198. It's good to be absolute monarch

In 1528, William Tyndale, translator of the Bible (most of the "King James" version is his single-handed work), examined scripture relating to acquiescence to authority and concluded: "Hereby seest thou that the king is in this world without law, and may at his lust do right or wrong and shall give accompts, but to God only." 

Is there anyone in modern American society who is in this world without law, who may at his lust do right or wrong and give accounts only to God?  No, I'm not talking about the President, whose accounts are rapidly coming due - something to do with the shift in balance caused by all those rats jumping ship.

Consider William J. Sullivan, whom we've met before.  (See post 178.)   He was the retiring Connecticut chief justice who delayed the release of an opinion because he thought it would help the political career of one of his buddies, a fellow state Supreme Court justice with ambitions to succeed Sullivan in the center chair.  Sullivan lied to the general assembly, although his lie was one of omission rather than commission.  Sullivan's admitted purpose was to prevent the general assembly from making a fully-informed decision in the fulfillment of its constitutional duties.   (See post 178.) 

Why did Sullivan want to hide the opinion from the general assembly?  Because the opinion was an outrageous encroachment on the authority of the general assembly.  Sullivan was exhibiting what prosecutors call consciousness of guilt - a concept neatly explained by this Connecticut jury instruction.

One of Sullivan's colleagues on the court was naive enough to believe that supreme court justices are bound by ethical rules.  He filed a complaint.  Last week the Connecticut Judicial Review Council did its best to rid that justice of his last lingering shreds of idealism.  Hilariously enough, it acquitted Sullivan of the charge of bringing the court into disrepute, despite many months of headlines detailing the extent to which personal relationships and empire-building dominate the administration of justice.  

In fact, one district judge on the council voted to acquit on all charges because she liked and admired the guy - and didn't see anything wrong about letting the world know the purely personal basis for her exercise of judgment.  "If I didn't like him, I wouldn't have any problem throwing the book at him," this judge didn't say, but might as well have.

But the Council did vote that Sullivan should be suspended for 15 days - even though Sullivan no longer holds any position from which he could be suspended.

But that's a veritable life in prison compared to the "punishment" meted out to Washington's Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders.  An AP dispatch run in the Vancouver (Wash.) Columbian News last month gave the bare bones:

Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders violated the Code of Judicial Conduct by touring Washington's sex predator center at McNeil Island while residents had appeals pending, a panel of judges sitting for the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday. ...

"Justice Sanders created a situation that clearly violated both the letter and the spirit of the canons and created serious concern for both counsel and fellow jurists about the appearance of partiality," the opinion read.

That doesn't quite give the full flavor of it.  The Washington Supreme Court was faced with a constitutional challenge to Washington's sexually violent predator act - a statute that permitted state authorities to keep certain sexually violent offenders locked up after the expiration of their sentences.  Under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the key constitutional issue was whether the incarcerated men had difficulty - a lot of difficulty, but not insurmountable difficulty, you see? - controlling the impulse to sexually humiliate and violently abuse women.

At a time when the court was considering that challenge, and Justice Sanders had already circulated to his colleagues a draft opinion expressing his belief that such people should be set loose, two men confined as sexually violent predators wrote to him, asking him to come talk to them about their cases.  Both had cases pending before the Supreme Court.

No fewer than three of Sanders' colleagues on the bench told him ahead of time that it was a very bad idea to meet with the adjudicated predators, but he went anyway.  And - this is the part that makes you realize what a dim bulb Sanders is - he spent his time in the facility for sexually violent predators asking them "what they thought of volitional control."  Apparently, he actually thought he could discover some kind of psychological truth by asking a group of psychopaths to be frank with him.

After three years, Sanders was "admonished"  - which means, more or less, that he was neither disciplined nor let off.  But he wasn't repentant.   He said, "If I had thought any of this would have violated the rule, I wouldn't have done it."  On the other side of the country, William Sullivan said, "If I thought I was doing anything wrong, I wouldn't have done it."  Do you suppose they employ the same spin doctor?  Or do they really think that judicial ethics is a personal matter - if it feels good, it must be ethical?

So, to answer the question with which this post began, I don't think our state supreme courts justices are quite "in this world without law, who may at [their] lust do right or wrong and give accounts only to God."  But they're working on it.