COLUMN-At a California legal conference, judges decry threats to the rule of law

By Jenna Greene

March 21 (Reuters) - When four federal judges in California gathered on Thursday for a panel discussion at the University of San Diego School of Law, I was ready for an in-the-weeds talk on class action and mass tort trends.

Instead, the judges kicked off the conversation with remarkably blunt comments on what they see as attacks on judicial independence and the rule of law.

“This is a full-body challenge to our constitutional order,” said Los Angeles U.S. District Chief Judge Dolly Gee, speaking to a live and online audience at the Western Alliance Bank's annual Class Action Law Forum. "Silence on the part of the bar means acquiescence.”

U.S. District Judge Cathy Bencivengo, who is based in San Diego, added, “We have come to a point in our culture where it seems like the proper response to ‘I don’t like your opinion’ is ‘You should die.’”

A White House spokesperson whom I contacted for this column referred me to comments by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who on Wednesday said, "We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. They are trying to dictate policy from the president of the United States. They are trying to clearly slow walk this administration's agenda, and it's unacceptable.”

In covering legal news for more than 25 years, I've found judges are almost invariably circumspect in their public comments. That the quartet here took the opportunity to speak out strikes me as a sign of how much pressure the nation’s Article III judges (there are currently 825 of them, with vacancies) are under.

As my Reuters colleague John Kruzel noted, federal judges often have emerged as the only constraint on President Donald Trump’s torrent of executive actions since his January inauguration.

None of the San Diego panel's four judges, who were all appointed by President Barack Obama, is currently adjudicating Trump's executive orders, nor did they mention the president (or anyone else) by name.

But the wider context was inescapable.

As Reuters reported, Trump on Tuesday called for the impeachment of Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who issued an order temporarily banning the administration from removing migrants from the United States under an 18th-century law. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

It's not that judges should be immune from criticism on the merits of their decisions, said U.S. District Chief Judge Richard Seeborg of the Northern District of California. “What is deeply wrong is when an adverse decision comes down the pike and the loser says, ‘That judge is corrupt and that judge needs to be removed.'"

The call to remove Boasberg drew a fast rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who said an appeal, not impeachment, was the appropriate response when disagreeing with a judge's decision.

Reuters has reported that U.S. Marshals in recent weeks have warned judges of heightened threats as administration allies have ramped up efforts to discredit judges who stand in the way of White House actions.

"We are living in a dangerous place," Bencivengo said during the panel discussion. Judges are obligated to apply the facts and the law, and if a litigant disagrees with the outcome, "there is a system to deal with it. Threatening judges, threatening the entire structure of our government is not the way to go."

Federal judges are often called unelected or unaccountable, added U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller, who is based in Sacramento and took senior status last year but remains active on the bench. Judges take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States, she stressed. “Oaths matter. They are not quaint relics.”

Gee sounded the alarm about what's at stake. “I hope that more members of the bar realize this is crucial moment in our democracy,” she said. “We cannot allow that kind of challenge to the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law to become an ordinary and normal part of the body politic.”