Fifth, Jim sought to inform the public of the dangers of judicial activism by
awarding its most prominent practitioners the “Pettifogger of the Month Award.”
He
conferred the award on, inter alia, U.S. District Court Judge George Howard for ordering
new balloting in a high school Homecoming Queen contest;
U.S. District Court Judge
John F. Grady for ordering Eastern Airlines to reinstate with back pay a transvestite pilot
with “long-standing problems of psychological disorders”;
U.S. District Court Judge
Milton I. Shadur for ordering officials in the Department of Education to lobby Congress
for more funds to implement his desegregation plan for the City of Chicago;
Arlen Specter, “one of the least Republican Republicans,” for collaborating “regularly
with the Kennedy-Biden-Metzenbaum gang on the Judiciary Committee against an array
of Republican measures, including the abortion and school prayer amendments and the
proposed ‘good faith’ exception to the Supreme Court’s exclusionary rule”;
41 members
of the Harvard Law School faculty for their open letter protesting the granting of a
Kennedy School award to Attorney General Meese;
50 law professors for their
opposition to the confirmation of Daniel Manion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
43
A pettifogger is defined as one who pretends to be a lawyer but who possesses neither
knowledge, law, nor conscience.
44
“Pettifogger of the Month: George Howard, Jr.,” Benchmark, Premier Issue (Fall 1983),
p. 45.
45
“Pettifogger of the Month: John F. Grady,” Benchmark, Vol. I, No. 1 (January-
February, 1984), p. 58.
46
“Pettifogger of the Month: Milton I. Shadur,” Benchmark, Vol. I, No. 6 (November-
December, 1984), p. 60.
47
“Pettifogger of the Month: Arlen Specter,” Benchmark, Vol. II, No. 1 (January-
February, 1986), p. 56.
48
“Pettifogger of the Month,” Benchmark, Vol. II, Nos. 3 & 4 (May-August, 1986), p.
217.
19
Convention