The U.S. Supreme Court: Not So Very Supreme

The United States Supreme Court, a supposedly auguste and grim symbol of the nation's highest and best justice, bears the words EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW on its front doorway entrance, to tell all who would look upon this noble mantra that the high court means business, in the business of righting all of society's wrongs of Constitutional significance. There, the casual visitor also sees the magnificent godess of justice, with her blindfold over her eyes, holding a sword in one hand, and a set of balance-scales in the other, to accomplish this task with the utmost of impartial finesse.

There exists a great chasm between image and reality, however. Are highly-educated judges, very humanly fallible despite their impressive backgrounds in legal-eagledom, up to the task for which they were supposedly appointed and confirmed? Are they truly proverbial shadows of God on earth? Former New York governor Al Smith once said, "Let's look at the record." So, let us, the American people, not fear to judge the judges!

To begin with, it costs $3000, just to file a case with the high court. The court justices agree to hear only 1% or fewer of all petitions presented to it, usually only on appeal from a series of lower courts. This represents a financial expense prohibitive to the average American citizen, with odds most likely that the cost of filing a petition to the high court will be for nought. Not many of us have that kind of money to just throw away, and this presents great discouragement to those who may even rightly deserve by constitutional standards to have their cases heard. Justice before the nation's highest bar of justice is only for rich people, and for wealthy institutions, organizations, and for various political entities.

Some justices of the Supreme Court believe it acceptable, even desirable, to sacrifice American sovereignty by traitorously looking to foreign law, as a guide to decide issues of U.S. Constitutional importance. Would that such justices had been among the first brave American patriots who knew what it meant, to take up the gun and fight for this nation's independence from Great Britain in the latter half of the 18th century. The blood of such noble patriots cries out for divine revenge against those on the high court bench, who would betray that for which the same-said courageous souls gave their lives at Cambridge, the Boston Commons, Lexington, Concord, Valley Forge, Yorktown and elsewhere, so that this fledgling young nation might be free of all foreign control.

Other justices of the Supreme Court believe the Constitution should be played with, like a piece of legal Silly-Putty, as they read into that founding document values and concepts not explicitly stated in its text, per se. Perhaps the most infamous example of this legislating from the bench is the pernicious doctrine of "separation of church and state". It is to be granted that our ability today to discern the original intent of the Constitution's authors is very limited. It is also to be granted that the wording of certain provisions of the Constitution may be applied to modern contemporary situations not foreseen at the time by the founding fathers. Indeed, they provided for an amendment process, acknowledging their own inability to foresee the nation's future, and know at the time, what would be most beneficial to future generations of Americans. Nevertheless, the words "separation of church and state" appear nowhere in the text of the Constitution, to suggest that high court decisions should be made only after a thorough inspection of the Bible, to insure that no Biblical values and concepts should be included therein. The First Amendment mandates that legislatures shall make no law which interferes with religious freedom per se. That is very different, from attempt to kick God completely out of all public consciousness, and out of all public life. Instead, government is mandated to remain neutral towards, not hostile towards, religion, i.e. refraining from using its coercive powers to come between a man and his conscience, between a man and his god. In short, any area of human legal concern not explicitly addressed in the text of the U.S. Constitution is to be left to the legislatures to resolve. Judges are not to legislate from the bench, injecting into their rulings their personally-felt preferences in place of the Constitution's textual requirements. Indeed, even with words explicitly present in the text of the Constitution, judges still say words mean only what they, the judges, say they mean, and at least in this sense, they remain guilty of judicial activism.

Congress is often grievously egregious, in its attempt to destroy the independence of the judiciary, and make it a mere auxilliary adjunct to the legislature. That is, when the U.S. Senate considers a presidential appointment to the high court, it will usually try to coerce the judicial nominee to promise in advance to rule a certain way on certain issues(most notably, abortion), as a corrupt quid-pro-quo of winning the Senator's confirming vote. Such practice in the U.S. Senate should not be tolerated by the American people. Rather, the job of the Senate should be confined to the ascertainment of the nominee's academic excellence in jurisprudence, as well as a record of previous legal service demonstrating unquestionable impartiality.

In summary, the American people are thoroughly justified to feel a complete lack of confidence in their ability to get justice from the highest court in the land. Its historic record reveals decisions which have done more socio-political damage to America, than any bomb-throwing college campus terrorists. Perhaps it is best, that we leave the slogan, "IN GOD WE TRUST" on our money, as we certainly cannot trust men for anything even vaguely approaching His absolute divine justice.

-Lawrence K. Marsh