Deukmejian and Justice Grodin
Chief Justice Bird’s campaign is in trouble because she, and her supporters--such as Gerald Uelmen in his article (Editorial Pages, Sept. 30), “Shopping for Judges, California Style”--ignore the issue most Californians consider central to this election: whether or not the judges have served the law.
“The contest over retention,” Uelmen writes, “is being served up to the public as a referendum on the death penalty,” and, later, “. . . the battle lines are drawn, one side waving the bloody shirt of death penalty reversals, the other side wrapping itself in the flag of judicial independence.”
Uelman is missing the point. A lot of Californians will vote No because they believe Bird and Justices Grodin and Reynoso simply won’t uphold laws they don’t like. The death penalty is only the most obvious example.
JOHN KURZWELL
Executive Director
The Supreme Court Project
Santa Monica
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