Constitutional Law

Eye on the Judiciary

Justice Elected. In Florida, State Supreme Court Justice Peggy Quince will become Chief Justice Peggy Quince, the state’s first African-American female chief justice, after being elected by her six fellow justices for the rotating two year post. Labeled an “outstanding jurist” by lawyers, she was selected for the court in 1998 in an unusual shared appointment by outgoing Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles and incoming Republican Governor Jeb Bush. Quince has a first hand understanding of the power of law. She was attending a segregated school when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

Justice Appointed. Minnesota also has a new Chief Justice of its Supreme Court. Eric Magnuson, well known in local legal circles and described as a “lawyer’s lawyer” and “an appellate lawyer’s appellate lawyer,” was appointed this week by Governor Tim Pawlenty, his former law firm partner, to the top post.

Justice Delayed? The chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, who is also a judge on the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review, the panel created last year to hear appeals from detainees convicted of war crimes and to review other decisions made by military tribunals, is eager to start hearing those cases. One problem, the first cases he could hear are still months away.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on March 23, 2008 (boomark / email).