We Have Another Winner!

Washington State Supreme Court Justice and Federalist Society member Richard Sanders

State Justice Richard Sanders yelled "Tyrant!" at Attorney General Michael Mukasey before his collapse. The Seattle Times reports:

Richard Sanders, a justice on the Washington State Supreme Court, has never been one to shy from controversy or blunt language. And last week, as he sat at a Federalist Society dinner and listened to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Sanders reached his tipping point.

After listening to Mukasey defend the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies — its detainment practices at Guantánamo Bay, its interpretation of the Geneva Conventions' reach — Sanders stood and shouted "Tyrant! You are a tyrant!"

"Frankly, everybody in the room was applauding or sometimes laughing, and I thought, 'I've got to stand up and say something.' And I did," Sanders told The Seattle Times Tuesday. "I stood up and said, 'Tyrant,' then I sat down again, then I left."

It wasn't until the next morning — when he turned on the TV in his hotel room — that Sanders learned what happened after he departed: Mukasey, later in his speech, began slurring his words, slumped at the podium and passed out. He was taken to a hospital, where he was released the next day after getting a clean bill of health.

"I couldn't believe it," Sanders said of the news that Mukasey had fainted.

Mukasey's collapse occurred well after Sanders shouted at him, and the two events appear unrelated.

The dinner, which took place in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, was hosted by the Federalist Society, a prominent collection of conservative judges and lawyers. Sanders, a state Supreme Court justice since 1995, belongs to the group.

In the initial days after the event, Sanders, when questioned by other reporters, danced around whether he was the person who shouted at Mukasey. He wouldn't confirm it, nor would he deny it.

But on Tuesday, Sanders told The Seattle Times that he'd simply reached the point where he couldn't remain silent.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine there would be any mention of this in the press," he said. "But here we are."

The state's Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to be "dignified" toward those they deal with "in their official capacity."

Asked if his outburst might violate that code, Sanders said: "Well, it's so open-ended and vague, maybe someone would think that it could apply. I don't know. I think it's a free-speech activity. In my mind this had nothing to do with my role as a judge."

Asked if it was dignified, Sanders said: "I think it was an impulse. ... At that particular time, I didn't have a chance to reflect on it. I didn't plan it out in advance. It just happened."

He left before Mukasey's speech was finished, Sanders said, because "I wasn't enjoying myself."

Sanders said he wouldn't call what he did heckling. Afterward, he said, he heard from a number of people — some supportive, others not. "Some people think it was the wrong thing to do," he said. "To other people, it was heroic."

Sanders said he now regrets what he did: "If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't."

Alternatively, he wishes he had said "Tyranny" instead of "Tyrant," "because in my mind, these policies can lead to tyranny."

Three years ago, Sanders was admonished — the state's least severe disciplinary action for judges — for violating the judicial-ethics rules in connection with a visit to the state's sex-offender treatment center on McNeil Island. The visit prompted a variety of concerns because judges are prohibited from speaking with litigants about their cases outside the courtroom.

During the visit, the Judicial Conduct Commission alleged, Sanders talked to sexual offenders and accepted documents from two of them.

In 1997, Sanders was reprimanded for speaking at a rally for abortion opponents, but that sanction was later overturned by an appellate panel.

Sanders said he took offense at what he believed was Mukasey's cavalier attitude toward the Geneva Conventions.

In his speech, Mukasey said that almost every article in the treaty is "plainly addressed to armed conflicts among the nations that signed the Conventions. It is hardly surprising that the United States concluded that those provisions would not apply to the armed conflict against al-Qaida, an international terrorist group and not, the last time I checked, a signatory to the Conventions."

Sanders, on Tuesday, said that being a signatory was beside the point. "I didn't sign the Geneva Conventions, you didn't sign the Geneva Conventions, but the United States did sign the Conventions. And that's the point, isn't it?"

He also took umbrage at the Bush administration's detention policies at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, saying: "I think it's a disgrace to hold people without charge, without trial, to hold them incommunicado."

Despite Justice Sanders's walking-back ever-so-slightly from his outburst, his spontaneous 'excited utterance' earns him this blog's highest recognition.

To Justice Richard Sanders, a Constant American, goes the Golden Picket award.

A Constant American Takes A Stand, Quits Rather Than Lower Flag For Helms

L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

L.F. Eason, III, 51, out of a job, but rich of character

News & Observer reports:

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees hung the flags at half-staff.

The brouhaha began late Sunday night, when Eason e-mailed eight of his employees in the state standards lab, which calibrates measuring equipment used on things as widely varied as gasoline and hamburgers.

"Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week," Eason wrote just after midnight, according to e-mail messages released in response to a public records request.

He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice" and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Eason said in an interview Tuesday that he did not typically lower the flag himself, but that, as head of the lab, he supervised the technician who did. He also trained new employees on proper flag etiquette, including a one-person folding technique he learned in Boy Scouts.

When the lab opened Monday morning, the flags were not out at all. An employee called Eason's boss, Stephen Benjamin, who worked in another building in Raleigh. About 10:45 a.m., Benjamin told one of Eason's co-workers to put the flags at half-staff.

Another of Eason's superiors later drove by the lab to make sure the flags were up properly.

No one in the Governor's Office was aware of any time in recent memory when a state employee refused to lower a flag. Brian Long, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department, said Eason's refusal was unexpected.

"We've never had any conversations like that," he said.

An ultimatum

In a string of e-mail messages with his superiors, Eason was told he could either lower the flags or retire effective immediately.

Though he's only 51, Eason chose to retire, although he pleaded several times to be allowed to stay at the lab. Eason, who had worked for the Agriculture Department since graduating from college, was paid $65,235 a year as the laboratory manager.

Several people, including his wife, argued to Eason that the flags belonged to the state, as did the lab. But Eason said he felt a strong sense of ownership.

Eason and a previous boss had sketched out the building's rough design on a napkin at the Atlanta airport in 1984 after attending a national conference on weights and measures.

He then worked to get funding for it in the state budget, and he recently helped snag state money to study building another lab.

"I designed and built that lab," he said. "Even though technically the bricks and mortar belong to the state of North Carolina, I feel very strongly that everything that comes out of there is my responsibility."

It was not the first time Eason felt uneasy about lowering the flag.

A registered Democrat who frequently votes a split ticket, he said he had no problems lowering the flag for former Sen. Terry Sanford or President Reagan. But he remembers wondering whether he would be willing to lower the flag after President Nixon's death.

He never had to make that decision, since it rained both days.

Monday was sunny. And Eason was out of a job.

To L.F. Easley, III, a Constant American, goes the Golden Picket award.