It'll be a Cold Day in Hell !
Targeted judge asks Senate to speak up
Jurist whose family was slain wants lawmakers to condemn remarks
07:30 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – A federal judge whose family was murdered asked the Senate on Wednesday to condemn harsh remarks about the judiciary by commentators such as evangelist Pat Robertson and members of Congress, saying their words could spark more violence.
"Fostering disrespect for judges can only encourage those that are on the edge, or on the fringe, to exact revenge on a judge who displeases them," U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Her husband and mother were slain in the couple's Chicago home in February. Bart Ross, a 57-year-old unemployed electrician from Chicago, committed suicide in suburban Milwaukee in March after leaving a note confessing to the murders. He had been angered when Judge Lefkow dismissed a malpractice suit he had filed, authorities said.
The judge also was the target of a murder plot by white supremacist Matthew Hale. A federal jury convicted Mr. Hale in April 2004 of soliciting her murder, and he was sentenced last month to 40 years in prison.
Congress should "publicly and persistently repudiate gratuitous attacks on the judiciary" that have occurred in the days since the Terri Schiavo case, Judge Lefkow told the hearing on courthouse security.
After the death of Ms. Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman whose parents unsuccessfully sought to have her feeding tube reinserted, some Republican members of Congress, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Sugar Land, criticized judges involved in the case.
Referring to a different decision, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he wondered whether frustration against perceived political decisions by judges "builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence, certainly without any justification."
Mr. Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and head of the Christian Broadcasting Network, criticized the federal courts this month on ABC's This Week. "Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," he said.
Judge Lefkow said that kind of "harsh rhetoric is truly dangerous."
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/stories/051905dnnatcourthouse.bf271ef7.html
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Why will it be a cold day in hell ? Because some Republicans believe they can say or do anything in the name of God ! for background info on this comment follow the links .....
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