BROKEN TRUST- IS A.G. RABNER A JUDICIAL ACTIVIST - PART 2.

To date A.G. Rabner has sought to reinforce the notion he is “Mr. Clean” by simply saying “trust me; for years I was a (mediocre?) Assistant U.S. Attorney”, that he has “no agenda” and in the absence of bias he will make decisions based on the facts and legal precedent(s) (itself an odd statement given his role is to review conflicting appellate panels'opinions). Nevertheless, given recent, lesser known remarks, it appears A.G. Rabner is a judicial activist who will not respect the First Amendment and thus cannot serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court.

The matter at hand pits “hate crime” against “hate speech.” Making the two indistinguishable is a slippery slope. It’s always hard to defend speech that is disliked. And, it is the mark of a politician to judge according to interest. Except in Rabner’s case the implications are far more severe. Will he find words like wife and husband or natural marriage to be hate speech. Will he force all statutes and codes to be sexual orientation neutral. Will he handle dissenting heterosexual views of students in the schools as harassment? Will he respect the First Amendment or will he serve the political interests that appoint and confirm him. Think it’s crazy – much of it’s the law in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Some is now being made law by the California legislature.

The A.G. recently obscured the difference and has made no attempt to correct it. Indeed, according to Rabner we must all be afraid of people who think bad thoughts as they will surely hurt us. Thus we must control what they think.

On April 19, 2007 A.G. Rabner addressed the first "New Jersey Unites Against Hate" summit at the State House Annex in Trenton. The goal was to demonstrate to the people in New Jersey that we are united in our efforts to combat bias and hate crimes … Rabner opened the forum by remembering the Virginia Tech massacre just a few days earlier and connecting it to the work of the anti-hate organizations. Raber said ‘When thinking about the incident at Virginia Tech, the Oklahoma City bombings, and Don Imus, you may have realized that, unlike the Waco situation or the Holocaust, these acts of hatred were carried out by individuals, and not a larger group,’ the attorney general continued. ‘The majority of those who commit hate crimes are individuals who have heard the ethnic and racial stereotypes, wholeheartedly believe them to be true, and decide to act on impulse.’ "

In the view of the U.S. Department of Justice: “In its broadest sense, the term [hate crime] refers to an attack on an individual or his or her property (e.g. vandalism, assault, arson, murder) in which the victim is intentionally targeted because of his or her race, color, religion, national origin, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.”

Aside from Rabner’s apparent desire for thought control, he needs to explain how the shootings at Virginia Tech are a hate crime as opposed to a deliberate misstatement of the act. He needs to tell us what he knows that takes the matter to the area of race, religion, etc. as opposed to a mentally ill person who was a danger to himself and others?

A.G. Rabner also needs to explain how the words of Imus constitute a hate crime as opposed to revolting speech. Did they incite the team to violence. Did they harass the players. The words Imus used are protected at law and precedent. Aren’t they Stu.

A.G. Rabner’s statements show he has an agenda because they fail to distinguish between an act made criminal by law which includes some element of bias and protected words which he personally deems hateful. As a prosecutor he should know the difference. If he doesn’t he is not competent to be Chief Justice. If the A.G. is as well versed in the law as Governor Corzine would have us believe, then Rabner knows the difference and his remarks reflect a deliberate insensitivity in decision making. Thus Rabner’s bias is his deliberate indifference to the First Amendment and his blatant lack of respect for the Constitutional rights of others with whose views he differs. In short, the agenda of a judicial activist.