Justice Kennedy

Re your article on Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (May 22). As one who opposed the Bork nomination, I had figured that Kennedy would turn out to be a mild-mannered Robert Bork. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Kennedy’s opinions, while I certainly don’t always agree with them, seem tempered and thoughtful. And while today’s right-wing conservatives have long tried to say they want to have “nonactivist jurists,” it seems the ones they like (Antonin Scalia, William Rehn- quist and Clarence Thomas), have no problem being activist jurists. Scalia has said he sees no duty to adhere to precedents with which he disagrees. In other words, he sees no reason to respect legal precedent. Which is the definition of an judicial activist.

Kennedy’s reliance on well-reasoned decisions and true freedom of speech bespeaks his honest opinions from the bench. He is unwavering in his defense of individual liberties, even when they are unpopular.

ERIC BURNS

Los Angeles

* Your piece on Justice Kennedy should have appeared in the Op-Ed section. However, I did find it amusing that Justice Scalia exhibited such prescience in his dissent regarding the court’s ruling in the Colorado gay rights case. Scalia believes that Kennedy’s opinion is designed to win favor with the “elite class”--as apparently it has.

RICHARD JACOBSON

Encino