Newsweek just reported a ‘huge win’ for Ron DeSantis because a particular judge was assigned to a particular case to which he’s a party. Does anyone else see the problem here? If it matters which judge hears a case, then it means that the answers to the legal questions, in that case, aren’t to be found in the law.
They are to be found in the judge who presides.
In case you’ve ever wondered what it means to live under ‘the rule of law,’ this is pretty much the opposite.
We pretend that what judges do is deduction: Here are the laws, here are the facts, and here is the conclusion that must follow logically from those laws and facts.
All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates must be mortal.
But what they actually do is go in the other direction: Here is the conclusion I want to reach, here are the facts I wish to consider, and here are the laws (and interpretations of those laws) that rationalize the conclusion.
Socrates may be immortal. After all, corporations are legally persons, and corporations may be immortal, so some persons may be immortal. And Socrates is a person.
When the Red Queen said, ‘Sentence first, verdict afterwards’, it was supposed to be a fictional example of comically illogical behavior.
Its modern judicial equivalent — ‘Conclusion first, justification afterwards’ — is just as illogical. Unfortunately, it’s not fictional. And it’s not comical.
