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Governor cannot defy the law

Gov. Perdue made some reckless comments today in a telephone interview with North Carolina reporters. Mark has audio.

She's in China on a trade mission but was asked about next week's release of violent criminals who have completed their "life sentences" as defined by laws in effect at the time of their original incarceration and confirmed by the N.C. Supreme Court.

"Letting them out is not the answer I am going to be able to live with," she said, then joked -- or not? -- that she may end up going to jail over this.

As I wrote last week, I understand the angst and anger about this. It stinks. This is the fallout from liberal attitudes about crime enacted into law decades ago by the state legislature.

But it shouldn't have caught state authorities by surprise. The key court ruling in this matter, a unanimous decision by the N.C. Court of Appeals, was issued nearly a year ago. It looks like it was ignored by the Perdue administration until it was confirmed by the Supreme Court this month, when officials should have been preparing to deal with it all along. Now they're scrambling to find some legal mechanism to keep the inmates behind bars.

And if they don't? Will the governor, whose oath of office says she will support the constitution and laws of North Carolina, really disobey the law as interpreted by the state's Supreme Court? I would hope she'll consider very seriously the consequences of such an action. Going to jail would not be the end of it.

Recklessness is not a mark of good leadership.

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Posted by Doug Clark on Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 10:44 am

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Dogwood

October 22, 2009 - 12:39 pm EDT

Governor Perdue should ask the Chinese for advise. Their style of executing executives of contaminated powdered milk factories was quick and sure. We would have tweedled our thumbs I guess.

Has she gotten any trade deals going for NC products? How much sightseeing is she doing? The Great Wall is a wonder of the world. Asking a jet-lagged Governor what will she do when she gets home about prisioner releases was not helping global trade. At least she is not on the art sharing mission Mary and Mike took with limos and some of the highway patrol oh my.

brian444

October 22, 2009 - 12:51 pm EDT

Doug, you're making a conservative case for the rule of law as definitive, even when it's stupid. The governor is taking a classically liberal position that the law is malleable in the face of other imperatives (changing values, a self-evident good, etc.) Think of Al Gore in 2000 saying, in effect, let's change the rules of elections so that all votes can be counted as accurately as possible.

The problem with abrogating the rule of law is that, like getting pregnant, it's hard to do just a little bit.

Doug

October 22, 2009 - 1:18 pm EDT

I appreciate your analysis. The irony is the guv is taking a hardline, conservative law-and-order, lock-em-up-forever attitude, but in a way that is very liberal with the rule of law.

I could be portrayed as the soft-on-criminals guy.

You can't ignore the political angles here. If any of these guys commit other crimes after they get out (which is likely), Perdue's Republican opponent in 2012 could blame her for letting them out.

I read some blog (forget what) where somebody was blaming Roy Cooper. Man, that's a stretch!

tonymo

October 22, 2009 - 3:35 pm EDT

It is time for principled polticians to begin defying the courts. As we know, the courts are NOT infallible. In this case they are putting citizens in danger. Is that the purpose of laws? I think not. Besides we have unfortunately reached a point where judges are no long simply arbiters of law, but extensions of their own ideologies.

The Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that the obviously unconstitutional Campaign Finance legislation is constitutional. The law strikes at the heart of the First Amendment, political speech. To say that we cannot speak for or against a candidate within a certain time from the election is insane. How about Roe v Wade? How about Mass v EPA, where 5 justices, not scientists, ruled that CO2 is a pollutant. That is why our energy bill are going to skyrocket in the near future, despite the FACT, that like water vapor, CO2 while being a greenhouse gas is not a pollutant. Here is a court ruling that could likely have disastrous consequences for our economy, killing even more jobs!

Andrew Jackson once said of a SCOTUS ruling, "The court has made their ruling, now let's see them enforce it!" We need leaders like ole Stonewall today.

Doug

October 22, 2009 - 4:07 pm EDT

Tony, get a grip.

"Stonewall" was Thomas J. Jackson, not Andrew Jackson.

On the main point, you're flat wrong. This is not a case where judges put their own ideology in place of law. They are ruling on exactly what the law said when it was written.

Read State v. Bowden yourself. It's clear as day.

The fault was in the law. "Principled politicians" do not willfully disobey the law or the courts.

tonymo

October 22, 2009 - 7:33 pm EDT

Okay, if the court did follow the law, then it is quite obviously a BAD law if it puts innocent people in jeopardy to accomodate convicted criminals, as do far too many of our laws! There have been many in the past that disobeyed bad laws, most having to do with the unconscionable treatment of blacks. These folks were hailed as heroes. as they should have been.

I've mentioned above the really horrible laws upheld by unelected judges. President Andrew Jackson did, in fact, challenge the court to try to uphold what he considered a bad ruling! Good for him. We have a president and congress that ignores our laws on an almost daily basis.

Doug

October 22, 2009 - 7:41 pm EDT

Agreed, it was a bad law. I've said so.

But you can't say, because I think this was a bad law it's OK for the governor to defy it.

What happens when the governor defies what you think is a good law?

The governor takes an oath to uphold the laws of the state ... period. There's no clause that says "only the laws I agree with."

Of course, now the issue has changed a little. The governor says a previous administration did not follow the law correctly back in the '80s when it allowed prisoners to gain credit for good-conduct time.

This is an interesting wrinkle. See my new post for my thoughts about the complexities of her new position.