Review of Periodicals

Hamlet and the Courts

Hamlet has always been popular among legal types, mostly for Hamlet’s deceptive use of the insanity defense after he kills Polonius (see last scene of play). Now, Walt Hunter, an academic and sometime contributor to Atlantic, has written a short article commenting on how Judge Michael Baylson of a federal district court in Pennsylvania quoted the play in defense of his anti-Trump ruling in early 2018. “No place indeed should murder sanctuarize,” wrote Baylson, in his defense of cities’ rights to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants, thus thwarting Trump’s attempts to ship out all of them except Norwegians. If these sound like strange lines to quote in defense of immigrants, it’s because they are. Claudius says them in agreement with Laertes’ vow that he would cut Hamlet’s throat even in the holy precincts of a church as punishment for slaying Laertes’ father, Polonius. Apparently Judge Baylson’s opinion – which Baylson never actually describes – attempted to change the meaning of the quotation by implying that Trump was a callous Claudius consigning immigrants to life-threatening situations by denying them sanctuary. They are like poor Hamlet, threatened by Claudius. But Baylson should have chosen a better quotation, because Hamlet is a killer, and the quotation – which acknowledges this, while reminding us that the speaker, Claudius, is one, too — seems to support Trump’s claims that immigrants are mostly bad hombres bent on violence.  This could only give Trump more ammo.  Aware of the difficulty, Walt Hunter, like…