Litigation

Patriot Act Extension Rejected in House

Posted on February 09, 2011
The House of Representatives narrowly defeated Tuesday a measure to temporarily extend  key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the nation?s main counterterrorism law. The setback for House Republican leaders came after some tea party linked Republicans voted against the measure, and it fell seven votes shy of a two-thirds supermajority required under a procedure [...

?Endangered Species List? Urged for Some Judges

Posted on February 08, 2011
In remarks that some commentators interpreted as virtually a verbal attack, a Montana congressman said federal judges should be put “on the endangered species list.” Rep. Denny Rehberg (photo at left), a Republican, made his remarks before the state legislature...

Without Public Money, WI Court Candidate Lags

Posted on February 08, 2011
The one candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court who is not taking newly available public financing is trailing far behind her three rivals in campaign receipts. The campaign of attorney Marla Stephens has raised less than $38,000, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, compared to the $100,000 apiece received by incumbent Justice David Prosser, [...

U.S. Judicial Vacancies Now at ?Crisis Point?

Posted on February 08, 2011
With federal judges retiring at a rate of one per week now, the rising number of vacancies on the U.S. bench has reached a crisis point, a front-page Washington Post article declares today. It also reports on new confirmation action in the Senate. The growing judicial backlog has prompted others, including U...

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Extension of Patriot Act Provisions Sought

Posted on February 07, 2011
The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on whether to extend  key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the nation?s main counterterrorism law. The bill would renew the government?s authority to spy on a ?lone wolf,? a non-U.S. citizen suspected of terrorism who may not belong to a known terrorist group; and it would [...

Health Care and Perceptions of the High Court

Posted on February 07, 2011
A Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the new health care reform may be more than a year off — if the court tackles the issue. Even so, a two-two split by lower courts on the issue — and the division of judges’ rulings along political lines of the president who appointed the jurists [...

Editorial Deplores ?Big-Bucks? AL Court Races

Posted on February 07, 2011
Alabama’s  No. 1 ranking for spending on state Supreme Court races has upset one state newspaper, which calls the continuing distinction “troubling.” A Montgomery Advertiser editorial decries the $4.3 million spent by candidates for three seats on the high court last year, and it points out that according to the Justice at Stake Campaign, the [...

WI Supreme Court Contest Low-Profile So Far

Posted on February 07, 2011
An election contest for a vacancy on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has had a low profile so far. But it’s getting more attention as a primary approaches for a four-candidate field Feb. 15. “It’s been one of the more invisible races,” when compared with recent state high court elections, Joe Heim, a professor of political [...

NY Times: High Court Must Revise Recusal ?Nonpolicy?

Posted on February 05, 2011
Some recent news reports have questioned whether actions of some Supreme Court justices pose a threat to public confidence in impartial courts. Now an editorial in the New York Times, entitled “Politics and the Court,” has weighed in: “When it comes to pushing the line between law and politics, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas [...

Ex-IA Justice: We Did Nothing Wrong

Posted on February 04, 2011
One of three Iowa Supreme Court justices dumped by voters in November says he believes the political campaign to oust them over a marriage ruling distorted the state courts’ appeals process. ?We didn?t take the law into our own hands,? former Justice Michael Streit said, according to an Eastern Iowa News report entitled, “Retention election [...

AL Judge Pulls Gun in Courtroom Fray

Posted on February 04, 2011
A Municipal Court judge in Alabama pulled a gun when a defendant tried to hit the judge with a crutch in the courtroom. Then the defendant tried to get the judge’s gun and was shot by a police officer, a state trooper told the Birmingham News. “When he tried to attack the judge, the judge [...

Prosecutors Ask Removal of Defeated WA Justice

Posted on February 04, 2011
He was defeated at the polls, but former Justice Richard Sanders is still ruling on cases before the Washington Supreme Court, thanks to a two-month temporary appointment from the remaining justices to help wrap up pending cases. That’s not sitting so well with prosecutors from five counties...

Cash in the Courtroom: Hugh Caperton?s Personal View

Posted on February 04, 2011
One of the greatest challenges in discussing fair, impartial courts is putting a human face to the issue. Protecting the courts is clearly important, but who really is affected when the scales of justice are tilted by special interest money? Last week, Hugh Caperton (photo) presented one of the most eloquent answers I have ever [...

IA Judicial Candidate Gave to Governor?s Campaign

Posted on February 03, 2011
A candidate for the Iowa Supreme Court donated $7,500 months ago to the political candidate who soon, as governor,  will make three appointments to the bench. The judicial candidate said he never knew, when he made the donations, that there would be any vacancies...

Senate Panel Advances Batch of Judicial Nominees

Posted on February 03, 2011
A batch of 11 judicial nominees is heading from the Senate Judiciary Committee to the full Senate as a result of action today. Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said about the nominees, according to a Blog of Legal Times article: “These are not new nominees...

