Attorney Tom Dixon Files Second Recusal Motion in "ND 88" Case Raising Questions about Notre Dame Professor Married to Judge
Posted by matt (September 28, 2009 at 5:27 pm)
Attorney Tom Dixon today filed a second motion for recusal in the “ND 88″ case [PDF] in which he provides detailed support for his assertion in his previous recusal motion that there exists sufficient actual and perceived bias that Judge Jenny Pitts Manier, the judge assigned to the “ND 88″ case is required by Indiana state law to recuse herself in the matter.
Unlike the original motion, the new motion goes into great detail about the rabid pro-abortion, anti-episcopacy views of Edward Manier, Judge Manier’s husband, a Notre Dame professor and raises serious doubts about claims made by Judge Manier in her previous denial of Dixon’s motion to recuse.
Motion to Reconsider Motion for Change of Judge
In the new motion, Dixon states that ever since Judge Jenny Pitts Manier has known Professor Edward Manier he has been a well-known and outspoken advocate of the pro-abortion position and has both targeted the Catholic University and charged the judiciary to promote and protest abortion rights. As his views were well-known and have defined, in large part, his public person at the University of Notre Dame it seems implausible that Judge Manier could reasonably claim to be unaware of his views on the “ND 88” case which stem from the single biggest controversy in the history of the University of Notre Dame (the invitation to President Barack Obama to be the 2009 Commencement speaker and to receive an honorary law degree from the University of Notre Dame) which revolved entirely around the issue of Obama’s pro-abortion views and the relationship of the University to the episcopacy – the very issues which largely define Professor Manier’s career as a member of the Notre Dame faculty.
The motion notes that Judge Jenny Ann Manier (nee Jenny Ann Pitts) graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1982, that Edward Manier was her professor during her undergraduate years., that Jenny Ann Pitts graduated from the University of Notre Dame law school in 1985 and married Professor Manier the same year.
In the new recusal motion, Dixon addresses an exchange that occurred during the August 2009 hearing on his original recusal motion. Dixon describes how Judge Manier struggled to respond when asked whether her husband had ever written on the topic of abortion before choosing to disregard the question and say only “I’m not my husband”.
Neither Dixon nor anyone has alleged that Judge Manier is her husband but rather that her husband has been so outspoken in his pro-abortion stance that it creates actual and perceived bias. Further, that his pro-abortion views are informed by his broader rejection of the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church which has, in turn, informed every aspect of his career as a professor at the Notre Dame, his published writings and his personal political activism.
The Magisterium refers to the “teaching authority of the church as embodied in the episcopacy, which is the aggregation of the current bishops of the Church, led by the Bishop of Rome (the Pope), who has authority over the bishops, individually and as a body, as well as over each and every Catholic directly.”
Judge Manier’s marriage to Professor Manier is not that of a political odd-couple like that of Democratic political strategist James Carville and Republican political strategist Mary Matalin where he publicly advocates liberal points of view and she advocates conservative points of view. Quite the contrary, they appear to be two peas in a pod. Judge Manier owes her current position largely to riding the coattails of one of Indiana’s most ardent pro-abortion politicians, former South Bend Mayor and Indiana Governor Joe Kernan who is so pro-abortion that South Bend Bishop John D’Arcy banned him from giving the commencement address at Saint Joseph’s High School, South Bend’s largest Catholic school. In a 2004 interview in The Observer in 2004, Professor Manier described his decision to leave the Catholic Church and how Judge Manier later encouraged him join the ultra-liberal Little Flower Church in South Bend, IN.
To understand the legal reasoning as well as the statutes and precedents be sure to read the entire motion filed by Attorney Tom Dixon. The short version is that in Indiana a judge must recuse himself or herself from a case in the event of actual or perceived bias. Dixon then proceeds to highlight the many ways in which such actual and perceived bias exists in the “ND 88” case including how, under the guise of advocating “academic freedom”, Edward Manier has written extensively on promoting his belief that the University of Notre Dame is not and should not be subject to the authority of the Catholic Church and advancing a pro-life agenda at Notre Dame.
