‘Twisted Logic’ on the Justices

Michael S. Wald’s three articles on the upcoming vote on the retention or removal from office of five California Supreme Court justices contain the same twisted logic that the legal profession uses to confuse the issue and obscure the facts and, as always, these momentous decisions that free persons proven guilty protect all of us. Our constitutional rights are inviolate!

Every day reports of murders, robberies, rapes fill the news. The perpetrators are afforded every consideration, the victim very little. All this is the result of overwhelming solicitude on the part of the courts for the rights of the accused: the exclusionary rule, free attorneys, Miranda, continuances ad nauseam.

Wald states, “Barring unethical behavior by the justice, a ‘no’ vote is appropriate only if the voter is convinced that the justice has acted politically by deciding cases according to his or her own values rather than on the justice’s interpretation of the law.”

Exactly. The record is clear, it is voluminous. Read the cases. It is obvious that Justice Bird’s interpretation of the law has been formed according to her own values, not according to the law as enacted. What could be more unethical?

Wald comments on partisan politics entering into the campaigns and stresses the importance of an independent judiciary. What happens when the independent judiciary happens to be incompetent or biased? How does the public protect itself from an unaccountable judicial system? The answer is, We, the people, and it won’t be a matter of politics. It will be a matter of common sense for our mutual benefit and protection to use our votes to deny confirmation to Bird, Reynoso, and Grodin.

E. T. JOHNSTON

Mission Viejo