VA to Seek Supreme Ruling on Health Care Law

Posted on February 03, 2011
Virginia said Thursday it will ask the Supreme Court to weigh the state’s legal challenge to the federal health care overhaul, bypassing a federal appeals court, for an expedited decision. “Currently, state governments and private businesses are being forced to expend enormous amounts of resources to prepare to implement a law that, in the end, [...

Analyst: ?Public Financing Isn?t Dead, Yet?

Posted on February 02, 2011
Eliza Newlin Carney has written a provocative National Journal column entitled, “Who Killed Public Financing? Lack of support from taxpayers and presidential candidates made the Watergate reform an easy target.” The long sub-headline pretty much explains her thesis, expounded in the week the House of Representatives voted to defund the presidential public-financing system...

Weaver: ?Alice in Wonderland? on MI Top Court

Posted on February 02, 2011
What should people make of the  dissenting views of former Justice Elizabeth Weaver of the Michigan Supreme Court — who has secretly recorded her colleagues and exposed them, and pushed for reforms including public financing of state high court campaigns? Commentator Jack Lessenberry wrestles with that question about the sometimes-quirky Justice Weaver in a Detroit [...

Tea Leaves Tucked in Health Care Ruling?

Posted on February 02, 2011
Federal Judge Roger Vinson’s brief reference — tucked in his 78-page opinion declaring the federal health care overhaul unconstitutional — to the colonists’ revolt over a tea tax has triggered a tempest of questioning. “Tea Party Shadows Health Care Ruling,” declared a New York Times headline for an article about analyses of Judge Vinson’s ruling, [...

AL Still No. 1 for Spending on Court Races

Posted on February 01, 2011
When nine candidates vied for three Alabama Supreme Court seats in 2010, they spent about $4.3 million, and Alabama retained its title as the most costly place to run for a state Supreme Court in the nation. A Birmingham News article gave that assessment...

Sotomayor is Candid in Chicago

Posted on February 01, 2011
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, addressing an audience at the University of Chicago Law School, talked about the role of public opinion in judicial decision making, her displeasure with celebrity status and a criticism of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. Her views were reported by a New York Times article about the event...

Tuesday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on February 01, 2011
In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts: White House Counsel Robert Bauer “pleaded” in an unusual public appearance Tuesday for U.S. senators to allow more votes on confirming judicial nominees, the Blog of Legal Times reported...

Diversity Breakthroughs Made on State High Courts

Posted on February 01, 2011
For the first time, several states are witnessing firsts in 2011 in terms of the diversity of their high courts, according to an article in Judicatories, the electronic newsletter of the American Judicature Society. Women are donning the robes of chief justice in three states –New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia — for the first time, [...

Campaign Ethics Case Still Splits WI Justices

Posted on February 01, 2011
Sharp divisions among Wisconsin Supreme Court justices were reflected again when the court met in a public session Monday to discuss travel expenditures, more general spending and the issuing of opinions. According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, “Two factions on the court found few areas where they agreed, but it became clear that simmering [...

U.S. to Appeal Latest Health Care Law Setback

Posted on February 01, 2011
The Obama administration’s Justice Department quickly announced it would appeal a federal judge’s ruling that declared the new health care overhaul unconstitutional, as a White House aide denounced “judicial activism.” The ruling by Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola, Fla...

Second U.S. Judge Tosses Health Care Provision

Posted on January 31, 2011
Federal District Judge Roger Vinson ruled on Monday that the Obama administration’s requirement for almost all Americans to buy health care insurance is unconstitutional. The Florida judge’s opinion brought to two versus two the decisions from lower federal courts thus far on legal challenges to the health care plan approved by Congress and signed by [...

Supreme Court Reversals of 9th Circuit Highlighted

Posted on January 31, 2011
The recent action of the Supreme Court in reversing a series of Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cases has attracted attention from news media analysts. A San Francisco Chronicle commentary by Debra J. Saunders was headlined “Where judicial activism morphs into disregard...

KY Judge Faces Ethics Counts

Posted on January 31, 2011
Kentucky’s Judicial Conduct Commission has charged Circuit Judge Daniel Ballou with two ethics counts for a political donation and for e-mailing campaign material. The state’s judicial canons state that a judge shall “shall refrain from inappropriate political activity,” according to a Lexington Herald-Leader article about the misconduct charges...

TN Merit Plan ?Instills Public Trust?

Posted on January 31, 2011
Why stick with a merit-based system for selecting high-level judges in Tennessee? Because it “instills trust,” contends Dwight Lewis in a Tennesseean commentary defending the so-called “Tennessee Plan” from those who are talking about replacing it with judicial elections...

Branstad Prepares to Interview Court Finalists

Posted on January 31, 2011
Iowa Republican Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday he does not plan to quiz nine candidates for three state Supreme Court openings about their views on the court’s controversial marriage ruling. The governor said he intends, according to a Mason City Globe Gazette article, to “focus instead on the candidates’ fairness, temperament, and knowledge and experience, [...

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