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Greenhouse and Fidell's last laugh

By Mark Obbie

Linda Greenhouse has taken heat for her husband's legal expertise in military law -- specifically for his advocacy in causes that have come before the Court. But on today's front page, barely two weeks before her retirement, Greenhouse nails a good story thanks to that familial connection.Over the weekend, Greenhouse says in an e-mail, her husband, Eugene Fidell, spotted a blog post that claimed the Supreme Court's majority decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana erred when it tallied how many jurisdictions have statutes that would punish the rape of a child with the death penalty. The tally, in Justice Anthony Kennedy's controversial majority opinion, left out military law. Dwight Sullivan, a civilian appellate defense counsel in the Air Force Appellate Defense Division, noticed the omission. Sullivan blogged on Saturday night at his CAAFlog blog that in 2006, Congress revised the Uniform Code of Military Justice to punish child-rape with death. The title of his brief but authoritative post says it all: "The Supremes dis the military justice system." Greenhouse wrote in an e-mail, in response to my questions about the origin of the story, that she and Fidell had different takes on what to do with the information:Well, they both won, since the Louisiana AG surely can't miss an above-the-fold front-pager that says a key factual underpinning in a close decision that went against his client was in error -- and hadn't been found by any of the parties or amici that briefed the case (or by any of the reporters who covered it). As for Sullivan, his serious, substantive blog gets some deserved notoriety -- and even a rare link from the text of a Times story (rather than just linking from sidebar material).

Full post as published by Lawbeat on July 02, 2008 (boomark / email).