Letters: Supreme Courtroom should get rid of look of being purchased

Supreme Courtroom can’tappear to be purchased

Re: “Roberts condemns threats to judicial independence” (Web page A4, Jan. 2).

In his 2024 year-end report, Chief Justice Roberts laid out 4 areas of “illegitimate activity” which he says threaten judicial independence: violence, intimidation, disinformation and threats to defy lawfully entered judgments. He’s lacking an important: judicial presents. Nothing does extra to erode judicial independence than when a decide accepts presents from rich benefactors.

It isn’t only a query of judges recusing themselves from instances involving their benefactors. The wealthy use their wealth to reward influential individuals who additional their imaginative and prescient for this nation. A decide accepting these presents is aware of this.

The judiciary’s reward guidelines have allowed the excesses of some Supreme Courtroom judges to go unaddressed. If Chief Justice Roberts is severe about judicial independence, he ought to revise the principles to stem the rich’s affect over the judiciary. He and his friends should then rigorously implement the principles upon themselves.

Colin DixonSunnyvale

Excessive court docket’s ethicsare already in disarray

Re: “Roberts condemns threats to judicial independence” (Web page A4, Jan. 2).

Although I acknowledge threats to judicial independence by others to be unacceptable, I cost the Supreme Courtroom itself to be complicit in exhibiting unethical habits.

Justice Thomas is thought to simply accept elaborate journeys and presents, which can affect his selections on severe issues due to who he’s beholden to. Any presents, when accepted, create a menace of bias within the sincere judgment of issues earlier than the court docket, thereby affecting all of us. Deny all presents to keep away from favoritism.

And the Supreme Courtroom’s choice to declare the president of the US to be above the regulation goes towards the core beliefs of our forefathers. Nowhere is anybody declared to be above the regulation in our authorities. How can the Supreme Courtroom announce the president to be a supreme being answering to nobody?

Susan DillonMorgan Hill

Congress ignoreslaw on Jan. 6 plaque

Re: “Reminders of Jan. 6 attack fade in Capitol” (Web page A4, Jan. 5).

Will historical past be rewritten, because it appears many Republicans need, to say that there was a peaceable protest on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021? I’m wondering if Donald Trump is so highly effective even earlier than he’s inaugurated that he’s capable of dictate one thing as minor as whether or not a plaque honoring the officers who responded to the violence will probably be positioned.

It’s been nearly three years because the regulation was handed. What’s inflicting the holdup and what will be completed to verify the regulation is adopted and the plaque is correctly positioned?

Marcia HulbergCampbell

Article misses wholestory on left turns

Re: “Can I pull into an intersection while waiting to turn left?” (Web page B1, Jan. 3).

I discovered that regulation in 1979 in driver’s training. What the article utterly missed is that CVC21801A states, “The driver of a vehicle intending to turn to the left or to complete a U-turn upon a highway, or to turn left into public or private property, or an alley, shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles approaching from the opposite direction … and shall continue to yield the right-of-way to the approaching vehicles until the left turn or U-turn can be made with reasonable safety.”

That features these of us turning proper. I can’t depend what number of instances there have been drivers who’re so impatient and should flip proper in entrance of me. I honk the horn and so they give the deer within the headlights look.

Those that are making a left flip with out a devoted left flip site visitors gentle will probably be discovered at fault for a failure to yield.

Michael McWaltersAlviso

Holidays fail to honoroccasion and King

I’m writing to precise my displeasure with one vacation and our response to a different. The primary day of the Gregorian yr is a federal vacation. Why? Ought to it not be a day for giving our greatest, or “first fruits” (as Kwanzaa actually means) at the start of one other astronomical cycle?

Martin Luther King’s Day is one other federal vacation. Once more why? Wouldn’t he be higher happy with companies remaining open, maybe somewhat longer, to advance his mission of racial justice? I typically imagine creating a vacation for a nationwide hero creates an reverse impact: We dishonor them by doing what we wish as an alternative of doing what they need.

David WestSan Jose