Litigation

?Las Vegas Strip,? AL Judicial Elections Compared

Posted on February 16, 2011
In the legal, academic and political circles that are concerned with judicial selection, you rarely run into comparisons to the Las Vegas strip. But an editorial in the Anniston (Ala.) Star draws on that image as it raises questions about the state Supreme Court...

OK High Court Upholds Nominating Commission

Posted on February 16, 2011
The Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the makeup of the state’s judicial nominating commission and cleared the way for a late-hour appointee of the former Democratic governor to take the bench. Before he stepped down in January, then-Gov...

Wednesday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on February 16, 2011
In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts: Parallel bills were introduced in the House and Senate to set up an independent office to investigate judges who run afoul of the law, according to a Wall Street Journal article. The office would be barred from investigating the merits of specific legal decisions...

Partisan Judicial Elections Proposed for MT

Posted on February 16, 2011
A proposed referendum for the 2012 ballot in Montana would require candidates for district court judgeships and the state Supreme Court to run with partisan labels. Currently, the state’s judicial elections are nonpartisan. State Rep. Michael More, a Republican and sponsor of the referendum bill, said about the measure, ?The issue is greater transparency in [...

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?Deluge? of WI Special Interest Spending Ahead?

Posted on February 16, 2011
Two judicial candidates who opted for public campaign financing, an incumbent and a challenger, will square off on the April 5 general election ballot for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat as a result of Tuesday’s primary vote. Will Justice David Prosser and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg see a “deluge of special interest spending” in their general [...

AZ Public-Finance Law Defended by JAS Partner

Posted on February 16, 2011
The U.S. Supreme Court  should uphold an Arizona law that furnishes extra dollars to publicly financed candidates running against wealthy, privately funded opponents, a Justice at Stake partner group argues in a brief submitted to the high court. The Brennan Center for Justice recently submitted its brief in McComish v...

Revised Study Looks at Campaign Cash, Bias Risk

Posted on February 15, 2011
Vernon Palmer, a Tulane University Law School professor, has done research on the influence of campaign contributions on the Louisiana Supreme Court and has republished, with corrections, his findings from an earlier law review article. Palmer’s new article is entitled “The Recusal of American Judges in the Post-Caperton Era: An Empirical Assessment of the Risk [...

Group Seeks Further Explanation of Thomas? Travel

Posted on February 15, 2011
The advocacy group Common Cause said it was dissatisfied with seemingly conflicting accounts of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ appearance at a political retreat for well-heeled conservatives, and it asked the court for clarification. On one hand, a spokeswoman for the high court said Justice Thomas did a “brief drop-by” at the California even in [...

Bulletin: JAS, Others Seek Swift Judicial Confirmation

Posted on February 15, 2011
BULLETIN: The Justice at Stake Campaign and 75 other groups today sent a letter asking Senate leaders to work together in a bipartisan fashion to proceed with prompt confirmation votes on judicial nominees approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Our judicial branch has reached a state of crisis” with 101 federal judgeships now vacant, the [...

Tuesday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on February 15, 2011
In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts: A doomsday legal manual published in New York is intended to serve “as a guide for judges and lawyers who could face grim questions in another terrorist attack, a major radiological or chemical contamination or a widespread epidemic,” the New York Times reported...

AL, MI in Forefront of 2010 Election Spending

Posted on February 15, 2011
Alabama and Michigan finished 2010 in the front of the pack nationally for their expensive state Supreme Court races in 2010, and such high spending has prompted a critical editorial in at least one Alabama newspaper. Commented the Press-Register (Mobile), in an editorial headlined “Expensive campaigns for high courts raise questions”: “The problem with state [...

JAS Applauds New York?s Recusal Reform

Posted on February 15, 2011
The Justice at Stake Campaign is applauding a tough new rule aimed at removing the influence of campaign cash from courtrooms in New York State, saying it will help protect public trust in our courts. “By strengthening its disqualification rules, New York’s court system has sent a powerful and positive message that its courts can [...

Monday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on February 14, 2011
In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts: Justice Clarence Thomas’ tradition of not speaking during Supreme Court oral arguments will have a five-year anniversary Tuesday, according to a New York Times article that explores the reasons for his “epic silence” on the bench...

Primary Approaches in WI Court Contest

Posted on February 14, 2011
Will Tuesday’s primary in the contest for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat provide a test of the state’s new public campaign finance law? A Madison Capital Times article asserts that is the case. The article has an intriguing take on the primary...

Restrictive Recusal Rule Adopted in New York

Posted on February 14, 2011
New York State soon will implement a new rule to remove the influence of money from state judicial elections, and it appears to be the toughest rule of its type in the country. Adopted by the Administrative Board of the Courts, the rule will prohibit hundreds of elected judges from hearing cases involving parties or [...

