Litigation

JAS Cited in Report on MI Justices and Recusal

Posted on May 27, 2010
An article delving into the recusal views of two sitting Michigan Supreme Court justices also relies on Justice at Stake for data on past Michigan election spending. The article in Michigan Messenger reports that Justices Robert Young Jr. and Maura Corrigan participated in an amicus brief filed in the landmark Caperton v...

AL Justice Hits Rival on Campaign Spending

Posted on May 27, 2010
An Alabama Supreme Court justice has accused his rival in a Republican primary contest of hypocrisy for deploring the cost of judicial elections, then pumping massive sums into last-minute TV advertising. The target of the attack, trial lawyer Tracy Cary (right-hand photo), states on his campaign Web site, “I will not participate in the outlandish fund-raising [...

Scalia ?Happy? About Kagan?s Lack of Judicial Experience

Posted on May 27, 2010
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has won supportive remarks from Justice Antonin Scalia and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Justice Scalia remarked in an appearance at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. that each current justice has experience as a former federal judge, according to a Washington Post article...

Too Few Signatures in MO Merit Battle?

Posted on May 26, 2010
Could foes of Missouri’s merit system for selecting judges have failed to clear a crucial hurdle in order to put the issue before voters? A group defending the nationally recognized merit system asserted that is the case, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch blog post...

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New Record Backlog Set for Immigration Cases

Posted on May 26, 2010
The growing backlog of cases awaiting resolution in our immigration courts keeps  shattering old records. The backlog reached the highest level in history in March, at 242,776 cases, according to new information from a Syracuse University-based data research institute and a New York Times blog post relying on that data...

WI Editorial: Momentum Rising for Judicial Election Reform

Posted on May 26, 2010
What is the value of a well-told story to drive home a point? It can have real impact, judging from the Wisconsin State Journal’s spotlighting an anecdote told by Justice John Paul Stevens for its editorial questioning judicial elections. On a recent visit to Ohio, the retiring Supreme Court justice questioned the practice of states electing [...

New CO Disclosure Law is Signed, Takes Effect

Posted on May 26, 2010
Colorado has enacted a new law requiring disclosure of corporate and labor union spending on political elections. It joins a growing number of states taking action to blunt the impact of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law on Tuesday a bill requiring corporations and unions to disclosure independent political expenditures [...

Wednesday Media Summary

Posted on May 26, 2010
KAGAN COMMENTARY AP: As Marshall clerk, Kagan was wary of conservatives MARK SHERMAN and JESSICA GRESKO – 5/25/2010 NOMINATION/POLITICS Washington Post: Senators will have less background on Kagan to help make Supreme Court decision Robert Barnes – 5/26/2010 USA Today/The Oval: Kagan campaign for Supreme Court: Both sides step it up Kathy Kiely – 5/25/2010 Boston Globe/AP: Kagan clerking notes may draw GOP [...

OH Chief Justice Personally Pitched Fundraiser

Posted on May 25, 2010
Chief Justice Eric Brown, newly named as Ohio’s top jurist, has made a personal telephone pitch inviting people to attend a campaign fundraiser. For judicial candidates, “direct solicitation and receipt of campaign contributions is prohibited under the state?s judicial code of conduct,” according to a Dayton Daily News article...

Kagan and Book-Banning: ?Merely Political Theater??

Posted on May 25, 2010
Would Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan  support federal authority to ban books? Some prominent conservatives have raised that specter, but they’re getting strong pushback now from independent experts. One of the experts, election law scholar Richard Hasen, calls the book-banning claim “completely spurious” and denounces a “full-on hysteria” that has “blossomed” from isolated comments during Supreme [...

JAS Partner: MI Declaratory Ruling a ?Small Victory?

Posted on May 25, 2010
Michigan’s secretary of state has issued a final declaratory ruling about independent political expenditures by corporations following Citizens United, and a watchdog group called the ruling a “small victory.” Terri Lynn Land, the secretary of state, said the Michigan Chamber of Commerce can spend money from its treasury on independent political expenditures but it may not [...

Disclosure Legislation Advances in US House

Posted on May 24, 2010
Legislation requiring corporations to identify themselves in political ads they pay for, and to disclose their expenditures to shareholders and the public, will be taken up by the full House of Representatives. The DISCLOSE Act, as it is called, was approved by the House Administration Committee, Legal Newsline reported...

Appeals Court Rejects Bagram Detainee Rights

Posted on May 24, 2010
Three detainees held by the U.S. military at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan may not challenge their imprisonment through American courts, a federal appeals court ruled. The detainees have been held without trial for years. At Guantanamo Bay, detainees have won the right to challenge their imprisonment through what are called habeas corpus hearings in [...

?Moral Vote? Group Targets Sitting San Diego Judges

Posted on May 24, 2010
Four sitting Superior Court judges in San Diego County, California are facing unexpected challengers in an upcoming primary contest, and the challengers  have won endorsements from a group declaring that its mission is to unify the “moral vote.” The group is named Better Courts Now...

O?Connor: ?Take Justice off the Ballot?

Posted on May 24, 2010
Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor lays out a vigorous and detailed argument for merit selection of state judges in a New York Times commentary, headlined “Take Justice off the Ballot.” Only last week, Justice O’Connor was feisty when she lit into big special-interest spending in judicial elections before a Chicago Bar Association audience...

Matching Funds in AZ Public-Finance Law Upheld

Posted on May 24, 2010
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the matching funds provision of Arizona’s public financing system for statewide and legislative offices. The ruling was “a rare win for supporters of reasonable campaign finance regulation,” scholar Rick Hasen wrote in his Election Law blog...

