By Carlyn Kolker
Jim Crow lives
5/22/12
It's been nearly 60 years since Brown v. Board of Education,
the seminal Supreme Court decision dismantling the "separate but
equal" doctrine. But Alabama still has Jim Crow laws on its
books, and Alabamans will take to the polls this November to
decide whether to officially strike them from the state's
constitution, the Pew Center on the States reports. While
Alabama's laws about poll taxes and school segregation are no
longer enforceable, thanks to Brown and other decisions, some
state senators wanted to wipe out their language because they
say they cause reputational damage. An amendment to the state
constitution has been approved by the legislature and will next
go to the state's citizens. In 2004 voters axed a similar
amendment, Pew notes, with voters concerned that language about
educational improvements could lead to higher property taxes.
That language has been taken out of this year's amendment.
Comparative sentencing
5/22/12
The introduction to a report from the University of San
Francisco School of Law contains an ominous line: "Never before
have so many people been locked up for so long and for so little
as in the United States." It gets bleaker from there. The study,
called "Cruel and Unusual: U.S. Sentencing Practices in a Global
Context," looks at how the sentencing and correctional system in
the United States stacks up against at least 140 other
countries. The take-away? Not very well. Here are some
details.
-- Offenders in the U.S. can be sentenced to life without
parole for nonviolent crimes, such as drug possession, while in
many other countries can receive such sentences only for violent
crimes.
-- The U.S. is the only country in the world that sentences
minors to life without parole, the study says. (Only three
countries, the U.S., Somalia and South Sudan, aren't signatories
to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.)
-- "The trial and sentencing of juveniles in adult courts in
the United States violate protections enshrined in the
(International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights)," the
study says.
-- The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world,
with its prisoners comprising 25 percent of the world's prison
population.
-- Between 1984 and 2008 the number of U.S. prisoners
serving life sentences grew 10 times.
One thing to keep in mind is that while some of these
statistics may be eye-popping (to this reader, anyway), there is
by no means consensus in mainstream jurisprudence on the extent
to which international law and standards should be recognized in
the U.S. legal system. While the USFCA report notes that "the
United States has a long tradition of incorporating
international law into its own," it also has a long tradition of
not incorporating those same international conventions. For a
glimpse into this continuing tension in the American legal
system, Summary Judgments dug up a transcript of a lively exchange between U.S. Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and
Stephen Breyer. Scalia, speaking at a 2005 debate at American
University, noted that what matters to a judge interpreting the
U.S. constitution are "the standards of decency of American
society -- not the standards of decency of the world, not the
standards of decency of other countries that don't have our
background, that don't have our culture, that don't have our
moral views. Of what conceivable value as authoritative would
foreign law be?"
By a whisker
5/22/12
The story of Paul Watford, a nominee to the 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals, has reached its end point. First, some
background: When Watford was first nominated by President Obama
in October, his confirmation seemed all but assured, with
conservative lawyers (as well as liberals) weighing in with
support. But as we told you in February, he hit a snag in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where ranking Republican Charles
Grassley said he had "substantive concerns" about Watford's work
on immigration and death penalty cases. Grassley urged fellow
Republicans to vote against Watford, who passed the committee on
a party line vote of 10 to 6.
On Monday, the day the Senate was due to vote on whether to
proced with Watford's confirmation, it seemed a bit touch and
go. Initially, Senate majority leader Harry Reid scheduled a
cloture vote. Cloture votes, unlike simple roll call votes, end
debate on a subject or nominee, and signal that the whole Senate
isn't in agreement with even moving forward on a vote. Reid
would have needed 60 votes to get cloture. But at the last
minute, as the Hill reported, Reid wrangled a go-ahead for a
simple up-or-down vote, and Watford, a partner with Munger Tolles & OIson, was confirmed in the evening by a vote of 61 to34.
Another one down
5/22/12
Here at Summary Judgments, we are thinking of setting up a
sub-blog just about all the judges in Georgia who are stepping
down for disciplinary problems. Barely a month has gone by since
we reported on the resignation of the chief judge of Coweta Judicial Circuit who was being investigated by the state's
Judicial Qualifications Commission for improper communication
with attorneys. Now, the fifth Georgia judge since the beginning
of March has resigned, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Judge John Lee Parrott of Ocmulgee
Judicial Circuit quit his post two days before the Judicial
Qualifications Commission said in a brief court filing that it
was looking into allegations that Parrott "allowed the prestige
of his office to advance his private interests." A lawyer for
Parrott said only "whatever that document says, the document
says."
In the past several years seven chief Superior Court judges
in Georgia have stepped down during misconduct investigations,
the Journal-Constitution reports, and with these major
resignations "more people are filing complaints with the
Judicial Qualifications Commission," the newspaper says, citing
agency records.
Ties that bind
5/22/12
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal for veep? Could be, suggests
conservative economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth on Politico's "The
Arena" section - but a Romney/Jindal ticket would not satisfy
all conservative corners. For one, Jindal has "troubling ties to
the parasitic personal injury bar," writes Darren McKinney, an
executive with the American Tort Reform Association in an opinion piece on the Daily Caller website. Jindal has not only
received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign
contributions over the years from trial lawyers, he's also
refused to take a strong stand against so-called legacy
lawsuits, writes McKinney. Those are a type of lawsuit favored
by Louisiana plaintiffs' lawyers that unfairly targets energy
companies for environmental damage, in McKinney's opinion. While
the Louisiana House of Representatives has passed a bill that
would curb such litigation, Jindal has been more conciliatory
with the trial bar. Now that the legislative session is about to
end, tort reformers will be left to wonder "will (Jindal) help
lawsuit racketeers survive and thrive?" asks McKinney.
Summary Judgments for May 21
Summary Judgments for May 18
Summary Judgments for May 17
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