Litigation

Jan. 21: ?A Bad Day for Democracy?

Posted on January 26, 2010
From the viewpoint of the La Crosse, Wisconsin Tribune, on both the home front and national front, Jan. 21 amounted to “A Bad Day for Democracy.” That’s how a Tribune editorial bemoaned the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s adoption of new recusal rules...

Citizens United: Media Round-Up

Posted on January 26, 2010
There continues to be a flood of opinion and analysis on Citizens United. Here are just a few examples: For rival analyses by experts, there is Jan Witold Baran’s “Stampede Toward Democracy” in the New York Times and Thomas E. Mann’s commentary published by McClatchy, “Citizens United vs...

Wall Street Journal: More States Weigh Recusal Rules

Posted on January 26, 2010
More states are looking at ways to avoid a perception of bias when judges hear cases involving campaign donors, but in some recent instances the states are shying away from rules requiring recusal over large donations. A Wall Street Journal article has provided this valuable snapshot of states nationwide wrestling with ethics concerns posed by big-money [...

Bopp: Goal is Dismantling Campaign Finance Law

Posted on January 26, 2010
Although he won “his biggest victory” when the Supreme Court issued Citizens United, Indiana-based lawyer James Bopp Jr. (photo at right) by no means considers his work finished. That’s according to an illuminating New York Times profile of Bopp, headlined, “A Quest to End Spending Rules for Campaigns...

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Tuesday Media Summary

Posted on January 26, 2010
PROP 8 CHALLENGE Wall Street Journal: Gay-Marriage Foes Make Their Case Stu Woo – 1/25/2010 San Francisco Chronicle: Gays have political power, Prop. 8 defense says Bob Egelko – 1/26/2010 RECUSAL Wall Street Journal: States Weigh Judicial Recusals NATHAN KOPPEL – 1/26/2010 GUANTANAMO BAY DETAINEES NY Times: Poetic Justice in a Trial Offshore CLYDE HABERMAN – 1/26/2010 FEDERAL NOMINATIONS Seattle Post Intelligencer/AP: Peterson confirmed for EWash fed [...

?Citizens United? Media Summary

Posted on January 26, 2010
JUSTICE AT STAKE JudgesOnMerit: Money Rollin' In, Credibility Rollin' Out: The Citizens United Decision and the PA Judiciary Susan – 1/25/2010 CITIZENS UNITED FindLaw: The Supreme Court Rejects a Limit on Corporate-Funded Campaign Speech Michael Dorf – 1/25/2010 Cato@Liberty: Citizen United's Concept of the U...

?Citizens United:? Justice Stevens ?Era Ending??

Posted on January 26, 2010
To examine the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, analysts have applied various lenses. One of the most intriguing of them views the decision, and Justice John Paul Stevens’ courtroom reading from his own dissent, as signals of another change at the high court...

Citizens United

Posted on January 25, 2010
JUSTICE AT STAKE NY Times: 24 States' Laws Open to Attack After Campaign Finance Ruling IAN URBINA – 1/22/2010 JudgesOnMerit: Historic U.S. Supreme Court Decision Will Let the Money Roll In to PA Judicial Elections Press Release – 1/21/2010 OhioImpact: Citizens United Called Grave Threat for America's Courts: 1/23/2010 CITIZENS UNITED LA Times: A partisan Supreme Court Tim Rutten – 1/23/2010 Huffington Post: A First Amendment Remedy [...

Monday Media Summary

Posted on January 25, 2010
JUSTICE AT STAKE Crain’s Cleveland Business: Proposal to end elections for high court gains steam Jay Miller – 1/25/2010 Illusory Tenant: Ask the Brennan Center 1/23/2010 GUANTANAMO BAY DETAINEES/COURTS New York Magazine/Daily Intel: 50 Prisoners to Remain at Guantánamo Chris Rovzar – 1/22/2010 BBC News: Indefinite Guantanamo detention plans condemned 1/23/2010 Washington Independent: Why Not Just Keep GTMO Open? Spencer Ackerman – 1/22/2010 Courthouse News Service: DOJ Appears [...

CU: NY Times, JAS Release Discuss Impact on Courts

Posted on January 23, 2010
The impact on state courts has come into sharper focus as a key result of this week’s Citizens United ruling. A very interesting story in today’s New York Times examines the effect of Citizens United on state laws regulating campaign spending by corporation treasuries...

Editorials Scathing on Citizens United

Posted on January 22, 2010
(Supreme Court photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.) Editorial boards from several leading national newspapers offered scathing critiques of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, alternately denouncing it as wrong-headed law, judicial activism, and an assault on a pillar of democracy...

Indefinite Detention Seen for Dozens at Gitmo

Posted on January 22, 2010
President Barack Obama’s administration, still reckoning with about 200 terror suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay prison it intends to close, has signaled its intention to continue holding nearly 50 of the detainees without trial. That is because a task force found the detainees too dangerous to free and too difficult to prosecute, according to an [...

WI Court Adopts Controversial Recusal Rules

Posted on January 22, 2010
The Wisconsin Supreme Court, for the second time in recent months, has adopted rules stating that campaign contributions or independent expenditures made in a prior judicial campaign will not require a judge’s stepping aside from a case involving a supporter...

