The future of the Supreme Court could hang in the balance this presidential election, constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe told voters yesterday while campaigning for Democratic candidate Barack Obama in Concord.

"The next president won't be in a position to make this a liberal court, but he can prevent it from becoming reactionary and moving to unreviewable executive power," Tribe told about a dozen voters at a campaign-sponsored event at Gibson's Bookstore.

Tribe, a mentor to Obama at Harvard Law School, spoke yesterday at Gibson's and at a Concord law firm. He also planned to hold events yesterday and today in Windham, Hanover, Manchester and Exeter.

Tribe said Americans' civil liberties are hanging by a thread. "But it's better to have a thread than to have the thread cut," he said. "A Republican president would be in a position to cut that thread."

Tribe said that in the court's last session, 24 out of 72 cases were decided by a 5-4 vote, with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote. He said demographically, the court was unlikely to become more liberal. The two oldest justices - John Paul Stevens, 87, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, 74 - are part of the court's liberal wing. In contrast, two of the more conservative justices, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, are in their 50s.

"The court will remain conservative for a long time," Tribe said. Issues that could be at stake over the next several years, he said, are reconsidering Roe v. Wade, maintaining habeas corpus for those in detention, and other human rights and civil liberty issues.

Tribe said that if Obama were to be elected, he would appoint justices "who share his view that the Constitution is a living document that has to be interpreted in light of evolving values of decency."

"They would not be justices who fool themselves into thinking they know what the Constitution's original meaning was, and they can apply it as if nothing has happened in the last 200 years," Tribe said. "They would be justices who have a serious record of support for human rights and constitutional values, rather than justices who simply have shown their loyalty to executive power."

Tribe leveled harsh criticism against the Bush administration for eroding civil liberties and damaging the country's image abroad. The country no longer stands for the principles of democracy, Tribe said, "when the attorney general can't figure out if drowning someone is torture" and when the president "signs laws with his fingers crossed," believing it is his prerogative to override them.

Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney have committed impeachable offenses, he said, and repeatedly have disregarded the Constitution. The president has used his authority to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to eavesdrop on any conversation with an international component, has denied access to court and lawyers to those detained in Guantanamo, frequently uses executive power to violate acts of Congress when they interfere with his prerogatives and has screened those who disagree with him out of public rallies, Tribe said.

Ironically, Tribe said, Bush also may have weakened the presidency. "There are people who now equate arguments for a strong executive branch with the disregard of checks and balances," Tribe said.

On a more personal note, Tribe called Obama the "best student I ever had" and the "most exciting research assistant." He recalled Obama's ability to turn an abstract theoretical paper into language lawyers typically use "so people don't think you're a pointy-headed conehead."

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By SHIRA SCHOENBERG

Monitor staff