@mvario Occam's razor would have us at least consider the possibility that maybe the judge was simply right and the guy writing the opinion piece simply fairly isn't getting the outcome that he would have personally preferred.

It's not that judges are terrified. It's that the law simply doesn't say what you or I might want it to say, and the judge is bound by it anyway.

The author pretty much admits this when acknowledging what he calls a loophole. Well there it is, whether you refer to it as loophole or not, it is law and the judge agreed and followed law.

Personally I don't think it's a loophole at all, I think there are a very good reasons that the US is designed the way it is, but regardless, it is law, that the judge followed, not out of fear but out of obligation to the law.