Letters to the Editor
Judging What’s “Right,” Not What’s “Lawful”
The cornerstone principle of the founding of our Constitutional Republic is that it be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” However, in our representative democracy, laws are passed “by the politician and for the politician.” In reality the only place in the Constitution where “of the people, by the people, and for the people” is operative is in the Sixth Amendment trial jury, which says, in part: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy trial, by an impartial jury.”
Yet today judges instruct jurors that they must follow the law, rather than instructing them that they “may” or “should” follow the law. In other words, judges are instructing jurors that the “rule of law,” which is a product of the politicians, is supreme. This is not what our Founding Fathers intended.
The elitist Ivy League law professors I have spoken with tend to conflate the “rule of law” and the “due process of law.” Nowhere in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence is the “rule of law” mentioned! This tendency to conflate the two, or make them equivalent, would be abhorrent to Founders such as Madison, Jefferson, and even Hamilton. Not conflating the two is what makes our Republic different from other nations. Remember, Adolf Hitler was a staunch supporter of the “rule of law.”
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