Caperton v. AT Massey Coal Co., Inc.

(Filed July 28, 2008)

Roseoe Pound offered the following pertinent comments as to a judge’s responsibility when setting forth an opinion:

The opinions of the judge of a highest court of a state are no place for intemperate denunciation of the judge’s colleagues, violent invective, attributings of bad motives to the majority of the court, and insinuations of incompetence, negligence, prejudice, or obtuseness of fellow members of the court.

Roscoe Pound, Cacoethes Dissentiendi: The Heated Judicial Dissent, 39 A.B.A J. 794, 795 (1953). There is an important difference between a thoughtful,…