Readers Write: Selfish drivers, the rule of law

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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Welcome to spring!

Like clockwork, the first sunny weekend brings out the motorized monsters who have been hiding all winter. City police, State Patrol and park police have all had several months of relative quiet to prepare for the migratory return of drivers who turn our city streets and parkways into a Mad Max-like surge of aggression and a contest of who can be the biggest, the fastest and the loudest in the public right of way.

This past Sunday, I saw: two cars drag-racing in a 20 mph zone around Bde Maka Ska; motorcycles with exhaust pipes modified to maximize noise plus earsplitting music somehow louder than the bike; a line of 12 souped-up, fancy cars and SUVs not even slowing for a stop sign as they paraded past a family with small children waiting at the crosswalk just inches from being squashed; motorcycles passing speed-abiding cars on the parkway; a car “drifting” with smoking tires squealing around the lake; cars honking at pedestrians taking too long in the crosswalk; and car exhaust systems modified to painfully “crackle” or “pop” our eardrums as they cruise through our neighborhood.

When did stop signs become optional? When did 20 mph mean “go as fast as you can until you have to lock up your brakes”? Why have we allowed motorists to disregard the safety of others? We have rules on the books: speed limits, crosswalk laws, stop signs, local noise ordinances, federal EPA noise violations — this is not a lack of regulation.

I see our police vehicles on the streets; I wonder how frequently they ticket for noise or aggressive driving violations?

What are our options?

It is time to speak up. Our streets are a shared and valued resource. We must protect safety and calm for all, especially those vulnerable enough to be on foot, in a stroller or on a leash. Let us demand our streets back and let the hooligans save their testosterone-fueled rage for dystopian science fiction.

Kurt Waltenbaugh, Minneapolis

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A riding mower has a throttle, a power wheelchair has one ... nearly everything has a throttle. Too bad the Star Tribune and the police couldn’t delineate a better description of offending vehicles on Minnesota trails than “no throttles allowed” (“‘Illegal’ e-bikes hit hostility on trails: Models with throttles called a safety issue by off-road cyclists,” May 4). It’s really not the vehicle but the driver’s behavior. Perhaps a speed limit on sidewalks and a determination of right of way would help.

Your coverage and reporting on this is commendable and imperative as the problems with e-bikes, scooters, pedestrians and autos becomes more common.

John Crivits, St. Paul

Like many lawyers and non-lawyers alike, I have been following the fate of recent, widely reported presidential executive orders targeting major law firms. On May 3, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell (District of Columbia) nullified all components of Executive Order 14230 directed at Perkins Coie LLP, a large international law firm. As she wrote, the order was “an unprecedented attack on ... foundational principles,” especially the Fifth Amendment right to counsel. Her ruling is a big win for the rule of law.

Howell recites the evolution of the right to counsel, showing that our democracy depends on the “independence” of lawyers. She draws on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black: “Absent their crucial independence, lawyers would ‘become nothing more than parrots of the views of whatever group wields governmental power at the moment.’”

The executive order at its core sought to eliminate lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law, thereby facilitating the unlawful aggregation of presidential power. The “clear message” to the legal profession, in Howell’s words: “lawyers must stick to the party line, or else.” Howell was having none of it.

As President Donald Trump has touted, several well-known New York- and D.C.-based law firms caved to the president, agreeing to provide legal services totaling a whopping $1 billion on causes favored by the president. Howell made note of the practical downside of the deals struck by these firms: “Yet, some clients may harbor reservations about the implications of such deals for the vigorous and zealous representation to which they are entitled from ethically responsible counsel ... .”

There are two similar cases brought by targeted law firms that remain pending before different judges of federal district court in Washington, D.C. Their outcomes will no doubt be the same. Trump grossly overstepped. The public should have confidence that the legal profession can and will constrain abusive assertions of presidential authority.

Alan Galbraith, Bloomington

The writer is a retired partner of Williams & Connolly LLP; the firm is counsel of record to Perkins Coie in the case before Judge Beryl Howell.

I seek clarification. What happens to those we send to our rented prison in El Salvador? Apparently we can’t retrieve them. Nor is it likely that they will face trial for crime(s) committed in El Salvador. Is the only end for them death in our rental prison? I am not trained in the law, but I can read. It is clear to me that the provisions of our Constitution — specifically the preamble and Amendments IV, V, VI, VII and VIII — have not been afforded to those in our rented prison.

Be aware also that Article VI says: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution ... . ”

Next I look at our Pledge of Allegiance: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” I am not trained in theology either, but God saw — as did we all — how his shackled creatures were shaved, then bent over, while being paraded between two uniformed officers to their next site for confinement. I can’t believe God was pleased; I know I wasn’t!

Perhaps thought should be given to removing from our pledge the words “under God” and “with liberty and justice for all.” Those words seem to be meaningless. Maybe the solution for me is to simply not recite the pledge because, as one of our great leaders, George Washington, reportedly said, “I cannot tell a lie.”

Paul Moen, Roseville

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A recent story on deportation hearings showed that at least some deportees are getting some semblance of due process in Minnesota (“ICE has detained hundreds in state,” April 30). But nationally, people are being deported (apparently irreversibly) to a gulag in El Salvador, in defiance of court orders. Do we need state or local police monitoring ICE in sufficient force to prevent that from happening here? That would include checking credentials, because if people wearing ICE uniforms can grab anyone they want, kidnappers will start wearing ICE uniforms. If we don’t control ICE, expect a slippery slope.

Robert Denison, St. Paul