Court Opinion

ID: 9939021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 19:04:52.562529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:42.352618
License: Public Domain

Not everything is a legal question to be decided by a judge. "Sometimes . . . the law is that the judicial department has no *Page 254 
business entertaining the claim of unlawfulness — because the question is entrusted to one of the political branches or involves no judicially enforceable rights."Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267, 277, 124 S.Ct. 1769,158 L.Ed.2d 546 (2004). In this free society there is a great deal of conduct of which I may disapprove; but, that others may be free, we may not ban that conduct by judicial fiat. Matters of ethics, decency, and faith we judge only in our capacities as citizens.3
"`[I]n a democratic society legislatures, not courts, are constituted to respond to the will and consequently the moral values of the people.'" Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153,175-76, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.) (quoting Furman v.Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 383, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346
(1972) (Burger, C.J., dissenting)). In this Constitutional government — designed to protect me from the oppression of others — if I wish to ban conduct of which I disapprove, then I must convince other citizens to vote with me to change the law, or the Constitution.4 Otherwise, I must by advocacy and example seek to change the moral tone of society.
3 "[T]he judicial [department] shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men." §§ 43, Ala. Const. 1901.
4 See Ala. Const. 1901, art. I, §§ 1-36, Declaration of Rights.
NABERS, C.J., and STUART, J., concur.