To the editor:

I read Msgr. Garrity’s commentaries with great interest. For his column published in The Item on Feb. 7, I disagree with his major premise (which he will remember from his philosophy studies), which results in my disagreement with his conclusion.

The comparison of a questionable penalty call in a Super Bowl, no matter what the effect, is in no way consistent in describing a case or controversy coming to the Supreme Court as a case of first instance.

In the case before the court, its action or inaction is going to have impact and interpretation on both sides of the issue. Also, in our constitutional system the court is defined as the final arbiter of disputed cases and its constitutional duty is to resolve the issue.

Lower courts have made decisions for their individual states, more than enough to raise the issue of eligibility to hold office.

The appeals court has unanimously ruled that the former president has no immunity in these cases, stating that now-citizen Donald Trump has the same rights and responsibilities as every other citizen, no more no less.

In a country based on its Constitution, we cannot and should not make decisions except based on law and precedent. Voters should have the knowledge of the record of their potential leaders before they are asked to choose them.

This is not a system based on prudence, but on the law and the decision of the courts.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence “pledged their lives, their purses, and their honor” in that signing.

President Abraham Lincoln’s remarks in his Gettysburg Address (which should be noted in reference to the attack on the Capitol):

“…The world will little note… what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here… that they shall not have died in vain and that that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not have perished from this earth.”

The former president has given us evidence by his actions and previewed his intentions to disregard any laws and act for his own interests and rule as a supreme autocrat if reelected. We ignore that at our personal, and the nation’s, peril.

John Coleman Walsh, Esq. 

Lynn