A judge in Camden County has ruled that a 13 year-old girl can use her cell phone after her father took it because she had an internet ad descrbing herself as "single, sexy and sweet" and giving out her cell phone number. Her mother, of course never married, decided to take her baby daddy to court to get the phone returned. Seems like a case that needs a judge. And we wonder, actually, no we don't, why the courts are backed up. This judge should be removed from his position. A father has every right to tell his daughter what to do, what to say, and what to think and her mother needs to be smaked around like the crack hore she is. Just another case of judical activism.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

i agree, that judge should have thrown the case and fined the mother for wasting the court's time and the earth's oxygen.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Please give web reference. Did the mother perhaps pay for the phone? Did the mother have primary custody? Did the judge render a written decision indicating why he ruled the way he did?

Your accusation of judicial activism (which usually is used to mean interpreting the law in a way the person making the accusation disagrees with, but which when properly used should indicate stretching the law in ways clearly not intended by the legislature) needs many more facts for support. Based on what you posted, it could be the case that the judge agrees wholeheartedly with the father's decision to take the phone away, but the father doesn't own the phone, in which case he has no legal right to refuse its return.

I don't think the kid should have the phone, and suing is probably not the best way to solve the problem. But if the mother owns the phone and the father wouldn't give it back to her because he knew it would wind up in the kid's hands, I can't imagine that he really has much of a legal leg to stand on.

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Thomas Taylor

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I read it in the Metro and couldn't find it online. Sorry.

I could take this thread much further. ANything the 9th does. Reversing the will of the people in CA. Trying to take God out of the pledge, forcing the removal of the Ten Comandments in AL. Now of these things should have anything to do with judges. They use phoney law to rule on their opinions. The Dems are blocking a bunch of Bush's nominies because they are afraid of this happening the other way. I can't say weather it would, but currently, liberal judges are doing above and beyond their duty as judges. No matter what the constitution says or what the majority of Americans want, they do what they want. It's getting out of control.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

I'm not disputing whether or not there are activist judges who go too far, though we would probably disagree on when those cases occur. I was merely stating that based on the information you gave about this specific case, I am not at all convinced that the judge's ruling was legally flawed or active.

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Thomas Taylor

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i'd say most federal circuit judges would classify as judicial acitivists who have contempt for the constitution. regardless what you want to call it, that is an utter waste of time to take someone to court over a cell phone. not to mention money, my money. :shock:

I'm in agreement w/ Thomast here. Judicial activism is when judges decide not on precedent (either case law, constitution, or regulations) but on what's "right"--and the danger is that obviously what's right is different in everyone's head. Coined after FDR's New Deal-age politics where he stacked the Court with like-minded judges to push through what he wanted. But it's not always liberals--for instance, supreme court justices who are anti-choice and seem to not look at legal reasoning of Roe and would vote to overturn it arbitrarily are objected to as judicial activists. In other words, using the nomination as a soapbox rather than the esteemed pool of legal analysis and argument examination it should be. That said, not all judicial activism is bad--where's the precedent for Brown v. The Board of Education? Would schools have ever been desegregated?

But yeah, a major problem I have with parents (and a day at juvenile court can confirm the cell phone issue is not the only one parents are looking to the courts to resolve) is that they throw up their hands and ask the court to help them. Hello! Because you're not parenting your children is the reason they have the problems they do. And obviously it's scary when the court is forced to parent--obviously it's a sucky parent too.

it was said elsewhere on this blog that desgregation never happened. and what if the precendent was judicial activism? FDR was an egostistical SOB. He was one of the worst president's of the 20th century. it's hard to find another one who held so much contempt for the consitution.

There is no legal reasoning for abortion if you believe it to be murder. Anti-life justices don't ever seem to take that into consideration. It is a women's right to chose that trumps all and not the life of an unborn baby is their reasoning, not law.

Besides, your point has no backing in fact. Most Pro-life justices don't rule that way. Most of them feel the law is currently correct, even if they disagree personlly with abortion. Who are these "supreme court justices" that don't "look at legal reasoning of roe and would vote to overturn it arbitrarily"? I can't think of any. Scalia and Thomas wouldn't. They might be against it, but they're not judicial activists, so they wouldn't overturn it. You're stating that like fact, but it is your opinion that they would and it is an inncorrect opinion.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

Whoa....hold on a minute. I can see both sides to this issue. However, from a legal perspective and in talking about ruling from precedent, Roe is precedent. What I was saying is that some people are concerned that some appointees would rule via judicial activism--I was saying what I overheard and what perspectives I've read. I'm not endorsing those opinions. I was essentially using "judicial activism" in a sentence.

Before you cast a stone, please know that I'm a defense attorney. I argue what I don't personally believe in every day of the week. Every attorney should be able to do this--we're trained to anyway. As long as it's a well-reasoned argument, I don't take issue with someone's argument. Whether I personally agree with them is a separate issue...and not one I was attempting to touch upon in this last post.