For the past two centuries, the American judicial system has weighed in during our nation’s most pivotal moments, inflection points that have steered and shaped our country. Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, United States v. Nixon — whether it was ending segregation, protecting women’s rights or declaring that no man was above the law, it was the branch envisioned in article three that fought so zealously to defend our rights as Americans. While they may not have always gotten it right or lived up to our highest notions, we could rest assured knowing that the courts would uphold righteous causes. But what happens when an institution as vital as our judicial branch becomes debased and weaponized? What happens when faith in a system that was so integral to the ideals of America deteriorates? We are left where we are right now — confused, enraged and divided.
In the wake of the 2020 election, Former President Donald Trump and his supporters filed 62 lawsuits contesting the election, ranging from how the vote was counted all the way to who was allowed to vote. Almost half of these lawsuits were immediately dismissed on merit, and in only one of those cases did Mr. Trump prevail. The key takeaway — Mr. Trump lost 98% of these court cases — not just against Democratic-ultra-activist-liberal judges ruling against him. Of the 13 cases filed in federal court, 68% of the judges were Republican appointees. Mr. Trump went up against judges he appointed and lost. In a way, this is comforting. The system worked, and even though the 2020 election deniers attempted to weaponize the legal system with frivolous litigation, justice prevailed.
But what happens when the courts seem to stray from what is just? Cases like Trump v. United States, where Justice Sotomayor said the majority’s decision “completely insulate Presidents from criminal liability” and “invents an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law.” It is cases like these, where the court’s decision seems so antithetical to the very fabric of American democracy that forces one step back and wonder how the system has worked for so long. “Justice for all” is so ingrained, so quintessential to the American idea that one has to wonder how the court could so blithely cast it aside.
The immediate desire is rash — you want to cast out the whole institution as readily as you saw the court do the same. I then remember cases like Dred Scott v. Stanford or Korematsu v. United States. Cases, where looking back, we can see how very wrong the court was. Mustn’t they have been as angry, shocked and horrified by the court’s rulings? We did not burn down the system after those rulings; we learned from them and sought to ensure the court did not make those same mistakes again.
President Biden recently announced his plan to reform the Supreme Court, which included 18-year term limits, a binding code of ethics and an amendment to the Constitution that would ensure Presidents could be criminally prosecuted for misconduct in office. Term limits, just as those with the president, would work to reduce the power of one justice to influence the court for decades upon decades. But, they really fail to address the underlying problem — partisan judges. Even if there are term limits and ethics requirements, that does not prevent members of the judiciary from detaching themselves from the law and pursuing their own agenda.
So I set out to find the best way to restore order to what seems like an increasingly volatile judicial system and arrived sitting across the table from a twenty-five-year veteran of the Federal Courts, the Honorable Judge Charles Pannell. A Clinton appointee, Judge Pannell has sat on the bench across five presidential administrations and oversaw hundreds of cases during his time. He acknowledges the increasing polarization of the past four years, so I asked him about his process when ruling on a particularly charged case. To him, it’s relatively simple: “You can’t play politics on the bench.”
Judge Pannell recalled the case of Cox v. Larios, where Sara Larios sued then-Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox over the Democratic legislature’s redistricting plan. Judge Pannell was selected to be a part of a three-judge panel that ruled on the case. He discussed the pressure that he received as a Clinton appointee to rule in the Democrats’ favor. In the end, the panel, including Judge Pannell, ruled in favor of the plaintiff, finding that the Georgia legislature had violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Judge Pannell was confident in his decision — he looked only at the merits of the case in front of him and the law. But, his method is not without disadvantages; the judge recalls sharp looks and lost friends after the ruling. But at the end of the day, he was not accountable to a party or person. He was accountable to the law.
This idea of judicial neutrality, where judges avoid injecting their own personal beliefs into their rulings but rather rely on the law, is essential to maintaining the integrity of our judicial system. Interpreting the law in the context of the times is responsible and necessary — making choices based on personal beliefs is not. In the face of pressure, Judge Pannell recalls advice he received when he first became the youngest Superior Court Judge in the State of Georgia: “You’ll have more friends right now than you will ever have for the rest of your life.”
Enforcing the law is not a popularity contest; it is about maintaining fairness above all else. Before leaving Judge Pannell’s chambers, I wondered if he had a solution to quell the polarization of the courts. He said that there may not be a simple solution that fixes our judicial system’s challenges but reiterated that “our system has been set up for over two-hundred years now to be the dispute-settling mechanism.” His point is that we haven’t developed anything better, which underscores the necessity of continuing to work and improve the system rather than abandon it. The solution: we need judges who follow the law and are not subservient to a person or party. Judge Pannell recalled someone once asking his father if being a judge was difficult. His response — “No. All you have to do is follow the law.”