Legal News

Attorney General Mukasey to Try to Please the Court

By Dan Slater

Former AG Janet Reno did it. But former AG’s John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales didn’t do it. Current AG, Michael Mukasey, is going to do it.

The “it,” reports the WSJ, is the tradition which dictates that new AGs argue one case before the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, AG Mukasey, who reportedly jumped at the opportunity, is slated to stand up in front of the Nine and argue that an appeals-court ruling in the “millennium bomber” case, U.S. v. Ressam, should be overturned. In 1999, Ressam and an accomplice traveled from Canada to Washington state with plans to carry out a terror attack on LAX Airport. He was sentenced to 22 years on terror-conspiracy charges. Mukasey will argue that the appeals court erred in its decision to strike one of the counts, sparing Ressam an extra 10 years in prison for the explosives found in his car.

Last fall, according to the story, Mukasey, who acknowledges he’s nervous for the argument, visited the court as part of his formal introduction to the AG job. At the time, he reportedly said: “I watched at least one judge interrupt what I thought was getting to be a responsive answer, with: ‘Now answer my question.’” When reminded that Supreme Court judges are actually called justices, Mukasey deadpanned: “That’s something to remember.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 24, 2008 (boomark / email).