10 Supreme Court could lead to a major impairment of membership organizations' ability to monitor and enforce environmental and other remedial laws. We believe that a significant narrowing of access to the courts would contribute to a large and undesirable shift of power from the legislative branch to the executive branch and regulated industries in the important areas of environmental law and other programs where action by our government is needed to protect health and natural resources and otherwise promote the general well-being. courts - Judge Bork has asserted that the legislature not the should make the law. But if the courts are not then available to enforce remedial statutes, illegality is invited and the public's respect for law and government is diminished. New York State Defenders Association, Inc. Public Defense Backup Center 150 State Street • Albany, New York 12207 (518) 465-3524 September 16, 1987 The Honorable Joseph R. Biden Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary 489 Senate Russell Office Building Washington, D. C. 20510 Dear Senator Biden: On behalf of the Board of Directors of the New York State Defenders Association, I write to oppose the nomination of the Honorable Robert H. Bork to the United States Supreme Court. Our Association believes that the principles of equal access to the justice system embodied in the United States Constitution and the rights of our clients compel this position. Our Association represents the interests of more than 5000 public defense attorneys in the state of New York, 1300 of whom constitute members of our not-for-profit corporation. We administer the nation's only Public Defense Backup Center and monitor the development of constitutional and criminal law. Our opposition to Judge Bork's confirmation rests upon a comprehensive review of the record of Judge Bork's opinions and writings which indicate minimal appreciation for and deference to the principles upon which the survival of the rights of our clients depends. In Judge Bork's view, the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause is limited to but two legitimate meanings: procedural equality and the interdiction of governmental discrimination along racial lines. The rights of the accused, indeed the right to counsel for which our Association functions, cannot be pursued by narrowly tailored idiosyncratic visions of the constitutional dimensions of these important questions. While we do not dispute the quality of Judge Bork's professional experience nor the capacity of his intellect, we are concerned that if he sits on the United States Supreme Court, that institution will find it ever more difficult to oppose fundamental injustice. This is a time for the United States Supreme Court to rediscover the message of our founding fathers, not to obscure it. Judge Bork threatens the inalienable rights protected by the constitutional tradition we revere. We urge the Committee to reject his appointment to the United States Supreme Court. Very truly yours, Wilfred R. O'Connor Wilfred R. O'Connor WROC/bb ROBERT L NOLAN, M.D. 3365 SPRINGHILL ROAD P. O. BOX 1137 LAFAYETTE, CAL 94549-1137 September 21, 1987 Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Chairman Judiciary Committee U. S. Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Re: Judge Bork and Griswold v. Conn. Dear Chairman Biden: While I was a medical student at Yale (MD'53) there was no clinical training included for either medical students or resident physicians in the prescribing of contraceptives. The Connecticut statute that was found unconstitutional in the 1965 Griswold decision was responsible for this omission, since it was then unlawful to prescribe contraceptives for women who came to the New Haven Hospital clinics where this training was provided. This meant that there were many situations in which women for whom pregnancy itself constituted a serious health risk, could not be given the benefits of known medical contraceptive technology in New Haven. Those who could afford to do so would have to go to New York for this purpose. Judge Bork's comments at the hearing did not take into account such effects of that law. I was troubled by his continued cnticism of the Griswold decision; and could not find in his hearing statements any actual assurance that he would apply the doctrine of stare decisis to this and some other cases that he has severely criticized, even campaigned against. While Judge Bork's scholarly ability and command of case law deserves respect, his application of narrow construction and original intent theories are at odds with the genius of the Constitution and the changing needs of our society. I urge the Senate to advise the President to select another nominee for the Supreme Court whose erudition and understanding are more likely to be used to preserve and advance human rights as new situations arise in the future. Sincerely, Roberth Nolan Robert L. Nolan, M.D., J.D. (Prepared testimony of THE PATRIOTIC MAJORITY THE CASE OF BORK VERSUS THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Two hundred years ago, during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention, Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Surgeon General of the Continental Army, founder and first president of the American Society for the Abolition of Slavery declared: "There is nothing more common than to confound the terms of the American Revolution with those of the late American War of Independence. The American War of Independence is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the great drama is closed." vent Rush was voicing the concerns of that grouping of the most ferdemocrats and patriots that included besides himself, Jefferson, Paine, Sam Adams, and Franklin. They saw the American Revolution as an ongoing, never-ending process of struggle for greater democratic rights for more and more people. Rush and Paine in 1776 had collaborated Jefferson on an early draft of the Declaration which would have with was adopted, they were con abolished slavery. When the Constitution cerned that it failed to reflect adequately the democratic and libertarian spirit of the Declaration; they were especially disturbed by the acceptance of the slave system in the Constitution. Theirs was a grand vision of the Revolution as a Living Spirit; a Spirit embodied in and forever moving and inspiring successive genera tions of patriots in struggle for ever-expanding democracy that would make greater liberty and justice accessible to more and more people of America. It has been that vision of America and its Revolution that has been the source of hope and inspiration for the oppressed and exploited of the world for more than two centuries. The Bork nomination should pit neither Republican against Democrat, nor liberal against conservative, nor right against left. All of us are Americans, whether by birth or by choice, and therefore presumed to be equally bound and committed to that historic political compact embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with its Bill of Rights. and The American people have every reason to be alarmed at the prospect of Judge Bork's accession to the Supreme Court. His alleged "balanced" view of the Constitution is nothing more than the anti-democratic immoral notion that for every right granted to a group or class of Americans, another right is denied some other group or class. Thus, the right of black Americans to access restaurants and hotels denies proprietors of the "right" (!) to discriminate against them; the right of pregnant women to safe and healthful work environment denies the "right" to dangerous conditions in the workplace. employers Senate The legal history of Robert Bork already revealed to the Judiciary is loaded with examples of this kind of Bork "logic". But despite every effort to "change his spots", it is clear that the real |