686
Stevens, J., dissenting
Court's admittedly "shocking" disdain for customary and conventional international law principles, see ante, at 669, is thus entirely unsupported by case law and commentary.
IV
As the Court observes at the outset of its opinion, there is reason to believe that respondent participated in an especially brutal murder of an American law enforcement agent. That fact, if true, may explain the Executive's intense interest in punishing respondent in our courts.32 Such an explanation, however, provides no justification for disregarding the Rule of Law that this Court has a duty to uphold.33
That the Executive may wish to reinterpret 34 the Treaty to
32 See, e. g., Storm Arises Over Camarena; U. S. Wants Harder Line Adopted, Latin Am. Weekly Rep., Mar. 8, 1985, p. 10; U. S. Presses Mexico To Find Agent, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 20, 1985, p. 10.
33 As Justice Brandeis so wisely urged: "In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means—to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal—would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face." Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 485 (1928) (dissenting opinion).
34 Certainly, the Executive's view has changed over time. At one point, the Office of Legal Counsel advised the administration that such seizures were contrary to international law because they compromised the territorial integrity of the other nation and were only to be undertaken with the consent of that nation. 4B Op. Off. Legal Counsel 549, 556 (1980). More recently, that opinion was revised, and the new opinion concluded that the President did have the authority to override customary international law. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 101st Cong., 1st Sess., 4-5 (1989) (statement of William P. Barr, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U. S. Department of Justice).
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