"Alliance for Justice": UNjust to Judge Boyle

By Michael Gaynor

In the matter of the nomination of Judge Terrence Boyle to serve a federal appellate judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the self-described Alliance for Justice is unjust, partial and unfair, not just, impartial and fair. Under truth in advertising principles, it should be renamed Alliance for INjustice.

Judge Boyle: Judge Boyle is a distinguished federal district court judge with over two decades of experience on the bench, highly qualified and well prepared for appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. His opinions clearly demonstrate his commitment to the rule of law and thoroughness in deciding matters before him. Democrats as well as Republicans have expressed their support for Judge Boyle's nomination, citing his record as one based on a fair and impartial reading of the law. BUT, even though it has been nearly four years since President George W. Bush nominated Judge Boyle to be a federal appellate judge and fifteen years since President George H. W. Bush first nominated Judge Boyle for the position, Judge Boyle is still waiting for an up-or-down vote on his nomination.

THAT is a travesty of justice.

The Alliance's egregious misrepresentation of Judge Boyle's impressive judicial record and cunning misrepresentation of itself are travesties of justice too.

Justice: the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments; the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity; the quality of being unjust, impartial or fair.

Travesty: a burlesque translation or literary or artistic imitation usually grotesquely incongruous in style, treatment or subject matter; a debased,distorted or grossly inferior imitation (a travesty of justice); see caricature

"Alliance for Justice": The Alliance for Justice defines itself on its website (www.alj.org) as "a national association of environmental, civil rights, mental health, women's, children's and consumer advocacy organizations [that] [s]ince its inception in 1979...has worked to advance the cause of justice for all Americans, strengthen the public interest community's ability to influence public policy, and foster the next generation of advocates."

Would that it were really so!

The Alliance is really dedicated to influencing public policy instead of "the cause of justice" and so it opposes judicial nominees like Judge Boyle, who believe that the proper role of a judge or justice is to interpret the law and the Constitution — not make up the law and deprive the people of the right to govern ourselves — instead of to use the power of the court to impose the political agenda of the Alliance for Justice on the people.

The Alliance's Contention and Underlying (with emphasis on the "lying" part) Factual Misrepresentation: Judge Boyle should not be confirmed because he has been reversed much more often than other federal district court judges.

In the Alliance's report on Judge Boyle's nomination, issued on March 20, 2006, the Alliance referred "in particular" to Judge Boyle's "150-plus reversals by the Fourth Circuit and opined that "[t]he Fourth Circuit — one of the most conservative courts in the country — has chided Judge Boyle repeatedly for going too far, reversing him at nearly twice the rate of the average trial judge for flouting or misconstruing basic legal principles."

On April 14, 2006, the Alliance issued a statement urging Senators to oppose Judge Boyle because, as the statement began, "Judge Terrence Boyle is frequenty reversed judge...."

The Alliance's "particulars" are phony and its snide opinions are unsound and unjust.

It is time to set the record straight on Judge Boyle's reversal rate.

The Facts:

• A bipartisan investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee staff demonstrates that Judge Boyle's reversal rate is actually BELOW the national average for district court judges.
  
  
• Judge Boyle's malicious and manipulative critics have manufactured an "apparently" high reversal rate by comparing the percentage of Judge Boyle's cases, which have received some criticism from an appellate court, with the national percentage of cases that were reversed in their entirety. In other words, these critics have compared apples and oranges.
  
  
• At the direction of Senator Lindsay Graham, who chaired Judge Boyle's confirmation hearing, the staffs of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter and the Committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Patrick Leahy, met to review Judge Boyle's opinions and determine his reversal rate based on the cases listed on his Committee questionnaire.
  
  
• The Judiciary Committee staffs concluded that under the criteria established for determining reversal rates by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) — the non-partisan administrative arm of the federal judiciary — Judge Boyle has been reversed only 90 times during the course of his twenty year plus judicial career.
  
  
• Moreover, both the staffs of Chairman Specter and Senator Leahy agree that under the AO criteria, Judge Boyle has a reversal rate of only 7.5%. Since the national rate is 8.6%, Judge Boyle's reversal rate is actually significantly LOWER than the national rate.
  
  

This should put to rest the specious argument that Judge Boyle has a high reversal rate. And the fact that the Alliance for Justice misrepresented the facts indicates that the truth will not serve it in its contemptible campaign to undermine the Constitution by denying Judge Boyle the up-or-down vote to which he is entitled.

© Michael Gaynor