury decides this killing was justified under the law, politicians and the public cannot call for changes to the law,” which runs pretty far afield of respecting branches as coequal.

Instead of whining about a legislator talking about justice, how about you stick in your lane and make sure you’re doing everything in your power to guarantee the sanctity of the judicial system that you seem so desperate for the country to accept without question? It’s almost like both of you could be doing your own thing for the cause of justice… like, “coequally” or something.

And to all the judges out there, maybe try some daily self-affirmation exercises in the mirror or something.

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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