Supporting well-being

• Author: Murray Schneier
• Pages: 9-9

AP Photo / Jose Luis Magana

Marion County Election Board (2008).

Arguing for greater voter access is ne,

but demonizing opponents and using

“disinformation, social media myths

and distortions” is not an argument; it

is merely false propaganda.

But the author goes way out of

bounds in attacking U.S. Supreme

Court decisions and alleging that the

court is “unwilling to defend voter

rights.” The job of the Supreme Court

is not to defend voter rights (or tenant

rights or property rights); the job of the

court is to interpret and apply the law

and the Constitution to the cases before

it. Lawyers may not like every decision,

but accusing the court of misconduct

is a serious attack on the rule of law,

which the ABA—and every lawyer—is

obligated to support.

John P. McDonnell

Los Altos, California

Thoughts on resentencing

“Revising Sentences” (October-No-

vember, page 50), by Amanda Robert,

references a law recently passed by the

Council of the District of Columbia en-

abling individuals who commit crimes

before the age of 25 to request resen-

tencing after 15 years of imprisonment.

There is no carve-out in the law for

rape and murder. In 2015, my neighbor

was raped by a serial rapist. The indi-

vidual was arrested, convicted and sen-

tenced to 60 years. Under the D.C. law,

he’s eligible for early release after 15. As

a locally elected ofcial, I opposed the

D.C. Council’s actions, as the law sends

the signal that rapists need only serve

15 years versus their full sentences, an

injustice to all rape victims.

K. Denise Rucker Krepp

Washington, D.C.

Supporting well-being

I am writing in response to a letter

denigrating the content of the “On

Well-Being” column. I value the month-

ly articles on physical and mental health

and balancing one’s life. There are often

many competing obligations to clients

and family that have to be judiciously

juggled, and it is important to remind

oneself that you do not have to sacri-

ce your overall happiness in order to

be successful. A healthy outlook and

balanced life creates a well-rounded

lawyer better able to serve his or her

client base. Advances in digital technol-

ogy have allowed for a more efcient

delivery of services and additional

leisure time to spend with family and

on oneself. Total commitment to your

clients and time spent outside of the

ofce are not mutually exclusive but

rather advantageous to being in the

moment for each part of one’s life.

Lawyers have the same basic needs

as everyone else working in different

disciplines, and it is refreshing to be

transparent about that.

Murray Schneier

Teaneck, New Jersey

History repeating

In Allen Pusey’s “Supreme Court Up-

holds DEA’s Kidnapping of Mexican

Doctor,” June-July, page 72, readers

are reminded of the line of U.S. Su-

preme Court decisions sanctioning the

kidnapping of indicted defendants by

federal or state agents and transporting

them to the jurisdiction where they are

to stand trial. Such abductions were

upheld in cases such as Ker v. Illinois

(1886), Frisbie v. Collins (1952) and

U.S. v. Álvarez-Machaín (2001), which,

as the article notes, has also been cited

to uphold the extraordinary rendition

of aliens accused of committing acts of

terrorism.

During the same month the Journal

published Pusey’s reminder, on June 17,

2021, the court released its opinion in

Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe I. The Nestlé

court held 8-1 that the plaintiffs, who

as children had been enslaved on an

Ivory Coast cocoa plantation, had no

cause of action under the Alien Tort

Claims Act in the U.S. courts against

chocolate makers Nestlé and Cargill,

despite allegations those companies

knew about and aided and abetted the

plaintiffs’ enslavement.

These cases support the conclusion

that the worldview of the court allows

the United States and its agents limit-

less reign over individual liberty while

offering no relief to any person injured

outside U.S. borders by a U.S.-based

corporation.

Steven P. Gregory

Birmingham, Alabama

Letters to the Editor

You may submit a letter by email

to abajournal@americanbar.org or

via mail: Attn: Letters, ABA Journal,

321 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60654.

Letters must concern articles pub-

lished in the Journal. They may be

edited for clarity or space. Be sure

to include your name, city and state,

and email address.

Mexican physician Humberto Álvarez Machaín, who was legally abducted by the

U.S. government in 1990 to face murder charges, was later acquitted.

ABA JOURNAL | FEBRUARY–MARCH 2022

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