Hard core? Elena Kagan, Obama’s pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in a memo to former Justice Thurgood Marshall, wrote: “[The man’s] sole contention is that the District of Columbia’s firearms statutes violate his constitutional right to ‘keep and bear arms,’. I’m not sympathetic.” This in reference to an appeal from a D.C. man convicted of carrying an unregistered pistol. His appeal has to be based on whether there is legal standing not on whether a court clerk doesn’t care about another person’s rights.
However, according to Bloomberg, her comments on District of Columbia v. Heller, were:
“There is no question, after Heller, that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to keep and bear arms and that this right, like others in the Constitution, provides strong although not unlimited protection against governmental regulation,”
When people ask why it is that people question the personal views of nominated judges on subjects such as Second Amendment, or Roe v. Wade, this is why. The role of a law clerk, in this case what Kagan was doing in her job under Justice Marshall when she made her comment, is to advise the judge, supposedly based on law, about a ruling. When we hear of a clerk making reference that she is “not sympathetic” about an American citizen’s concern for the protection of his Constitutional rights, it now becomes extremely important as to whether this person should be in a position to hand down rulings. Can we be comfortable believing that she is interpreting the law or being sympathetic or unsympathetic?
Tom Remington
