Federalist Society meeting goes off the rails

Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones went off on Professor Steve Vladeck at a Federalist Society meeting this weekend. But her attack, ironically, was extremely personal. She was upset that Professor Vladeck has been critical of the Shadow Docket and judge-shopping in one-judge venues and equates those critiques with judges needing protection.  

This Law & Crime article has some of the details, although it's hard to summarize just how personal and aggressive Judge Jones appeared.  Here's the video if you'd like to watch.  There's lots to see here, but start at 1:15 some of her most aggressive attacks.  

Judge Jones may not like discussion about areas of the law that seem wrong, but the truth is -- we need law professors to be writing about the courts and exposing these issues so that they can be discussed.  I thought the whole point of the Federalist Society was to have open discussions, not to personally go after those on the other side.  Perhaps that why the Federalist Society had to apologize later that day.  Kudos to Vladeck for standing up to and holding his own against a very hostile judge and panel in an unfriendly environment.

Here's some snippets from the Law & Crime article:

In September, Vladeck, responding to another judge on a popular law blog, argued why he believes this behavior is “problematic.” The law professor highlighted 47 incidents in which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued to stop Biden administration policies.

“Of those 47, zero have been filed where the Texas government is actually located (i.e., Austin),” Vladeck wrote. “[Twenty-four of those lawsuits], including yesterday’s, have been filed in single-judge divisions; another six were filed in divisions where Texas had a 95% chance of drawing a specific judge. And when asked why it keeps filing in these geographically obscure (and unrelated) parts of the state, Texas has publicly conceded that it has nothing to do with that particular forum’s connection to the litigation, but rather is entirely because it wants those judges to hear those cases.”

Jones described this behavior as nothing nefarious — insisting litigants have aimed to choose one judge over another since the period described in the Bible’s book of Genesis.

“Something’s going on here, and it’s very unsavory,” the judge said. “Attacks on the judiciary, I fully agree with the others, are ultimately attacks on the rule of law.”

After that, the panel discussed other matters for a while — but Vladeck steered the conversation back to judge-shopping.

Attempting to inject some levity, the law professor suggested he and the judge should “just go get a beer and have a chat” before stressing that he “never used the term ‘close to unethical’ in describing anyone’s behavior.”

***

Jones, for her part, was unmoved by the argument — or the alcohol-themed entreaty.

“I have studied Professor Vladeck,” the judge said in response — and then theatrically raised a manilla folder with documents askew and poking out. “And this is a file of his articles, amicus briefs, and tweets regarding the process of judge-picking that he criticizes so heavily.”

As she opened the file to rifle through its contents in front of the audience, Jones went on to read several tweets of Vladeck’s, along with the title of one legal article, which she said evidence a series of “attacks” on “the character” of various Republican-appointed judges.

***

“The consequence of all this is that Judge [Mattthew] Kacsmaryk is under 24-hour per day protection,” Jones said — referring to a Trump-appointed judge who hears every case filed in the Northern District of Texas’ Amarillo division. “And he has five kids.”

The implication was clear enough. And the panel grew increasingly tense as the barbs flowed from one to another.

At one point, during the back-and-forth, Vladeck sarcastically thanked the judge for proving his point “about how we’re shouting past each other and not engaging on substance.”

At another point, Jones angrily slammed her hand down on the table to keep the law professor from interjecting.

“I think it’s rather unfortunate what’s happened this afternoon,” Vladeck said in response to Jones’ criticisms. “And I wish that it weren’t so. But I also think that it says a lot about where we are that instead of having a conversation about whether this is a good thing or not, we decide to turn this into a ‘Can I put words into your mouth that make you look bad?’ And it seems like that’s not the kind of debates that I thought the Federalist Society was interested in sponsoring, and I’m disappointed it’s the conversation we’ve had today.”

Jones stuck to her guns.

“The point of attacking these judges is to diminish their reputations, to suggest that the state of Texas and other state attorneys general who filed in these jurisdictions are doing something improper,” she said.