Maine’s Arrogant Supreme Court

Mainers need a new State Supreme Court. Why? All seven Democrat-appointed justices, who serve seven-year terms, are activists – not interpreting laws, but making them. That is not what appellate courts should do, state or federal. Consider The Seven Strikes against Maine’s High Court:

First, as a former US Court of Appeals clerk who worked for a conservative, Reagan appointee on the 9^th Circuit (lion’s den), multi-state litigator, Maine attorney, and  Columbia Law graduate, I am an “originalist,” a simple, conservative constitutionalist. Most Mainers are this, without knowing it.

By sharp contrast, judicial activists –  society-correcting jurists like those on Maine’s highest court – despise originalists, those bound by our Founders’ words and meaning. Why? Originalists believe the Constitution writers meant what they wrote, findable in history, and we are all bound by it.

This does not mean society does not change, but that jurists cannot change the meanings. Core principles – put in writing and from a “Creator,” do not change, just as human nature does not.

If that is true, and is what our Founders intended, then nothing short of the constitutional amending process can alter the meaning of our federal – and state – constitutions. Liberal judges cannot.

So, for example, originalists do not think you can insert rights and words into the Constitution, like “substantive due process,” when “due process” in the 5^th Amendment, extended in the 14^th to the states, meant procedural due process. Mischief follows inserting new stuff in the Constitution.

Never intended to be there, creative phrases take on a life of their own, grow wings, then feathers, then hatch new birds, until you have a whole nest of noisy problems in the Constitution.

Originalists do not believe that the nest is necessary. Similarly, they think the Bill of Rights is a masterful document, and cannot legally be ignored, overridden by mandates, or given new meanings.

We believe that the Constitution’s words have timeless meaning, forged after a terrible Revolution that produced a miracle, distilled truth. We respect what happened back there; no changes.

Originalists believe words are important, were then, and are now. They should not be twisted, added to, ignored, reinvented, repurposed, reimagined, or just set aside. Strike one for Maine’s Supreme Court is philosophical, a consensus by Mill’s appointees that judicial activism is fine.

Second, Maine’s highest court has sided with political Democrats in virtually every case where politics poked its ugly nose under the tent. Latest? July 2025. Maine Supreme Court refused to reverse or make clear the intentionally bungled language in the fall “Voter ID referendum.”

After Maine’s (judicially disgraced) Democrat Secretary of State – who opposes “voter ID” as a candidate for Governor – intentionally convoluted referendum language, confusing voters and then tagging it as discriminatory rather than a block to fraud, Maine’s High Court nodded, waved, and let it go.

Third, a recent Stanford study – no hotbed of conservatism – found Maine’s Supreme Court the second-most liberal, politically activist in the country – a clear betrayal of public trust. 

Fourth, in virtually every case, testing the expansion of government power over the individual – whether during COVID, parental rights, worship, gun ownership, or 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, or 14^th Amendment application, they pick more intrusion, not less.

Fifth, even when the government impoverishes Maine’s small businesses, 99 percent (literally), the Court pushes regulation over private sector survival, for example, in August 2025, increasing burdens on small businesses and workers with paid family and medical leave, wholly anti-business.

Sixth, Maine’s High Court consistently decides against Maine law enforcement, in favor of defendants who – in federal court – would be treated far differently, for example Maine v. Kilgore, just decided, in which a man who ran over a police officer, was tried, found guilty, then had his sentence vacated – thrown out – since Maine’s Supreme Court did not like the jury instructions.

Seventh, this Court consistently endangers Maine citizens with rulings in favor of criminal defendants, contrary to federal precedent, opening the door to bad precedent and repeat offenses.

The latest is an outrageous ruling in August 2025, State v. McLain, where a major drug trafficker was taken into custody, given Miranda rights, but answered questions. The Maine High Court let him go.

Specifically, they said he should have had a lawyer even if never asked for one, something the US Supreme Court would never say. Why? Because “economic and social considerations” suggested he might have had a “voice raised at the end” of his statement, “a frequent form of elocution for persons who…feel powerless,” and he showed “tentative speech patterns.” Really?

So, playing God, psychologist, and defense in one, ignoring US Supreme Court precedent, they put words in the mouth of a convicted drug trafficker, 94 grams of fentanyl, MDA (drug), and needles –  and vacated his sentence, threw out the conviction, let him go.

Bottom line: Maine’s activist Supreme Court disserves average Mainers. Mills’s unchecked, politically brazen bench needs to go. All seven have their terms up under the next Governor, and if that Governor is me – they are all gone, replaced by thoughtful, respectful, originalists. Done.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!