Corrections

• Pages: 6-6

MASS INCARCERATION DEBATE

Whatever fl aws the United State s

system of crimi nal justice may have,

“mass incarcer ation” is not one of

them, as stated in “Ma rked for Life,”

May, page 40.

Mass incarcerat ion is the round-

ing up and jailing of groups of peo-

ple. That does not happen in the

United States. U.S. crim inal law

requires that for an indi vidual to

be deprived of life, libert y or prop-

erty, that person must be convic ted

in a court of law under due process

conditions. That is, the state must

prove in a public proceeding that the

individual has, b eyond a reasonable

doubt, committed al l of the elements

of a specifi c crime. Where multiple

people are involved in a single set

of operative facts, the defenda nts

may be tried separately in order t o

avoid confl icts of interest among the

defendants.

There is no denying that the U.S.

criminal s ystem runs on a case-by-

case basis. We even keep track of

the cases by using the na mes of the

defendants. Crimi nal trials with

multiple defendants are rare and

only occur with t he consent of the

defendants. Mass inca rceration is a

political propaganda ter m, a gross

misnomer that has no place in the

ABA Journal.

Valerie E. Looper

Vista, Califor nia

Editor’s note: On April 29, reade r

comments on A BAJournal.com wer e

disabled indefi nitely.

ENDING ONLINE COMMENTS

While I am saddened to see t he

ABA Journal close down the com-

ments feature of its online ar ticles, I

applaud you for doing it. I have been

appalled by the obvious presence of

troll-driven comments a nd troubled

about what this says about the via bil-

ity of public venues for input.

The tone of the comments has all

too frequently been just a s noted—

unacceptably ranc orous and uncivil.

Given what is happening with soci al

media, trolls, fa ke news and manipu-

lation of storylines, we may have to

face the di cu lt choice: that a ccom-

modating open speech wi ll require

the true and full identit y of the

speaker to be revea led. I believe we

would eliminate the vas t majority of

the problem if the true identities of

the commenters were to be known .

Robert Cheast y

Berkeley, California

‘IDEAL TEXTUALIST’

I enjoy Bryan Garner’s monthly

column and have writt en on textu-

alism, the subject of “It Means What

It Says,” April, page 28. Here’s the

salient line from that column: “S o

the ideal textua list is content-neu-

tral, at least in t heory.” Mark that: in

theory. Actual prac tice is far di er-

ent. In high-profi le cases, c ases that

broadly shape the law, cases wit h

political and ideologica l signifi cance,

self-proclaimed text ualists reach

conservative resu lts with uncanny

regularit y. A ll judges start with text

and make text ual arguments, of

course, but they almost a lways lead

textuali sts in the same direction.

You can recognize the tex tualist

brand in a number of ways: by stren-

uous parsing in an e ort to re solve

ambiguity, followed by the assertion

that it doesn’t exist; by overreliance

on highly malleable and oft en-con-

fl icting canons of constr uction; by a

boundless confi dence that the “plai n

language” of a statut e compels such-

and-such a result; by a general aver-

sion to legislative histor y and a

reluctance to consider values a nd

sensible policy, even in close cases;

and, above all, by a propensity t o

reach for dictionar ies—those great

grab bags—and pluck out convenient

d e fi n i t i o n s .

Textualism is just as squishy, just

as pliable, as any other theor y of

interpre tation.

Joseph Kimble

Lansing, Michigan

CORRECTIONS

“The Second Founding,” May,

page 11, should have said that some

items on display at the National

Constitution Center belong to the

Civil War Museum of Philadelphia

but were housed at the Getty sburg

Foundation before coming to the

Constitution Center.

“Another Shot,” May, page 34,

erroneously stated that a n increas-

ing percentage of Associ ation of

Corporate Counsel members a re

coming from law fi rms. The percent-

age is not increasing.

“Marked for Life,” May, page

40, should have credited the

National Inventory of Collatera l

Consequences of Conviction a s the

source for the number of collateral

consequences. The NICCC began

as a project of the ABA Cr iminal

Justice Section. The Collatera l

Consequences Resource Cent er is an

independent, nonprofi t organization.

The Jour nal regr ets the errors.

Letters

6 || ABA JOURNAL JULY-AUGUST 2019

Letters to the Editor You may s ubmit a letter by email to aba journal@

americanbar.org or vi a mail—Attn: Letter s, ABA Journal, 321 N . Clark St. Chica go, IL 60654.

Letters must concer n articles publis hed in the Journal. They may be edited for cl arity or space.

Be sure to include your nam e, city and state, an d email address.

PHOTO BY BETTMANN/CONTRIBUTOR

MARGARET SANGER,

‘THE PILL’ AND EUGENICS

Your article, “FDA Approves First

Birth Control Pill ,” May, page 72,

addresses an impor tant part of our

history. And you are corre ct that

Margaret Sanger fought for wom-

en’s right to control our reproduc-

tive health. But we can’t discus s her

activism w ithout honestly acknowl-

edging that it was motivat ed in part

by her belief in eugenics: the doc-

trine that reproduction should be

controlled to maxi mize supposedly

desirable charact eristics. The Nazis

cited that doctri ne to justify their

genocide. So, thank you for crediti ng

and celebrating the groundbreak ing

role that Sanger played in women’s

right to control our own bodie s. But

let’s condemn, not celebrate, the

eugenics doctrine th at she promoted .

Justice Sheryl G ordon McCloud

Olympia, Washington

Margaret Sanger