One of the newest buzzwords in political commentary today is lawfare. Lawfare is the strategic use of our legal system to damage or delegitimize one’s political opponent, or to deter their access to their legal rights. The subject of lawfare is a popular topic today in the news, but it has been around since biblical times as a means of suppressing one’s political adversary. Indeed, one could make a credible argument that history’s most famous use of lawfare was the prosecution and crucifixion of Christ. Realizing that their sinister attempts to silence Jesus through public scrutiny led only to greater popularity and favor among his followers, the Pharisees resorted instead to the legal institutions of their day to silence – they thought forever – this troublesome prophet from Nazareth.
There are risks involved in weaponizing our court system. Those who would defend the Democrats’ use of lawfare to serially prosecute former President Donald Trump through thinly veiled efforts to interfere with his presidential campaign argue no one is above the law. Ironically, it is the Democrats’ use of lawfare on this scale that makes it likely that respect for the law will decline, and dangerously so, among much of the American public. According to recent polls, more that half the country is coming to believe that the legal system is being swallowed by rank political partisanship.
The excesses of lawfare have contributed to a systemic loss of faith in our justice system. A growing sentiment today could well be taken from a Shakespeare character in Henry VI: “The first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers!”
The travesties of injustice taking place in courtrooms across the country in recent days are a product many times of politicized rulings by judges who casually cast aside their oaths as jurists to decide cases based on principles of due process and admissible evidence. Civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions take on the nature of gamesmanship, rather than the pursuit for justice. And we, as citizens, are the real casualties in this bastardization of the law.
Public confidence in a fair and impartial system of justice is the cornerstone of democracy. In large part, the judiciary earns that trust by faithfully performing its duties by adhering to ethical standards. The surest way to lose trust and confidence is through failure to live up to these time-honored standards and a failure to hold judges and prosecutors accountable for their misconduct. Once public confidence is lost, we risk resolving conflicts through extra-judicial means which is a recipe for barbarism.
Today, the public’s confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court is at an all-time low. Justice Amy Coney Barrett made a recent public appearance declared, “My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.” A recent NBC News poll found the high court’s standing at the lowest point since NBC News began measuring public sentiment about the court” more than 30 years ago.
The upcoming national election cycle will come and go as all others before it. The question facing our country is whether our nation’s commitment to the transcendent ideal of equal justice under the law will survive for future generations.
Larry Crain, Crain Law Group, PLLC – www.crainlaw.legal
