Two Congressmen have intro­duced a non-bind­ing res­o­lu­tion, backed by the threat of impeach­ment, that would express the sense of Congress that U.S. judges should not con­sid­er for­eign laws or court deci­sions in their rul­ings. The mea­sure, authored by Republican Representatives Tom Feeney of Florida and Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, was trig­gered by recent court deci­sions, includ­ing death penal­ty cas­es, in which jus­tices made ref­er­ence to laws or opin­ions in oth­er coun­tries. Feeney raised the prospect of impeach­ing jus­tices that don’t com­ply: ​“To the extent they delib­er­ate­ly ignore Congress’ admon­ish­ment, they are no longer engag­ing in ​‘good behav­ior’ in the mean­ing of the Constitution and they may sub­ject them­selves to the ulti­mate rem­e­dy, which would be impeach­ment.” Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has not­ed that the Declaration of Independence calls for giv­ing a ​“decent respect to the opin­ions of mankind.” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has also not­ed the impor­tance of con­sid­er­ing inter­na­tion­al law in weigh­ing deci­sions. She said that refer­ring to inter­na­tion­al prece­dent ​“may not only enrich our own country’s deci­sion, I think it may cre­ate that all-impor­tant good impres­sion.” With the regard to the death penal­ty, the Supreme Court recent­ly ref­er­enced inter­na­tion­al opin­ion in exam­in­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of exe­cut­ing those with men­tal retar­da­tion. (MSNBC News, March 11, 2004). See International Death Penalty. See Supreme Court.

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