Letters to the Editor | May 6, 2024

In considering Donald Trump’s claims of presidential immunity, the responses and questions by some of the Supreme Court justices were unsettling. The conservative justices seemed to skirt the primary issue before them — Trump’s behavior — by posing hypotheticals, theory, and advancing a precedent that would do more to “protect” the presidency than to assure accountability. Basically, they were angling for broadened executive power and for the corresponding advance of autocracy. This is shameful. Our democracy is fragile. Surely it needs judicial reform. That said, to have a major democratic institution like the Supreme Court be complicit in chipping away at the fundamental principles our Founding Fathers espoused is perilous. The court needs to cut through its urges to be partisan and to get back on track with constitutional analysis.

Bill Pelle, Haverford, bill.to.write@gmail.com

Conservative justices torpedoed Roe v. Wade because they found that abortion wasn’t deeply rooted in our history and that principles that can’t be read into the Constitution usurped the peoples’ authority. Yet those standards seemed missing in Donald Trump’s immunity claim hearing. Article 1 addresses immunity for members of Congress (speech and debate clause) and Article 4 uses immunity to protect the rights of citizens in each state. Article 2 doesn’t use the term and allows criminal prosecution of a president. Presidential criminal immunity isn’t rooted in our history. Apparently, textualism and originalism are abandoned when inconvenient.

Conservative justices apparently wish to write a “decision for the ages,” protect the presidency (which has labored for 237 years without an immunity issue) and prevent former presidents from being inconvenienced by prosecution for criminal acts while in office (white-collar inmates in federal prison camps are certainly inconvenienced). What the justices are likely to do is aid Trump’s delay strategy, so the electorate is robbed of important information, and protect an undeserving former president at the expense of the people.

Stewart Speck, Ardmore, speckstewart@gmail.com

I am confused by the Supreme Court justices’ questions on Donald Trump’s immunity case. The matter before the court is simple, does Trump have absolute immunity? Yet the conservative justices seem to want to broaden and confuse the issue. They seem to want to address the question of when a president can break the law, and when is he or she protected from prosecution for breaking the law. That answer is simple as well. Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution requires the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The short answer to this question is that the president doesn’t get to break the law. Never. Ever.

Barry Lurie, Philadelphia

The stunning courtroom display on April 25 showed the American people just how deeply entrenched the Supreme Court has become in partisan politics. It was staggering to see this level of political bias on the part of the conservative justices who appeared to casually accept the idea that a president is immune from prosecution for illegal actions, whether private or official.

Additionally, by failing to hold Justice Clarence Thomas accountable for his corrupt actions, the court has inspired Americans to doubt its legitimacy. Thomas took money in the form of luxury gifts and vacations from a billionaire with friends who had business before the court. Thomas denies none of it, leaving us to wonder how many other conservatives on the court are owned by billionaires. Not requiring Thomas to recuse himself from cases involving the insurrection while knowing full well that his own wife cheered it on is the ugly icing on a rotting cake.

I worked in national Republican Party politics for many years, including in the George H.W. Bush administration, and I remain fully committed to democracy in America, our justice system, and the rule of law. For any Supreme Court justice to place naked partisan politics ahead of adherence to the principles of our Constitution is heresy and betrays everything our forefathers so carefully considered and designed. No person in our country is above the law and no previous president has ever found this to be a hindrance.

Susan E. Thoren, Philadelphia

The students protesting the war in Gaza are not mobs. For the most part, they are small gatherings of young people exhibiting their opposition to U.S. support of the retaliatory bombing that has taken the lives of nearly 35,000 civilians. Signs at the peaceful encampment at Bryn Mawr College read “Jews for Palestinian Liberation,” “Endorse Ceasefire Resolution,” and “Divest.” For some of the protesters, this is their first political engagement.

Some don’t know the full history of the conflict they are protesting, or the full implications of slogans like “from the river to the sea,” or the existential identification with the state of Israel in the hearts of many American Jews. It is up to the faculty and members of the administration to help these students become better informed about these issues, to foster dialogue with those who defend the Israeli position, and to insist on the line between free speech and hate speech. Outside agitators should of course be expelled, and property damage should be punished within reason, but the opportunistic dramatization of these protests by politicians, donors, and university trustees is uncalled for. Calling in the police, often to appease these same politicians and donors, is appalling.

Dale Kinney, Bala Cynwyd

The people who are comparing 2024 with 1968 probably do not include those of us who survived that era. Back then, there were boots on the ground in Vietnam — American boots — and although male college students had been granted a four-year reprieve from service, the guys (and only the guys) were faced with an “obligation” that was a death sentence for many (30% of all U.S. fatalities during the war were suffered in 1968). Those not receiving a deferment were immediately old enough to die for their country at the behest of a president they weren’t old enough to vote for.

President Lyndon Johnson was, virtually single-handedly, conducting a war to impose upon the Vietnamese people conditions they had not chosen, and that the majority did not want; they were foisted upon them by outside powers, including and principally the U.S. The plan was simple in several respects: kill enough people and destroy enough property and Hanoi would accept the existence of a corrupt artificial nation, which divided the country for no reason the populace could understand. Whatever wounds may be suffered on campuses today, they are not inflicted by a government generating war and risking American lives.

John Sultzbaugh, Elizabethville, Pa.

Letter writer Jacqualyn James, a retired Pennsylvania teacher, recently wrote about her need for a cost of living raise for her pension. More generally, a public sector employee who retired before July 1, 2001, when pensions were increased, is on average over 80 years old and receives less than $18,000 a year. One-third of these retirees have pensions under $10,000. At the time they retired, the state had repeatedly voted for cost of living raises every four to six years. Retirees had reason to rely on this pattern in their retirement planning. However, there has not been a raise in over 20 years.

In the meantime, state lawmakers have voted for a cost of living raise for themselves every year since 1995. Pennsylvania is one of only 10 states not providing cost of living adjustments. The House has voted to provide an adjustment for these deserving retirees, specifically those who retired before July 1, 2001. So far, the Senate has not moved on the bill. Allowing these seniors to struggle after years of devoted service is disgraceful. Pennsylvanians, please let your legislators know that you support rectifying this injustice and ask them to support the provisions of House Bill 1416.

Jean V. Smith, Media

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