Dear Editor:
In the Marbury V. Madison case, the U.S. Supreme Court proclaimed that it had the authority to invalidate a law passed by Congress and signed by the president.
Of course, this right is not found in the U.S. Constitution. That is why Thomas Jefferson spent all the rest of his life criticizing and predicting what would happen to this country because of the decision in this case. This case was decided in 1803 and Jefferson died on July 4, 1826. One of Jefferson’s predictions was that judges would become despots or little dictators.
It took a while for this to be true, but it became to fruition in about the middle part of the last century. That is when judges began telling juries in criminal trials that they must follow the law. When our founders crafted the Sixth Amendment, they intended that a jury could protect their fellow citizens by not enforcing an unfair or unjust law against them. Judges would tell juries what the law was and that they could or should follow it. However, by telling a jury they must follow the law the judge effectively precluded a jury from not enforcing an unjust or unfair law against their fellow citizens. That is these judges are effectively eliminating a critical constitutional protection that had been available to citizens when judges were telling juries that they had the leeway not to follow a particular law in a given case. Indeed judges had truly become little dictators.
Russ Fagg admitted to me that he did tell juries that they must follow the law when deciding criminal cases. Thomas Jefferson warned us about judges such as Russ Fagg over 200 years ago. I urge my fellow veterans and all Montanans to vote for Dr. Al Olszweski for U.S. Senate. He is a third generation Montanan and a legitimate Montana military veteran.
Dr. W. David Herbert ESQ
Billings
