ALBANY — The newest 243 attorneys in New York State were reminded yesterday that the Constitution, while elastic, should never be stretched to the breaking point. Justice John A. Lahtinen of the Appellate Division, Third Department, said it is particularly difficult to guard constitutional ideals in the wake of an atrocity like the Sept. 11 attacks, and urged the newly admitted lawyers to shoulder that responsibility.
“Some people will try, perhaps even with good intentions, to stretch that great document beyond recognition,” Justice Lahtinen said at an Albany swearing-in ceremony. “Some will pull it to the right, others will pull it to the left . . . It now falls upon you as part of the oath you took today to help ensure for yourselves, your posterity and the common good that in these troubled times, that great document . . . is stretched neither so far to the right or the left that it loses all semblance of recognizability.”
