ACTIVIST JUDGES

Do judges legislate instead of judge?

That is a deep and pondering question of today and I don't know why it should be. Look at the records of any court today and you will learn that judges are legislating their opinions into law.

The latest obscene account was in Washington state where the state supreme court ruled that Carmen Dixon, a 47 year old mother of a problem teenage girl, violated her minor daughter's Constitutional rights by eavesdropping on one of her telephone conversations.

Mrs. Dixon, of Port Friday WA, answered her phone one day and it was her daughter's boyfriend. The daughter took the cordless phone upstairs to talk to him and Mrs Dixon activated the speaker phone button on the base so she could listen.

The young punk confessed to the daughter that he had just been part of a mugging and purse snatching from an elderly woman and realized the police were after him.

Mrs. Dixon turned him in and he was tried and convicted.

The conviction was upheld on the appeals level but then reversed by the state supreme court.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer bannered the story on the front page:
SEATTLE -- In a victory for rebellious teenagers, the state Supreme Court has ruled that a mother violated Washington's privacy act by eavesdropping on her daughter's phone conversation.

When I was growing up my right to privacy hinged exclusively on the whim of my parents.

As far as privacy on the phone -- well we had one telephone in the entire house, it was located in the living room and for a good part of my growing up years it was on what was called a party line -- a telephone line shared by up to three other families.

Today's Washington state supreme court would have had a field day into the invasion of my right to privacy.