Blog of law articles

Hi kids!

I just started R. Crumb's newly published book -- four years in the making -- which is an illustrated word-for-word graphic retelling of the entire Book of Genesis.

Here is Amazon's blurb on it:

This eagerly awaited graphic work retells the first book of the Bible in a profoundly honest way. Peeling away the theological and scholarly interpretations that have often obscured its most dramatic stories, R. Crumb—using the actual text word for word—has imagined the Bible as it really was. Now, readers of every persuasion—Crumb fans, comic book lovers, history buffs, and believers—can gain astonishing new insights from these harrowing, visceral, and even juicy stories. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis reintroduces readers to Adam and Eve’s Eden, Noah’s Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Pharaoh’s Egypt. Using clues from the text, Crumb fleshes out the parade of biblical originals: from the sensitive dreamer Joseph to the crafty Jacob, to the still-fetching Sarah, to God Himself. The result, four years in the making, is a tapestry of extraordinary detail, the finest work of Crumb’s legendary career.

So far I have to agree with Amazon -- it's as good as they say -- with lots and lots of Biblical canoodling and plenty of God's wrath.

The reason I mention it now is because Judge Schwartz drops some wrath of his own on Judge Valerie Manno Schurr.

Her crime? Showing unwarranted judicial compassion by routinely granting continuances to homeowners facing foreclosure sales.

Here's what Judge Schurr said that got her in trouble:

I was trying to make everybody happy.
. . . .
We have so many foreclosures here and I give
continuances on these sales. I just do.
. . . .
Unless it is so abundantly clear to me that it is just an
abuse of the process, I give extensions on these because I
don’t want anybody to lose their house. If there is any
chance that he can do this deal, get the money and try to
save this home, you know, people are having a hard time
now. They are having a difficult time. Everybody
knows it. Businesses are failing. People are losing
money in the stock market. You know, unemployment is
high. It’s just everybody knows that we are in a bad time
right now and I hate to see anybody lose their home.

Oy.

Ok, I agree this could have been better worded (or not expressed on the record) and perhaps a more suitable basis can be found for the discretionary extension of a foreclosure sale under certain circumstances.

And guess what -- Judge Schwartz didn't like this speech either:

Although granting continuances and postponements are, generally speaking, within the discretion of the trial court, the “ground” of benevolence and compassion (or the claim asserted below that the defendants might be able to arrange a sale of the property during the extended period until the sale) does not constitute a lawful, cognizable basis for granting relief to one side to the detriment of the other, and thus cannot support the order below: no judicial action of any kind can rest on such a foundation.

For good measure the Judge cites Canakaris, a case that pleases me almost as much as Venetian Salami.

Indeed, that Justice Cardozo language never grows old:

The judge, even when he is free, is still not wholly free. He is not to innovate at pleasure. He is not a knight-errant roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness. He is to draw his inspiration from consecrated principles. He is not to yield to spasmodic sentiment, to vague and unregulated benevolence. He is to exercise a discretion informed by tradition, methodized by analogy, disciplined by system, and subordinated to “the primordial necessity of order in the social life.” Wide enough in all conscience is the field of discretion that remains.

B. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 141 (1921).

Maybe it's all that Book of Genesis imagery swirling around in my head, but I actually agree with Judge Schwartz here -- there has to be a better articulation of the grounds for exercising discretion than simply "people are hurting."

Oh boy.