Voided vs. wrong: The difference

Re “Disorder in the court,” Opinion, July 11

Brian Fitzpatrick makes the ridiculous assumption that because the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed, it is wrong. There is a common saying that the Supreme Court isn’t last because it is right, but it is right because it is last. The Supreme Court makes law not because it has the smartest judges, but because it has the final word on issues it chooses to address. As a former law clerk, I came to understand more than I had in law school that on many issues, the outcome depends not on correct or incorrect analysis but rather on the judge’s base views of morality and rights.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority starts its analysis in a different place than the 9th Circuit’s ever-shrinking liberal majority. That does not make the 9th Circuit wrong. It just makes the poor, the minorities and those of us who care about civil rights and civil liberties the unfortunate victims of bully jurisprudence.

JULIA CAMPINS

San Francisco