Monday Media Summary

Posted on May 24, 2010
NOMINATION REPORTING Blog Of Legal Times: Senate Sets Aside $300K for Kagan Hearing David Ingram – 5/21/2010 KAGAN COMMENTARY Milwaukee Courier: NAACP endorses Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan Editorial – 5/22/2010 Washington Post/AP: Elena Kagan’s writings suggest judge’s proper role Mark Sherman – 5/23/2010 Wall Street Journal/Law Blog: Kagan?s 2003 Speech: A Window Into Her Views on Judging? Nathan Koppel – 5/21/2010 National Catholic Review: [...

Elena Kagan and the Rising Debate over Diversity

Posted on May 21, 2010
When President Obama announced his selection of Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, he highlighted the diversity she would bring. After alluding to Kagan’s late mother, the president said,  “I think she would relish, as do I, the prospect of three women taking their seat on the nation’s highest court for the first time [...

CA Focuses on Judicial Elections and Fairness

Posted on May 21, 2010
California legislators got a glimpse of nasty advertising from other states when the Assembly Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled, ?Judicial Elections in California: Threats to the Perception of Fairness.? According to a Legal Pad blog post, a video showed out-of-state campaign ads that “smeared various court candidates by linking them to insurers, trial lawyers or [...

Sen. Byrd to Massey?s Blankenship: ?Shame!?

Posted on May 21, 2010
Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia scolded Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship at a Senate hearing, saying the company has final responsibility for its workers’ health and safety. Shaking a finger at Blankenship, Byrd declared, according to an AOL News article, “I cannot fathom how an American business could practice such disgraceful health and safety policies [...

IA GOP Debate: Litmus Test for Would-Be Justices

Posted on May 21, 2010
In a debate of GOP candidates running for Iowa governor, two of three candidates vowed to appoint only state Supreme Court justices who oppose gay marriage. Both Bob Vander Plaats and Rod Roberts said their choices for the state Supreme Court would oppose abortion and gay marriage, a Des Moines Register article reported...

CA Budget Would Ease Court Closures

Posted on May 21, 2010
The funding crisis for courts in California may be easing. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget proposal would end state welfare and health insurance programs, but he withdrew a plan to reduce court funds by $100 million, according to a San Francisco Chronicle article...

Friday Media Summary

Posted on May 21, 2010
KAGAN COMMENTARY Slate: But Enough About Me: What Do You Think of Me? Dahlia Lithwick – 5/19/2010 MSNBC: Kagan writings indicate liberal streak Jenna Pfeffer – 5/20/2010 Huffington Post: Catholic Bishops Leave Civil Rights Group After Kagan Endorsement Daniel Burke – 5/20/2010 Washington Post: Elena Kagan: Hostile to free speech? David N...

TV Cameras ?Would Boost Faith in our Courts?

Posted on May 20, 2010
Contending “Cameras in Iowa’s courtrooms are no big deal anymore,” an Iowa commentator is urging support for legislation to open federal courtrooms to cameras too. Jeff Tecklenburg writes in a post for the Cedar Rapids Gazette that supporters of cameras in federal courtrooms include U...

O?Connor on $9m Judicial Election: ?You Like That??

Posted on May 20, 2010
Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor assailed big special-interest spending in judicial elections when she addressed a Chicago Bar Association audience. Urging an end to state judicial elections and their replacement by merit selection, according to a Chicago Sun-Times article, Justice O’Connor recalled a high-spending Illinois Supreme Court race from 2004: “It cost just over $9 million for [...

Kagan Thesis was Critical of Warren Court

Posted on May 19, 2010
Elena Kagan was critical in her 1983 master’s thesis of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren for a criminal evidence ruling. She thought it lacked a sound legal underpinning. There is much more to Kagan’s Oxford University thesis, however, and every page of it is now available online–along with her Princeton undergraduate thesis and [...

Wednesday Media Summary

Posted on May 19, 2010
NOMINATION REPORTING Blog Of Legal Times: Kagan Hearing Set to Begin June 28 David Ingram – 5/19/2010 Houston Chronicle/AP: Judiciary Chairman: Kagan hearings start in June JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS – 5/19/2010 KAGAN COMMENTARY NY Times: Thesis Is Window on Roots of Kagan?s Legal Creed PETER BAKER and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG – 5/18/2010 Wall Street Journal: Kagan Criticized the Warren Court in Thesis NATHAN KOPPEL [...

Successful Minority Judges Tell ?How I Did It?

Posted on May 18, 2010
An intriguing, and sometimes surprising, look at judicial diversity from the viewpoint of successful minority judges  is offered by a new Judicature article. Written by Linda M. Merola and Jon B. Gould of George Mason University, the article on “Navigating Judicial Selection” explores the influence of a state’s process for selecting judges on diversity...

Protestors Converge on Massey Annual Meeting

Posted on May 18, 2010
At the annual stockholders meeting of Massey Energy, scores of protestors called Tuesday for the resignation of CEO Don Blankenship or for his prosecution on issues involving the environment and workplace safety. Hundreds of people sang, held signs, and chanted outside the meeting convened in Richmond, Va...

MN Joins States Passing New Disclosure Laws

Posted on May 18, 2010
Minnesota’s legislators have voted unanimously to make it easier for citizens to follow the money when it comes to corporate political spending. In a session that just wrapped up, the lawmakers agreed to require corporations and unions to disclose their expenditures to influence elections...

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