A gentleman who will be at the Sturm College of Law tomorrow at University of Denver. It's an event happening at five point thirty pm and it is put on by an organization called Keep Our Republic and it is a panel discussion about judicial independence. And joining me now to talk about it is Judge Ogrady. Judge, welcome to the show. First of all, all right, thank.
You and thank you so much for agreed to allow Keep our Republic and the Article three Coalition some time on your show today to talk about judicial independence and our lecture and.
Our town hall coming up tomorrow evening.
Thank you, No, my pleasure. Could you tell my audience a little bit about Keep our Republic? What is the organization?
What is the goal?
Sure? Keep Our Republic is an organ group that started, you know, quite a few years years ago, and it was focused on ensuring voting rights were observed in beginning in Pennsylvania and in the Midwest, and they.
Have they tracked election cycles.
But they now we're a subset of the Keep Our Republican Our group is called the Article three Coalition. It's made up of almost fifty judges, federal judges who are all retired, both district judges, trial judges, and circuit judges, the Court of Appeals judges. About half of us were nominated and placed in office by Republicans presidents and half
by Democratic presidents. So we're a very nonpartisan group that is very concer learned about our judicial independence, the erosion of faith in the decisions that judges are making, and the threats that are being made to our former colleagues which have become pretty acerbic.
And so.
We're having this public forum tomorrow an attempt to educate the public about what's going on and to answer questions that they have about the role of the judiciary, of the necessity for in an independent judiciary, and any other matters that they want to discuss during the town hall meeting.
Well, Judge, and I think a vast majority of people in this listening audience would agree that an independent judiciary is a critical part of our three tiers of government,
the three planks that we rely on. But how to respond to a criticism from someone who says, look, Judge, I appreciate that there needs to be an independent judiciary, but we have so much politicization, the appearance of politicization by judges themselves, and I have to say with the Trump administration, uh specifically, we've had a lot of federal judges or district judges even offering nationwide injunctions and things
of that nature. So how do you balance the need and necessity of an independent judiciary with the with some politicization or the appearance of politicization that people are perceiving.
U Mandy.
The the overwhelming number of judges, UH don't engage in anyization uh of.
Of their decisions.
You know, our code of conduct uh you know ask because you know not to uh politicize any of the decisions that they have made.
You know, we.
Are we're supposed to speak through our opinions and otherwise be silent. And the perception that we have politicized this it comes from I think the talk around the decisions themselves which people disagree with, and that's fine. Civic discourse is how our nation got as far as we did in the last two hundred and fifty years.
You can disagree with judge's decisions, and many have.
Recently, and they've all been important decisions, as some of the judges have been making. But our system is built so that there's an Appellate Court and the Supreme Court that looks at those decisions and to Germans have you know,
whether they're correct decisions or not. But the accusations against district judges just because they have ruled in a way that is unpopular does nothing but a road the confidence of the public in the judiciary and also causes a great potential harm to the judges themselves and their families, which is just so problematic and never has been seen before in this country and shouldn't be tolerated.
I agree wholeheartedly that nothing along the lines of political violence or protesting outside any judges or politicians home. I think that's beyond the pale. But where does justifiable criticism of a judge come in, Because your point of civic discourse is at the core of it when you're talking about a decision. And I'm going to use Colorado as an example. Our Colorado Supreme Court keeps affirming idiotic laws, then we send it to the Supreme Court and they
get overturned. So if you look at the decisions around specific issues in Colorado, whether it's being forced to make a cake you don't want to make, or make a website, or now we've got, you know type constraints on the First Amendment when it comes to counseling people who may be struggling with their gender. And yet our Colorado Supreme Court keeps getting overturned. So people like me, I look at the Colorado Supreme Court and say, what are they doing?
What they keep getting overturned? So where does criticism, where's criticism justified? And where is it obviously for calling for any kind of violence that's well beyond the pale, So what is justified in that situation?
You know, the community should speak.
That's why we're coming to Colorado when we're speaking tomorrow. And the fact that our citizens disagree with the decisions that have been made. Our judges based their rulings on the facts and the laws as it exists today, and it's up to the legislature, which unfortunately at the federal level, is in a complete.
Log jam and there's no you know, uh.
Expectation that they're going to get any better anytime soon. Yeah, which which has put added pressure on both the executive and the judicial branches.
But it's up to the people to speak and to change the laws.
I mean, it's not like the judges that are being criticized, have not used the facts of the case and the law surrounding it to make their decisions. They may be unpopular decisions, and they may be incorrect. They have you know, our district judges have been reversed by a Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court recently on some important issues. And you know that's that's how our system works. So unless the laws are changed, the judges are in a position where they are required to follow.
The law even if they don't like it. So what happens?
What will be the starting point of this conversation? Are you guys discussing a specific question or is there kind of a jumping off point for tomorrow's event at the Sturm College of Law and the University of Denver's campus.
I think it's the the fear now that are the of the erosion of people's trust in the judiciary.
We must have an independent judiciary.
I mean that goes all the way back to Alexander Hamilton saying that only if we have an independent judiciary does our legislative and an executive branches uh operate properly. But so our starting off, jumping off point is to talk about how the erosion has occurred over quite a number of years.
This is nothing uh new.
UH. That we need an independent judiciary, that the public should be educated about what the judges.
Do and what they don't do. UH.
And that is, you know, they follow the rule of law, which of course you know, means that we look at public laws that everyone is aware of, uh, and we apply them equally to anyone without regard uh to who they are or what their beliefs are. UH. And that uh, you know, the the uh that rule of laws is followed.
So you know we've that's our that's our jumping off point.
Judjo Grady is going to be part of the panel discussion tomorrow at five thirty to five thirty to six forty five at the Storm College of Law in Room one sixty five. And I have written all of this on the blog today. If you're driving and you can't get that information, it is on today's blog. Judjo Grady, thank you so much for your time today and for having this conversation. And you know, I agree we've got to have an independent judiciary that people can trust or
otherwise the whole system falls apart. So thanks to you for addressing this topic.
All right, thank you so much, Mandy.
All right, that is judge oh Grady, you can gain go to that event tomorrow night.