Supreme Court to confront post-Roe abortion battles | The Hill

Supreme Court to confront post-Roe abortion battles | The Hill

***In April, a Trump-appointed federal judge suspended approval of the drug, which is used in more than half of all abortions nationwide. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later ruled the pill, which was approved by the FDA in 2000, could remain on the market, but the panel upheld portions of the earlier decision, rolling back changes the FDA made since 2016, which eased access.

The 5th Circuit ruled the FDA acted improperly when it said mifepristone can be used up to 10 weeks of pregnancy rather than seven, allowed the medication to be mailed to patients, lowered the dosage and permitted providers other than physicians to prescribe the drug. 

Now, the justices are scheduled to consider petitions to review that ruling from the Biden administration and Danco Laboratories, which manufactures the brand-name version of mifepristone.

Two long-jailed men freed for murders they did not commit/ RPC 3.8

Jabar Walker came to court in handcuffs, and left a free man

Wayne Gardine, despite his exoneration still faces deportation to Jamaica

On a Single Day, Two Men Are Cleared in Decades-Old Manhattan Murders

Jabar Walker and Wayne Gardine were convicted in an era of crime and corruption that has created a wave of exonerations years later.

 

Experienced criminal defense lawyers and honest prosecutors know the frailties of human memory and perception.  Eyewitness identifications of fleeting incidents - a purse snatching, an armed robbery on the street, a police `lineup with jailed men of similar height, weight, and age are the stuff of drama, and sometimes of comedy.

But until recent decades the problem drew little attention from the courts.  Two things changed: the development of social psychology evidence showing the unreliability of eyewitness IDs, then, more impactfully, the work of The Innocence Project which learned that DNA evidence can prove the innocence of convicts whose guilt had been declared by a jury to have been dhow beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Rules or Professional Conduct RPC 3.8 below] have been amended to reflect this knowledge.  This week we saw two innocent men freed of murder charges after long prison terms for murders committed in the 1990s. One was feed by the efforts of The Innocence Project, the other by the Wrongful Conviction Unit of the Legal Aid Society - New York County's public defenders.  The New York Times reports HERE.

- GWC

ABA RPC 7.8 Special Responsibilities of Prosecutors

*

(g) When a prosecutor knows of new, credible and material evidence creating a reasonable likelihood that a convicted defendant did not commit an offense of which the defendant was convicted, the prosecutor shall:

(1) promptly disclose that evidence to an appropriate court or authority, and

(2) if the conviction was obtained in the prosecutor’s jurisdiction,

(i) promptly disclose that evidence to the defendant unless a court authorizes delay, and

(ii) undertake further investigation, or make reasonable efforts to cause an investigation, to determine whether the defendant was convicted of an offense that the defendant did not commit.

(h) When a prosecutor knows of clear and convincing evidence establishing that a defendant in the prosecutor’s jurisdiction was convicted of an offense that the defendant did not commit, the prosecutor shall seek to remedy the conviction.

John Eastman Legal Defense Fund

John Eastman wants to go to trial. Soon. One can understand it...He has no income, it seems likely, other than what his defense fund provides.  He was fired from his deanship at Chapman University, canned from his visiting professorship a the university of Chicago.  And named an unindicted co-conspirator in Jack smiths January 6 case - an event in which he - as a personal attorney for Donald Trump - was deeply involved. He has been indicted in Georgia and is engaged in a disciplinary trial in California State Bar Court, 

A former Supreme Court Clerk to Clarence Thomas he is in no position to further leverage that considerable credential.

- GWC

John Eastman Legal Defense Fund

DR. JOHN EASTMAN ASKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT

John Eastman served as President Trump’s lawyer on several legal challenges arising out of the 2020 election, including President Trump’s Motion to Intervene in the U.S. Supreme Court in Texas v. Pennsylvania et al., and Trump’s own Petition in Trump v. Boockvar asking the Supreme Court to review three unconstitutional Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions. Dr. Eastman also advised the President about constitutional ways to prevent illegal conduct of the election from determining the results, and he spoke before the President at the Save America rally on January 6.

For his efforts to ensure a free and fair election, he was “retired” from his tenured faculty position at Chapman University’s law school, where he had previously served as Dean, and had his classes and speaking responsibilities canceled at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was serving as the Visiting Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy. He has been targeted by hardcore leftist activists who have filed a bar complaint against him, seeking to have him disbarred and thereby lose his source of income. He has also been subpoenaed by the hyper-partisan January 6 Committee in the House of Representatives, which is targeting anyone involved in election integrity efforts as well as those engaged in freedom of speech and association to voice their objections to illegality in the conduct of the election. Responding to both of these attacks has required Dr. Eastman to hire outside counsel, at significant cost to himself.

And then, last month, radical Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney indicted me, along with President Trump and 17 others, claiming that our efforts to challenge illegality in the election were a mob-like criminal enterprise.  This is an unprecedented weaponization of the criminal law against political opponents, and we simply cannot allow it to go unchallenged; we must defend against this with everything we have.

