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From: gacs3651@oswego.UUCP (Robert Knighton)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,net.legal
Subject: Interesting legal issues
Message-ID: <752@oswego.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Sep-86 19:34:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: oswego.752
Posted: Wed Sep 24 19:34:30 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Sep-86 13:55:58 EDT
Reply-To: gacs3651@oswego.UUCP (Robert Knighton)
Distribution: net
Organization: State University of New York at Oswego
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Xref: watmath talk.abortion:38 net.legal:5211




	This is being posted to both net.abortion and net.legal.  I believe
that it is of interest to all concerned.

	Recently I read an interesting piece written by a lawyer about the 
constitutional legality of the decisions of the supreme court becoming the
law of the land.  Given as evidence were three decisions handed down since
1957.  These are:

	 1. Brown v. Board of Education (1957) [Mandatory desegregation],
	 2. The Madeline Murray O'Hare case (1963) [No prayer in schools],
	 3. Roe v. Wade (1973)  [Legalized abortions on demand].

	Now I am intrigued by this information.  It is true that the consti-
tution gave legislative powers only to congress, and (*in my opinion*) the
judiciary does _not_ have the power to legislate.  They only have the power,
yes the grave responsibility, to uphold the integrity of the constitution.
This is supposed to make any change in the constitutional rights of citizens
very hard to do.  Requiring the full process of ammendment.  In these three
cases we have nine men effectively ammending the constitution by precedent,
and that is not constitutional.  [But who is going to tell them? :-)] 

	Now if these decisions ARE invalid as the law of the land, then we
need to act and make sure that they are either upheld or withdrawn from
public law.  As far as I can tell (and I'm no attorney) precedent is useful
in civil or criminal cases, but not in questions of constitutionality.  I am 
a citizen of this country and proud of it.  I just can't sit here and let
the balance of power be upset by the supreme court.  They are supposed to be 
above politics because of their life terms.  They are also sworn to uphold the
constitution _as_it_stands_, not as they see it.

	'Nuff said.  If you wish to express your opinion to me then E-Mail.
Although, I would like to see the debates that will undoubtably arise.
The article I referred to may be found in _Americans_against_Abortion_
Vol. 1 No. 2.

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   !ihnp4!oswego!gacs3651 (Robert Knighton)
!warrior/

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