Contempt of Court & Respect for Law

THESE ARE REBELLIOUS DAYS, the kind of days in which we tend to become polarized about law. Some stridently emphasize the need for respect; others stridently express their contempt. This contempt has come in our society from both the Right and the Left. Many of those who argue for “law and order” are in fact showing contempt for law, and many who now express contempt are in fact striving for a law that they can respect, a law that seems more just to them, institutionalized in courts that appear less biased.

The civil rights movement, headed by such men as Martin Luther King and James Farmer, worked at times in defiance of the law and its enforcing authorities, not because of contempt for law itself but rather because of a belief in higher laws, in this case the Constitution and to some extent a conception of natural law. On the whole, the movement was legitimated by the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Those who violated laws were prepared to go to jail, in or...