Construing the Constitution.

In "Dangers of 'Judicial Supremacy'" (March 2), Edwin Vieira, Jr. claims that judicial review--the power of the Supreme Court to strike down congressional and state laws it deems "unconstitutional"--is not only "legitimate," but also a practical necessity, as the court must often "construe" the Constitution in the course of deciding what the Constitution describes as "Cases" and "Controversies" that come before it. However, judicial review is neither stated nor implied in the Constitution, but was simply assumed by the falsely brilliant John Marshall in the specious Marbury v. Madison case (1803). The sole function of the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is to adjudicate on the basis of the laws in the case. The "construing" of the Constitution need not and should not enter into it at all. Indeed, judicial review has gradually led to the very judicial supremacy Vieira impugns in his article. This is the view of Thomas Higgins in his classic Judicial Review Unmasked, as reviewed by the late Medford Evans (American Opinion, November 1981).

TIM KELLER

Watertown, New York