{"id":786,"date":"2012-11-26T20:42:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T20:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2012\/11\/26\/just-wondering-about-new-judges"},"modified":"2012-11-26T20:42:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T20:42:00","slug":"just-wondering-about-new-judges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=786","title":{"rendered":"Just wondering about new judges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I feel this need to wonder aloud about Texas Gov. Rick Perry\u2019s choice of his chief of staff to join the Texas Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>Jeff Boyd has worked for some high-powered law firms. By all accounts, he\u2019s a Cracker Jack lawyer. More than likely he\u2019s been a fierce advocate for business interests \u2013 and there\u2019s nothing wrong with that, per se. <\/p>\n<p>But now he\u2019s going to join \u2013 assuming confirmation by the Texas Senate \u2013 a nine-member panel, the state\u2019s highest civil appellate court, and will take an oath to administer the law fairly, and without prejudice. Justice-designate Boyd has no experience, based on my understanding of his record, in interpreting the constitutionality of Texas civil law. Perry, of course, said he\u2019ll do all that he swears to do in that regard.<\/p>\n<p>Shouldn\u2019t these men and women have at least some experience as a judge on some lower court before taking a post on one of the state\u2019s two \u201chigh courts\u201d? The other chief appellate court is the Court of Criminal Appeals, which has seen its share of goofiness in the past, the most recent notable example being President Judge Sharon \u201cKiller\u201d Keller, who was recently re-elected despite plenty of controversy over the way she\u2019s administered Texas\u2019 highest criminal court.<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Perry has made some fine appointments to the Supreme Court, including Justice Phil Johnson \u2013 who actually had appellate court experience as chief of the 7th Court of Appeals in Amarillo. <\/p>\n<p>It seems to me that the state\u2019s enormous network of sitting judges is full of capable individuals who possess the single qualification that the newest Supreme Court justice lacks: actual experience as a judge and not an advocate.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-courts\/texas-supreme-court\/perry-taps-boyd-supreme-court\/\" href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-courts\/texas-supreme-court\/perry-taps-boyd-supreme-court\/\">http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-courts\/texas-supreme-court\/perry-taps-boyd-supreme-court\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I feel this need to wonder aloud about Texas Gov. Rick Perry\u2019s choice of his chief of staff to join the Texas Supreme Court. Jeff Boyd has worked for some high-powered law firms. By all accounts, he\u2019s a Cracker Jack lawyer. More than likely he\u2019s been a fierce advocate for business interests \u2013 and there\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=786\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Just wondering about new judges<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}