Priscilla Owen: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (TX)

Free Congress Foundation ^ | May 29, 2001 | Free Congress Foundation

[doug from upland]

NOTE: here is a qualified justice who is going to be the next target of the filthy, disgusting, obstructionist RATS.

========================================

Priscilla Owen: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (TX)
Date: May 29, 2001 · From the Free Congress Foundation’s Judicial Selection Monitoring Project

Background:

On May 9, 2001, President Bush nominated Justice Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Texas). In 1994, Justice Owen became the second woman to be elected to the Supreme Court of Texas. She was reelected for a second term in 2000. She is a native Texan and earned her B.A. from Baylor University and her J.D. in 1977 from the Baylor University School of Law. Justice Owen finished first in her law school graduating class and first on the Texas bar exam. Before her election, Justice Owen was a partner in the Houston firm of Andrews & Kurth, L.L.P where she practiced commercial litigation for seventeen years.

History:

Judicial Philosophy

Justice Owen has shown herself to be a judge who interprets the law, rather than one who makes the law. The following quote from a case in which she wrote the majority opinion sums up her philosophy of statutory construction: "In construing a statute, we must attempt to give effect to every word and phrase if it is reasonable to do so."¹  Justice Owen has emphasized that judges should not attempt to make law and touted her one term on the bench as part of the court's return to judicial restraint. "There are times when judges may not agree with the Legislature's action. But that's not our call," Owen said.²

Justice Owen wrote the majority opinion in a case where the Texas Supreme Court held that parents do not always have the right to see their child’s mental health records. The context of the case concerned the right of a parent to have access to their child’s psychological records.³  The specific statutory language on which the case hinged provided that the "content of a confidential record shall be made available to a [parent] who is acting on the [child’s] behalf."⁴  The respondent contended that under the statute a parent necessarily acts on behalf of his or her child when seeking access to a child's mental health records.⁵  The court found that "acting on the [child’s] behalf " had an intended meaning and that "parents cannot always be deemed to be acting on the child's behalf."⁶  Justice Owen noted that "[a]n obvious example is when a parent has sexually molested a child and later demands access to the child’s mental health treatment records."⁷

Abortion – Parental Notification

Justice Owen dissented in a case concerning a Texas Statute requiring parental notification by a minor before having an abortion.⁸  At issue was the judicial bypass exception to the notification requirement. Specifically the court sought to determine what the Legislature intended in Texas’s parental notification statute when it wrote that a court "shall enter an order" that a minor is "authorize[d] . . . to consent to the performance of [an] abortion" if she demonstrates "by a preponderance of the evidence [that she] is mature and sufficiently well informed to make the decision to have an abortion performed without notification to either of her parents. . . ."⁹  Owen dissented from the majority’s determination because she concluded that the court had established such a "low standard" that judicial bypass of the notification requirement was nothing more than a rubber stamp.¹⁰  In her dissent, Owen remarked that a preponderance of the evidence must reveal that the young girl "appreciat[es] . . . the emotional and psychological aspects of terminating [her] pregnancy [and] understand[s] . . . the impact the procedure will have on the fetus. As Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter observed in Casey, failure to obtain a full understanding of this aspect of the procedure can lead to ‘devastating psychological consequences’ afterwards."¹¹

Tort

Texas Watch, a consumer group that receives substantial funding from trial lawyers, has accused Justice Owen of favoring insurance companies to the detriment of consumers in her decisions and concurrences.¹²  However, Texas Watch’s analysis of Owen’s decisions was "simplistic" basing their results on the outcome of cases and not on the issues before the court.¹²  A prime example of a decision that Texas Watch would call insurance company friendly was where Owen concurred in the court’s holding that the phrase "to use" in the Texas Tort Claim Act¹³  did not mean "failure to use."¹⁴  Although the decision went against the plaintiff, the issue was one of statutory construction and the court ruled based on the plain language of the statute.

