Latest Posts
NY Bar Launches ‘Gitmo and Beyond’ Blog
If you're getting virtual whiplash from keeping up with all the news about terror detainees, civil liberties and national security policy, the New York State Bar Association wants to help.
The group has launched a comprehensive legal blog entitled "Guantanamo and Beyond: A Blog on Executive Detention, National Security and Due ...
Judge Faces Voters After Decision, and Tragedy
In southern California, a judge made what seemed like a routine ruling in a domestic dispute involving separated parents and their baby, letting the father keep partial custody of his son--over the warnings of the mother.
The ruling blew up when the 25-year-old father shot and killed the 9-month-old child and ...
Editorial: Elected Judges ‘Under a Shadow’
Count a resounding vote for up-or-down retention elections, and against "a party-political circus," from a blunt-speaking editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
The editorial points out that after their initial appointment by the governor, state judges must run in a partisan contest:
"They had to pass a merit-selection board before the ...
Citizens United Miffed at Same-Name Protestors
Citizens United, the nonprofit group that won a landmark victory in a recent Supreme Court decision, isn't chuckling about a Wisconsin watchdog group's use of its name in a campaign to overturn the court ruling.
According to an Associated Press article, Citizens United asked Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a partner group of ...
Stevens on Retiring: ‘Options Open’
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens intends to retire sometime within the next three years and will make a decision soon about staying on the court for another term.
That's the news reported by the New York Times and Bloomberg, among others, based on a profile of Justice Stevens in The ...
Virginia Thomas Starts Lobbying Group
Virginia Thomas, whose husband is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has started a tea-party linked lobbying group called Liberty Central Inc.
According to a Los Angeles Times article, the step by "Ginni" Thomas (as she is known) "could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court." The article summed ...
Tuesday Media Summary
DETAINEE LAWYERS
NPR/Talk Of The Nation: Should Lawyers Represent Terrorists? (w/audio)
3/15/2010
Forbes: Let's Not Kill All The Lawyers
Richard A. Epstein - 3/16/2010
Brennan Center For Justice: No more Witch Hunts for DOJs Al Qaeda Lawyers
Emily Berman - 3/15/2010
Wall Street Journal: Gitmo's Indefensible Lawyers
Debra Burlingame and Thomas Joscelyn - 3/15/2010
American Prospect/Tapped: Let's Talk About ...
JAS Cheers Passage of WV Finance Bill
The Justice at Stake Campaign applauded a vote in West Virginia's legislature for public financing of state Supreme Court elections, saying it put the Mountain State in the forefront of such efforts nationwide.
"In 2004, West Virginia became a national symbol of the dangers of special-interest spending on court elections," ...
MI Chamber Seeks Campaign Finance Clarification
Michigan's Chamber of Commerce has asked Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land for a declaratory ruling on existing state law in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
The Chamber requested a ruling that it can pay from its treasury for advertising that urges the election or defeat ...
LWV President: ‘Buck Up, Mr. Chief Justice!’
Mary G. Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters of the United States, would like Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to know that "a little honest feedback can be a good thing."
Wilson wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Post about Justice Roberts' recently expressed doubts ...
Editorial Urges ‘Reality TV’ at Supreme Court
The New York Times is editorializing in favor of "reality TV"--when it comes to the U.S. Supreme Court, that is.
The newspaper's editorial picks up on a recent poll showing more than 60 percent of voters favored televising the proceedings of the Supreme Court, and it laments that the court "seems ...
Critic Lodges Ethics Complaint against MO Bar
James Harris, the leader of a challenge to the way Missouri selects its judges, has brought an ethics complaint against the Missouri Bar.
According to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, the complaint alleges the Bar, created by the state Supreme Court, should educate--not advocate for or against a political position--and has ...
Monday Media Summary
JUSTICE AT STAKE
Justice At Stake: Justice at Stake Hails Public - Financing Vote in West Virginia
Press Release - 3/12/2010
NATIONAL SECURITY/COURTS
Wall Street Journal/Washington Wire: White House Yet to Settle on Venue for 9/11 Trials
Gary Fields - 3/14/2010
New York Law Journal: Evolution of Military Commissions Clouds Debate Over 9/11 Trials
Mark Hamblett - ...
Massey Win Stays Intact in WV
West Virginia's state Supreme Court on Thursday declined to reconsider its decision last November overturning a $50 million jury verdict against Massey Energy, the Charleston Gazette reported.
The November decision was rendered after Justice Brent Benjamin removed himself from the case, complying with a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Caperton v. ...
Citizens United: A Debate-Changer About our Courts?
(Supreme Court photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.)
Has Citizens United altered the debate over the future of our courts?
That question is posed by Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, in Huffington Post. Kendall argues that the case has already led to changes, saying that:
President Obama has accelerated from a slow pace for ...
JAS Hails WV Public-Finance Vote
Justice at Stake is happy to report that West Virginia's state Senate has approved a pilot public-financing program for the 2012 state Supreme Court election. Once the bill is signed by Gov. Joe Manchin, West Virginia will be the fourth state nationally to enact public financing for high court elections, ...
Judge Sidelines Groups in WI Finance Case
Three groups that back campaign finance reform won't be allowed to intervene in a lawsuit that seeks to overturn a new Wisconsin law for public financing of state Supreme Court candidates.
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a partner of Justice at Stake, and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Fund ...
Record Backlog in Immigration Courts
Just how clogged are the nation's immigration courts? They face "the largest backlog of pending deportation and asylum cases in history," the Houston Chronicle reports in an article drawing heavily on new information from a Syracuse University-based data research institute.
The backlog of cases nationwide reached an all time high of ...
Friday Media Summary
JUSTICE AT STAKE
Center For Competitive Politics: CCP: Taxpayer dollars, states credibility at stake
Press Release - 3/11/2010
WEST VIRGINIA PUBLIC FINANCING
West Virginia State Record: Group Questions Constitutionality of Judicial Public Finance System
Walt Williams - 3/11/2010
WISCONSIN PUBLIC FINANCING
FOX 6/AP:Groups that backed public funding for Supreme Court races can't intervene in lawsuits
3/12/2010
CITIZENS UNITED
Constitutional Accountability ...
Sheriff Withdraws Lawsuit against Judges, Others
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona and County Attorney Andrew Thomas have withdrawn a racketeering lawsuit against the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, county management, and judges, according to an Arizona Republic article.
The lawmen, whose tactics have led to questions about threats to an independent judiciary, said the U.S. Department ...
Notice
We are creating a new web site. For the next few months, please use this site to access Justice at Stake content. You can visit our old site for materials, but expect delays.