Dixon’s previous recusal motion including an affidavit factually alleging that Judge Manier’s husband is “too intertwined with and invested in the University of Notre Dame, the complaining witness”. Rather than accept that factual allegation as true, as required by Indiana state law, she sought to disprove the factual allegation and claimed “Edward Manier has no personal or professional interest in the outcome of these cases”. In fact, Professor Manier is a grant recipient from the University of Notre Dame and his entire professional career at Notre Dame has been defined by the matters at issue in the case. More to the point, how, asks Dixon could Judge Manier know this if she had not discussed the “ND 88” case with him.
“When one analyzes Edward Manier’s political contributions to pro abortion candidates and Political Action Committee, when one reads Edward Manier’s writings referencing members of the Christian right, calling them “fundamentalist mullahs” and “jackleg preachers”, Dixon writes, “it is hard to comprehend how Judge Manier could derive from her husband’s writings the notion that he has no interest in the outcome of these cases.”
Dixon proceeds to lay out the many ways in which Professor Manier’s views inform all of his subsequent writings and on-campus activism ranging from promoting abortion counseling by University funded organizations to promoting homosexual organizations to championing the controversy over a production of “The Vagina Monologues” on the Notre Dame campus.
- In 1977, Edward Manier co-edited and contributed to a book, published by Notre Dame Press, entitled ABORTION: New Directions for Policy Studies in which Manier said Church teachings on abortion are “methodologically naive and uncritical in their derivation of moral conclusions from biological premises and attacked Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., a pro-life judge.
- In the 1990’s, Edward Manier wrote several op-eds for the Notre Dame campus newspaper, The Observer, criticizing the University of Notre Dame for reprimanding the University funded Women’s Resource Center for providing abortion referrals to female undergraduate students, advocating in favor of such referrals being allows and falsely accuses the two students who reported the abortion counseling as anonymous “snitches”.
- Manier has described Pro-life advocates as “fundamentalist mullahs…who only find prophetic insight in papal documents symptomatic of compulsive voyeurism”.
- Edward Manier has written that the Catholic Church’s teaching about life beginning at conception is “indefensible”.
- In an New York Times Letter to the Editor which identifies him as a Notre Dame professor, Manier wrote that opposition to abortion should be “criticized by any faithful Catholic” with experience of the needs of children (ironic coming from a man who walked out on a marriage with seven children to marry a student more than half his age).
- Attacked Pope John Paul II’s Papal Encyclical Human Vitae as being “intellectually stillborn”.
- Edward Manier donated money to Emily’s List, a PAC whose stated purpose is to get pro-choice women into public office.
- Edward Manier donated a significant sum of money to Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign as well as additional donations to other pro-abortion rights candidates in the United States. As it is the decision to invite President Obama to Notre Dame to give the 2009 Commencement Address and award him an honorary law degree that was the animating event that led to the arrest of the “ND 88″.
- Edward Manier has written that Notre Dame must be independent of the authority of its local Bishop. As the defendants intend to argue that they had a right to be on campus to pray that the University adhere to the authority of the Bishop this is an issue that the Judge in the case will be asked to determine. That her husband has been an outspoken critic of of the basis for this legal defense is something she should have disclosed.
This is, of course, the United States of America and Professor Manier is entitled to give voice to his opinions and support the political candidates of his choice but as his extensive track record makes clear — and only a portion of it has been cited here — Edward Manier stands in direct opposition to everything that the “ND 88″ support. Given this, it is beyond incredible that Judge Manier would refuse to respond to questions about her husband or admit her knowledge of his past writings. The defendants in this case are left to wonder whether her refusal to answer suggests the possibility of her solidarity with her husband’s positions. In either case, there can be no doubt that a reasonable person would find a perception of bias and for this reason alone Judge Manier should recuse herself from the “ND 88″ case.