Justices Brennan and Marshall

Your editorial lauds Brennan for his consistently being one of two “unfailing champions of the highest American ideals of justice” on the Supreme Court. Among your basis for this assertion are the facts that Brennan has typically voted to strike down laws regulating or abolishing pornography and that he has argued that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

If Brennan were a private citizen working to change the enacted laws of the land relating to these issues, I might have some ground to agree with you. But, in fact, Brennan is a judge charged with the responsibility of upholding enacted laws and the Constitution. That he is willing to use his extremely powerful position to overturn laws passed by majorities in the various legislatures and favored by large majorities of the citizens, and overturn them based on his own ideological preference, is more a cause for apprehension than admiration.

After all, the intention of the Constitution would appear to be self-government--the founders of the United States had plenty of experience with autocratic government. Brennan’s vote is 20% of the vote needed to overrule the wishes of millions of Americans; if self-government is to survive, that kind of power must be used with extreme restraint.

And only an abusive lack of restraint by a judge could result in ruling that the death penalty is forbidden by the Constitution or that pornography is protected by it.

DON JENNINGS

Torrance