This is not just ridiculous, it’s flat-out bigoted.
Judge Curiel is an American-born citizen of the United States. There’s no reason in *** why he should recuse himself any more than the child of, say, Irish immigrants should recuse himself from a case involving someone who has strong opinions about immigration, legal or illegal.
It is a false equivalence to say (as I see hardline conservatives do all too often) that organizations that espouse “white pride” or the like are somehow the same as organizations like the NAACP (or the organization of which Judge Curiel is or was a member. It’s nonsense.
Donald Trump delivered an outright racist rant against this judge, who has a distinguished record of prosecuting people without regard to common ethnicity. Anyone who agrees with him is of the same stripe.
Not that any one of us knows any of those asserted facts to be true or false, either way.
But in any event, obviously some did not understand what I was saying. I’ll say it again without any particular reason to believe it will be understood this time.
The question is not the subjective state of mind of the judge. The question is whether he had good reason to recuse himself. In my opinion, he did, and the very flap about it proves I was right about it. I know judges who have recused themselves with less reason. This judge is a member of a race-based lawyers’ association and a member of a committee that raises scholarships for illegal immigrants. Could Judge Curiel not see that presiding over a case in which a party very publicly stood for an opposite proposition would raise eyebrows at very least? And then to release to the public the “evidence” of the opposing parties during an election; evidence that has not been weighed in trial for credibility but which will inevitably be used against that party politically, this Judge couldn’t see that could be interpreted as a political act on his part? He didn’t have to take the case. Nothing requires him to do it.
Whether one thinks it’s just fine to be a member of an organization that advertises its racial exclusivity as long as it isn’t “white” or not, it doesn’t look good to many. We have gone through decades of exhortation that any kind of race-based exclusivity is ethically and morally wrong. The above post demonstrates that amply. I am being accused of racism even though my very point was a critique of racism and the divisions and suspicions it engenders, and that it’s not proper judicial conduct to do anything that even creates the appearance of exacerbating it.
But it seems it’s part of our twisted political correctness nowadays that some racial exclusivities are bad, but some are admirable. Depends on the race one is talking about, which is racism in itself.
And Trump didn’t deliver a “racist rant”. He mentioned the Judge’s ethnicity, which his membership in La Raza does without Trump, and which the Judge’s very name discloses.
But it does show what a mistake this judge made in staying in the case. Judges don’t have to hear particular cases if they don’t want to. Why did this judge stay in the case knowing as he surely did that there is a major, and very public political aspect to it? To prove to everyone that he could rise above it? That’s vanity, and not what recusal is all about. Judges are supposed to recuse when their staying in a case could cause the slightest doubt about their objectivity. It doesn’t have to be actual. A potentially tainted appearance is enough, and they’re taught to avoid it.
But I do understand the point of the above post. If one points out that the “politically approved” kind of racial exclusivity is racism, one is labeled a racist. What a poor pass this country has come to!