Civil Rights

Even when there is an emotionally charged issue before her court, Justice Owen’s judicial philosophy remains consistent. This is evidenced in her concurrence in a case brought by the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) against the Republican Party of Texas.¹⁶  In that case the Republican Party rejected LCR’s request for advertisement and booth space at the 1996 Texas Republican State Convention.¹⁷  LCR alleged that the Republican Party's rejection unconstitutionally infringed upon LCR's rights to free speech, equal rights, and due course of law under the Texas Constitution’s Bill of Rights.¹⁸ The issue before the Court was whether the protections claimed by LCR under the Texas Constitution extended to actions by private groups or individuals.¹⁹  The Court answered that such protections do not.²⁰  The Court’s decision was based on the plain language of the Texas State Constitution. The Court found that "[t]he text of our state charter demonstrates that the guarantees of the Texas Bill of Rights generally apply only against the government."²¹

Conclusion

Justice Owen’s judicial philosophy that judges are to interpret the law and not legislate is consistently applied throughout her opinions, concurrences and dissents. Her philosophy maintains our Constitution’s separation of powers and leaves political questions where they rightfully belong, in the hands of American citizens.

1. Abrams v. Jones, 35 S.W.3d 620, 625 (Tex. 2000)
2. San Antonio Express News, Oct. 23, 2000, at 8G
3. See Abrams, 35 S.W.3d 620
4. Id. at 625 (emphasis added)
5. Id.
6. Id.
7. Abrams, at 25
8. In re Jane Doe, 19 S.W.3d 249 (Tex. 2000)
9. Id. at 252 (see Tex. Fam. Code § 33.003(i)) (emphasis added)
10. Dallas Morning News, Mar. 23, 2000, at 1A
11. In re Jane Doe, at 265 (quoting Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. V Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 872 (1992)
12. Houston Chronicle, Jan. 28, 2000, at 25
13. Id.
14. Texas Tort Claim Act, § 101.021
15. Texas Natural Resource Conservation Comm’n v. White, 2001 WL 421148 (Tex. 2001) (court held to invoke the Tort Claims Act's waiver of immunity, the plaintiff 's injury must have been caused by the defendant’s actual use of the [machinery], not the [defendamt’s] failure to use it. Id. at 4)
16. The Republican Party of Texas v. Dietz, 940 S.W.2d 86 (Tex. 1997)
17. Id. at 88
18. Id. 
19. Id. at 89
20. Id. at 90-91
21. Id. at 89 (Tex. Const. art. I, § 29. establishes that the purpose of the Texas Bill of Rights is to "guard against transgressions of the high powers" delegated to the state government by the Texas Constitution. Nowhere does the Texas Constitution contain similar language indicating an intent to have the Bill of Rights generally guard against transgressions by individuals.)

Priscilla Owen

  U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (TX)

Free Congress Foundation 717 Second Street, NE Washington, DC 20002

[doug from upland]

George Bush, do not let them eviscerate her like they did Pickering. Hold a news conference and introduce this fine justice to the public. Point out that Chuckie Schumer, who is on the committee deciding her fate, received more than twice the donation she received from Enron. GEORGE --- DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE. DO IT NOW!

[Salvation]

Come on, Activists in Texas and everywhere! Contact these RAT members of the Senate Judicial Committee!

Patrick J. Leahy...RAT CHAIRMAN, VERMONT
Edward M. Kennedy...RAT, MASSACHUSETTS
Joseph R. Biden, Jr....RAT, DELAWARE
Herbert Kohl...RAT, WISCONSIN
Dianne Feinstein...RAT, CALIFORNIA
Russell D. Feingold...RAT, WISCONSIN
Charles E. Schumer...RAT, NEW YORK
Richard J. Durbin...RAT, ILLINOIS
Maria Cantwell...RAT, WASHINGTON
John Edwards...RAT, NORTH CAROLINA

Contact these Senators now!