Retired state Court of Appeals Judge Russell Carparelli offered mild critiques of the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month as he spoke about the rule of law, and urged lawyers to “get in the game” by advocating in the political arena.

“I stayed out of politics completely. I never even signed up with one of the political parties. I did my work as a judge, but I didn’t engage in politics,” said Carparelli. “My reaction now is, I don’t have a choice. But I’m trying to do it in a way that’s nonpartisan. I’m trying to do it in a way that’s values-based.”

Carparelli was a judge on the Court of Appeals from 2003 to 2013. He also co-founded Our Courts Colorado, which has given hundreds of informational presentations to the public about the judicial system. Now a mediator and arbitrator, Carparelli spoke at the Colorado Bar Association’s Denver headquarters on May 1 for the annual “Law Day.”

This year’s theme, as advertised by the American Bar Association, was “The Rule of Law and the American Dream.”

Carparelli spoke at length about the crafting of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. He also walked through pivotal moments in American legal and cultural development.

Afterward, he fielded questions from attendees who were curious about how to approach the current political environment. One person referenced the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, released two days prior, which permitted states to eliminate majority-Black districts that had previously been drawn under the Voting Rights Act. The audience member suggested the Supreme Court’s majority was “doing the bidding of their owners.”

“I disagree with the issue about the Supreme Court,” said Carparelli. “I don’t believe they take orders. I believe they have a perspective. I believe they have biases …. You can’t come to that stage of life and not have biases. You can’t be in the judicial system and not have certain biases about how it works. How the Constitution works.”

He clarified that, in his view, “some of them have biases that should not be on the Supreme Court.”

To that end, Carparelli said it was not surprising for Supreme Court justices to embody the views of the president who appointed them.

“The three branches of government have to stay in their lane. And if somebody comes over into their lane, they have to push them away. The Congress has to demand and exercise its role in evaluating Supreme Court justices,” he said. But the president “has a view of the world. Has a view of the country. Has a view of what’s best for the country. … They’re gonna pick somebody whose point of view is similar to their own.”

He also referenced the Supreme Court’s cursory decisions on the “shadow docket,” the colloquial name for the court’s brief, often unexplained, component of its decision-making.

“When I was an appeals court judge, that was the process of testing your theory. If you couldn’t write it, it was wrong,” Carparelli said. “We’ve got a problem because now we’ve got a shadow docket, and things aren’t being explained.”

As for other criticisms of the Supreme Court, Carparelli said it can be difficult to understand appellate judges’ work from the outside.

“It’s hard to say you understand the military unless you’ve been in it. It’s hard to understand the legislature unless you’ve been in it,” he said. “And I can tell you from my experience as an appeals court judge, the painstaking effort that goes into writing a decision. The painstaking effort that decides what order do you put things in? The painstaking decision of what’s the word choice in this sentence? It’s invisible to everybody.”

Responding to a question about countering authoritarianism, Carparelli said he wears a hat reading “Preserve our Constitution” wherever he goes.

“I think we all have an obligation to say what we stand for. And not to hide that and not be afraid of that. Unfortunately, I think there’s some pressure now to hide that,” he said. “If five people in the supermarket are wearing those hats? Now we’ve got a movement.”

Finally, Carparelli encouraged attendees to think about how they could best demonstrate civic virtue.

“I had somebody ask me the other day about, why are you talking to this small group? And this is my zone of influence,” he said. “You’ve got to get in the game. And we’re seeing a lot of people get in the political game, but there are pieces to it. There’s the healthcare game and there’s the education piece …. I have neither the knowledge nor the credibility in that game. The civics game? Yeah, I can be there. I can talk to lawyers.”