Supreme court justice says \u2018too much law\u2019 impairs liberties and talks about importance of an independent judiciary<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch<\/a> has said ordinary Americans are \u201cgetting whacked\u201d by too many laws and regulations in a new book that underscores his skepticism of federal agencies and the power they wield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cToo little law and we\u2019re not safe, and our liberties aren\u2019t protected,\u201d Gorsuch told the Associated Press in an interview in his supreme court office. \u201cBut too much law and you actually impair those same things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law is being published Tuesday by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Gorsuch has received a $500,000 advance for the book, according to his annual financial disclosure reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the interview, Gorsuch refused to be drawn into discussions about term limits or an enforceable code of ethics for the justices, both recently proposed by Joe Biden<\/a> at a time of diminished public trust in the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Supreme court justice Elena Kagan, speaking a couple of days before the president\u2019s proposal, separately said the court\u2019s ethics code, adopted by the justices last November, should have a means of enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Gorsuch did talk about the importance of judicial independence. \u201cI\u2019m not saying that there aren\u2019t ways to improve what we have. I\u2019m simply saying that we\u2019ve been given something very special. It\u2019s the envy of the world, the United States judiciary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gorsuch echoed that stance in an interview Sunday on Fox News<\/a>, remarking: \u201cI just say: Be careful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe independent judiciary \u2026 What does it mean to you as an American? It means that when you\u2019re unpopular, you can get a fair hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 56-year-old justice was the first of three supreme court nominees confirmed during Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s presidency. Trump\u2019s appointees have combined to entrench a conservative majority that has overturned the federal abortion rights once granted by Roe v Wade<\/a>, ended affirmative action in college admissions, expanded gun rights and clipped environmental regulations aimed at climate change, as well as air and water pollution more generally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July, the supreme court completed a term in which Gorsuch and the court\u2019s five other conservative justices delivered sharp rebukes to the administrative state in three major cases, including the decision that overturned the 40-year-old Chevron decision that had made it more likely that courts would sustain regulations. The court\u2019s three liberal justices dissented each time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gorsuch also was in the majority in ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution in a decision that indefinitely delayed the election interference case against Trump. What\u2019s more, the justices made it harder to use a federal obstruction charge against people who were part of the mob that violently attacked the US Capitol<\/a> on January 6 2021 in an effort to overturn Trump\u2019s defeat by Biden in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gorsuch defended the immunity ruling as necessary to prevent presidents from being hampered while in office by threats of prosecution once they leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court had to wrestle with an unprecedented situation, he said. \u201cHere we have, for the first time in our history, one presidential administration bringing criminal charges against a prior president. It\u2019s a grave question, right? Grave implications,\u201d Gorsuch said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in the book, co-authored by a former law clerk, Janie Nitze, Gorusch largely sets those big issues aside and turns his focus to a fisherman, a magician, Amish farmers, immigrants, a hair braider and others who risked jail time, large fines, deportation and other hardships over unyielding rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 18 years as a judge, including the past seven on the supreme court, Gorsuch said, \u201cThere were just so many cases that came to me in which I saw ordinary Americans, just everyday, regular people trying to go about their lives, not trying to hurt anybody or do anything wrong and just getting whacked, unexpectedly, by some legal rule they didn\u2019t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem, he said, is that there has been an explosion of laws and regulations, at both the federal and state levels. The sheer volume of Congress\u2019s output for the past decade is overwhelming, he said, averaging 344 pieces of legislation totaling 2m to 3m words a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One vignette involves John Yates, a Florida fisherman who was convicted of getting rid of some undersized grouper under a federal law originally aimed at the accounting industry and the destruction of evidence in the Enron scandal. Yates\u2019s case went all the way to the supreme court, where he won by a single vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wanted to tell the story of people whose lives were affected,\u201d Gorsuch said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n