Law.com has In Scathing Dissent, Judge Says Colleagues Cut Him From Deliberative Process
- In an unusually scathing dissent, federal appellate Judge Jerry Smith on Wednesday accused his colleagues of cutting him out of the deliberative process for a ruling that blocked Texas Republicans’ redrawn congressional maps that were backed by President Donald Trump.
- Sitting on a three-judge district court panel, Smith used his 104-page dissent to contend that U.S. District Judges Jeffrey Brown and David Guaderrama had purposefully published their majority decision on Tuesday without waiting for Smith's dissent or giving him enough time to complete it.
- In his dissent, Smith accused Brown of deciding the case based on his policy preferences rather than the law and of going beyond his authority as a federal judge.
- “In 37 years as a federal judge, I’ve served on hundreds of three-judge panels. This is the most blatant exercise of judicial activism that I have ever witnessed,” Smith wrote in the dissent filled with barbs against Brown.
- “There’s the old joke: What’s the difference between God and a federal district judge?" Smith added. "Answer: God doesn’t think he’s a federal judge.”