Task Force Recommends Judge?s Impeachment

Posted on January 22, 2010
After holding investigative hearings, a House of Representatives task force has recommended impeachment of federal District Judge G. Thomas Porteous of Louisiana. The task force voted 8-0 to recommend his impeachment, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported...

President Resubmits Judicial Nominees

Posted on January 22, 2010
President Obama has renominated Louis Butler and Edward Chen, two  controversial candidates for federal district judgeships. Butler was one of seven Obama nominees for various offices who failed to gain Senate approval before the chamber adjourned in 2009...

Citizens United: What?s Next?

Posted on January 22, 2010
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s sweeping Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, leading congressional Democrats were preparing legislation to put new limits on corporate political spending.  But it was unclear whether any legislation would gain support quickly enough to affect the mid-term elections this fall...

Friday Media Summary

Posted on January 22, 2010
JUSTICE AT STAKE JAS: Testimony to Wisconsin Supreme Court 1/21/2010 PROP 8 CHALLENGE Huffington Post: Prop 8 on trial: Justice and equality in the age of the Internet Rick Jacobs – 1/21/2010 GUANTANAMO BAY DETAINEES/COURTS Washington Post: Justice task force recommends about 50 Guantanamo detainees be held indefinitely Peter Finn – 1/22/2010 NATIONAL SECURITY/COURTS Main Justice: Sessions: Who Decided Alleged Bomber Is A [...

?Citizens United:? Commentators? Views

Posted on January 21, 2010
The Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is likely to have major repercussions for judicial elections in the states. The ruling opens the door to corporate and union spending money  in judicial elections, a prominent election law expert writes while quoting Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent, and it raises the “inherent risk of corruption” [...

Report: Removal of Texas Judge Not Needed

Posted on January 21, 2010
Texas Judge Sharon Keller, charged with judicial misconduct arising from her handling of a last-minute death row appeal, should not lose her job,  a special master who presided over her ethics trial has recommended. Judge Keller, who presides over the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, deserves no punishment “beyond the public humiliation she has surely suffered,” [...

JAS, Brennan: WI Recusal Plan at Odds With Caperton

Posted on January 21, 2010
Justice at Stake and the Brennan Center for Justice today submitted written testimony to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The groups said proposed changes to the state’s recusal rules “are in clear conflict with the holding  of the United States Supreme Court in Caperton v...

?Citizens United:? Advocates React

Posted on January 21, 2010
Campaign finance reformers condemned the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision Thursday in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission as mistaken, far-reaching and potentially undermining American democracy, while their political foes hailed what they portrayed as the court’s protection of First Amendment rights...

Thursday Media Summary

Posted on January 21, 2010
PROP 8 CHALLENGE LA Times: Prop. 8 challengers highlight religion’s role in campaign Maura Dolan – 1/21/2010 GUANTANAMO BAY DETAINEES/COURTS Huffington Post: Former Justice Department Attorney John Yoo Opposes Terror Trials in NYC Heather Robinson – 1/20/2010 NATIONAL SECURITY/COURTS Washington Examiner: Legal activism aids terrorists Daniel J...

?Citizens United:? Media Reports

Posted on January 21, 2010
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, overturned precedents and ruled Thursday that corporations may spend from their treasuries to support or oppose federal candidates. The decision dealt a partial defeat for election reformers. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Citizens United v...

?Citizens United:? Justice at Stake Statement

Posted on January 21, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a long-awaited decision Thursday in an important campaign finance regulation case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. According to the Associated Press, the court ruled that “corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns...

Recusal Editorial: WI ?Voters are not Fools?

Posted on January 20, 2010
The Wisconsin Supreme Court may finalize rules Thursday governing whether justices must step aside from hearing cases involving campaign supporters, and a state newspaper is urging the court to “come to its senses” when it acts. The Wisconsin court voted in October to adopt new rules declaring that campaign donations to justices will not require them [...

Special Senate Election to Influence Judicial Picks?

Posted on January 20, 2010
The election Tuesday of Republican Scott Brown (photo) to succeed the late Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts could influence not only President Obama’s push for a health care overhaul, but also the political dynamics of picking judges–including a new Supreme Court justice, if Justice John Paul Stevens retires...

?I am Not Biased,? Justice Gableman Says

Posted on January 20, 2010
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, target of accusations that he is biased against criminal defendants, says that his views have been misrepresented, and he is committed to impartiality. Justice Gableman has  been asked to step aside in nine criminal cases because of statements he made about crime issues during his 2008 campaign...

Times Spotlights Cover-Up at Immigration Prisons

Posted on January 20, 2010
It is no secret that America’s immigration court system is close to broken. Now the New York Times has spotlighted  disclosures about secretive government-run immigration prisons and has brought alarming stories to light. Detainees often have disappeared from these prisons, their severe diseases gone  untreated and their fates remained a mystery until after their premature deaths, the [...

Indiana May Get First Black U.S. Judge

Posted on January 20, 2010
President Obama plans to nominate Judge Tanya Walton Pratt (photo at right) to a federal district court seat in Indiana, and she would become the state’s first African-American federal judge if confirmed, the Indianapolis Star reported. The newspaper based its report on an announcement by Sen...

Citizens United Ruling Soon?

Posted on January 20, 2010
The Supreme Court has announced a rare Thursday session for Jan. 21, and the expected issuance of one or more opinions. This action has led court-watchers to speculate that the high court may finally hand down a decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, an important campaign finance regulation case...

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