IA Chief Justice Warns About Politicizing the Judiciary

Posted on February 14, 2011
Iowa Chief Justice Mark Cady is warning citizens that politicizing of the judiciary threatens the court system. In the wake of voters ousting three state Supreme Court justices over a controversial gay marriage ruling, one former state justice and some others  speculated that Iowa justices may be forced to hit the campaign trail to hold [...

Judicial Ethics Questions: Valid or Misplaced?

Posted on February 14, 2011
Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have faced a liberal outcry in recent weeks questioning the judicial ethics of their “pushing the line between law and politics,” as a New York Times editorial put it (see Gavel Grab)...

Thursday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on February 11, 2011
In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts: Justice Leroy Hassell Jr. of the Virginia Supreme Court, who was the state’s first black chief justice, died at age 55, according to a Richmond Times-Dispatch article. On the eve of the swearing in of William Martinez, a Denver Post article reported that he will become [...

IA Legislators Urged to Drop Impeachment

Posted on February 11, 2011
A group that supports Iowa?s merit-based system for choosing judges has presented to a top Iowa Republican legislator a petition urging legislators to scuttle any idea of impeaching four state Supreme Court justices. The group, Justice Not Politics, delivered a petition with more than 3,200 signatures, the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier reported...

Corruption Trial Opens for PA Justice?s Sisters

Posted on February 11, 2011
A criminal trial began Thursday for Pennsylvania state Sen. Jane Orie, accused of exploiting state resources for the political campaigns of herself and her sister, state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin. A defense attorney assailed the charges as petty, politically driven and “a low blow...

Groups Voice Support for Recusal Reform

Posted on February 11, 2011
Warning that “public confidence” in fair, impartial courts “is indeed in peril,” the Justice at Stake Campaign and the Brennan Center for Justice have written national bar leaders to support efforts toward state court recusal reform...

WI Court Infighting Now a Campaign Topic

Posted on February 11, 2011
Infighting among justices of the Wisconsin Supreme Court has become a focus for challengers seeking to unseat incumbent Justice David Prosser. A primary will be held Tuesday. “The court collectively has been distracted by personality and personal views,” said candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article...

Missouri?s Merit Plan Defended, Targeted

Posted on February 10, 2011
Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice William Ray Price Jr. staunchly defended the state’s merit selection plan for choosing judges on the same day a proposal to change it was announced. “Big money in judicial elections is a scandal,” Justice Price (photo) said in his State of the Judiciary remarks to the legislature, according to a [...

Consolidated, Quick Health Care Appeal Sought

Posted on February 10, 2011
Virginia has asked the Supreme Court not only to expedite review of a legal challenge to the nation’s health care reform, but also to wrap all the cases decided by federal courts so far into one for the purposes of appeal, according to a SCOTUSblog article...

Facing Budget Cuts, State Courts Struggle

Posted on February 10, 2011
Shrinking court budgets are creating a severe backlog in states around the nation, and they’re impairing or threatening the delivery of impartial justice, leading jurists and lawyers told an ABA task force in Atlanta this week. In Georgia, the eroding judicial budget and rising caseloads have led to a “tremendous backlog of cases that are [...

WI Candidate Slams Judge as ?A Cancer?

Posted on February 10, 2011
Attorney Joel Winnig, a candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, has called sitting Justice Michael Gableman “a cancer on the body politic” and called for him to step down. “He is a cancer on the body politic of Wisconsin and he should be removed,” Winnig said, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article...

Wednesday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on February 09, 2011
In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts: Former Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Judge Mark Ciavarella’s criminal trial began Tuesday, as a federal prosecutor said the defendant took kickbacks and extorted money in a $2.8 million scheme, the Associated Press reported...

Judicial ?Vacancy Crisis?Not a Partisan Issue?

Posted on February 09, 2011
Although the Senate confirmed three federal judge nominees Monday, pundits are calling for all sides in Washington, D.C. to quit partisan infighting, make judicial nominations a priority and do more to ease a judicial vacancy crisis. “What a long, strange trip to the bench,” mused the headline of an editorial in The Oregonian about the [...

Tribe on Health Care Sparks Blogosphere Debate

Posted on February 09, 2011
Constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe of the Harvard Law School (photo) predicts in a New York Times op-ed that the Supreme Court will easily uphold the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s health care reform: “There is every reason to believe that a strong, nonpartisan majority of justices will do their constitutional duty, set aside how [...

State Court Funding ?Crisis? a Focus for ABA

Posted on February 09, 2011
American Bar Association president Stephen N. Zack has offered an alarming analysis of “a justice system…in crisis” in our states. “Our courts protect our freedom and our access to justice when we need it. But at the state court level, the courts are neglected, underfunded and backlogged,” Zack wrote in a commentary published by the [...

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