Judicial Foreign Affairs
During their confirmation hearings, I sought and received assurances from Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito that they would not appeal to foreign laws in deciding any case. Therefore, I was pleased to see Jeremy Rabkin's "Courting Abroad" (April 10) offering some of the reasons the practice of applying foreign law in American courts is illegitimate. Rabkin demonstrates that this practice covertly replaces representative self-government with rule by a self-appointed elite.
My concern over the use of foreign law in American courts is a simpler one: It violates the oath of office judges take to uphold the Constitution. The Constitution defines "the supreme Law of the Land" as "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States." Nothing is in there about agreements made by the European Union or the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Yet in Roper v. Simmons a majority of the Supreme Court struck down a Missouri law on the basis of two treaties that had been rejected by the Senate.
This was an open act of contempt for the Constitution, for representative government, for the Senate, and for the people of Missouri. I fail to see how the five justices who joined in that opinion can reconcile such disregard for the Constitution with their oath to uphold it.
Evidently, in their zeal to do what they considered the "right" thing in this case, they lost sight of their judicial responsibilities (at least that is the charitable interpretation). But neither that excuse nor any other is available to a Supreme Court justice who would publicly defend the legitimacy of judging Americans by foreign laws and declare an intention to do so in the future.
Sen. Tom A. Coburn
Washington, D.C.
'Gunfight' Shoot-out
Tom Kelly's review of John Bainbridge Jr. and my book, American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman and the Shoot-out That Stopped It, contains many elemental errors as well as gratuitous slurs on our motives, professions, and backgrounds ("Terrorism, 1950," March 27). Kelly writes: "The assassins were Griselio Torresola, who was killed, and Oscar Collazo, who killed a policeman, but survived." No. Griselio Torresola killed the policeman, a heroic, dedicated officer Kelly can't find room to name. Oscar Collazo killed nobody. This error is all but incomprehensible. It's not a minor detail. It's what the book is about.
Then Kelly refers to Pedro Albizu Campos, the leader of the Puerto Rican Nationalist party, as "El Pedro" throughout, presumably thinking himself a wit. The bizarre "El Pedro" construction is his--it appears nowhere in our book. It is unfathomable that a periodical would allow ridicule of a Hispanic name.
Kelly seems to think we worship at the shrine of Albizu Campos, but any reasonable, adult reading of the book reveals the following moral landscape: The heroes are Secret Service agents and White House cops. The romantic dupes are Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, and the bête noire is Pedro Albizu Campos.
Kelly also writes, "in the brief, abortive revolt that preceded the assassination attempt in New York by a few days . . . " But Blair House, of course, is in Washington, D.C., not New York.
Stephen Hunter
Washington, D.C.
Tom Kelly responds: Perhaps Stephen Hunter hasn't read his own book. The first part provides a list of "myths" about the assassination attempt that, we are told, are all "wrong." In the rest of the book, the "myths" turn out to be true. Perhaps Hunter wrote one part and his coauthor the other. The two of them seem to feel that anyone who takes a shot at an American president can't be all bad. I'm sorry I mixed the names, but the reality of the situation was clear. Also, the book refers to Don Pedro, which, like "El Pedro," is a recognition of his place in the minds and hearts of his deluded followers.