Arizona retracts RPC 5.4 - allows non-lawyer ownership of firms

Rule 5.4: Professional Independence of a Lawyer

  Law Firms And Associations

(a) A lawyer or law firm shall not share legal fees with a nonlawyer, except that:

(1) an agreement by a lawyer with the lawyer's firm, partner, or associate may provide for the payment of money, over a reasonable period of time after the lawyer's death, to the lawyer's estate or to one or more specified persons;

(2) a lawyer who purchases the practice of a deceased, disabled, or disappeared lawyer may, pursuant to the provisions of Rule 1.17, pay to the estate or other representative of that lawyer the agreed-upon purchase price;

(3) a lawyer or law firm may include nonlawyer employees in a compensation or retirement plan, even though the plan is based in whole or in part on a profit-sharing arrangement; and

(4) a lawyer may share court-awarded legal fees with a nonprofit organization that employed, retained or recommended employment of the lawyer in the matter.

(b) A lawyer shall not form a partnership with a nonlawyer if any of the activities of the partnership consist of the practice of law.

Arizona Supreme Court Questions-and-Answers re Alternative Business Structures

The Supreme Court unanimously adopted changes to its rules to encourage business innovation in providing legal services at affordable prices. The Court further adopted modifications to the court rules regulating the practice of law and eliminating the rule prohibiting fee sharing and prohibiting nonlawyers from having economic interests in law firms. The regulatory framework addressing this change requires businesses, called “Alternative Business Structures,” to be licensed. The changes came into effect January 1, 2021.

The Committee on Alternative Business Structures will review applications for licensure under Arizona Supreme Court Rule 33.1 and Arizona Code of Judicial Administration (ACJA) § 7-209 and will make licensure recommendations to the Supreme Court.

The Justice Scalia Mythology that Still Haunts our Politics and our Law dof on law

The Justice Scalia Mythology that Still Haunts our Politics and our Law

By Eric Segall  2021

Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in 2016 but his legacy and the myths surrounding his jurisprudence still severely impact our politics and our law. Not long after his death, George Mason University received a large sum of money from private donors (including the Koch Brothers) to change the law school’s name to the Antonin Scalia Law School. Recently, Harvard Law School announced that it filled its outside-funded Antonin Scalia Professor of Law position. While running for President, Donald Trump repeatedly used the name Antonin Scalia to signify the kinds of judges he would appoint. There is even a play written about Scalia which was performed in the shadow of the highest Court in the land.

These lavish testaments to the late Justice are deeply insulting to women, people of color, LGBTQ folks, and non-Christians, as well as dangerous perpetuations of the fiction that Scalia was a Justice worth honoring. What Scalia stood for the most was the privileging as a matter of law of antiquated and unjust legal traditions, favoring white males over outsider groups, and allowing the government to treat the religious over the secular under the establishment clause. Mountains of evidence for these claims can be found in Scalia’s written opinions, his questions during oral arguments, and his off-the-court statements.

Before turning to that evidence, however, it is important to discredit one of the most common myths surrounding Justice Scalia. As I have written elsewhere, he was no originalist, despite his oft-repeated claims to the contrary. Scalia often ignored originalism altogether (affirmative action cases); distorted history beyond recognition (Second Amendment and Federalism cases); or just looked at those isolated historical sources that supported the conservative results he wanted to reach (campaign finance regulation). Scalia is often credited by conservatives for voting liberal in criminal procedure cases but he did not vote that way very often and, according to Professor Lawrence Rosenthal, he only voted originalist in 18% of fourth amendment cases. Scalia was in no sense an originalist Justice when it came to his votes.

Apart from his faux originalism, Justice Scalia’s opinions and heated rhetoric in civil rights cases should disturb people of even moderate sensibilities. It must be remembered, of course, that Supreme Court Justices should be judged according to the values of the times in which they lived. There are numerous Supreme Court Justices, maybe most Justices prior to 1954, who we still honor and who undoubtedly held racist, sexist, and anti-LGBTQ views. But Justice Scalia made all of the statements below (and issued all of the votes discussed in this post) in the last 35 years.

'Regime Change' argues for a controversial postliberal future | National Catholic Reporter

'Regime Change' argues for a controversial postliberal future | National Catholic Reporter

Review by Stephen Schneck 

Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future

Patrick J. Deneen

288 pages; Sentinel $30.00

Let me say from the get-go that, for me, liberalism is as good as it gets for the political order. A politics that is not liberal is a loss for human flourishing. Patrick Deneen's "postliberal" manifesto only reinforces my conclusion.

The United States was established on liberalism — meaning our government is legitimized and limited by the sovereignty of its citizens (a democratic republic) and our political order is structured to secure liberty by recognizing unalienable rights.

Stalinists in their day pooh-poohed liberalism, arguing that its vaunted liberty and rights were smoke and mirrors to dupe the proletariat about its subservience to the bourgeoisie. Later, French so-called postmodernists argued that liberalism's liberty and rights were actually camouflaged instruments of repression. 

In his new book, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future, Deneen, a professor of political theory at the University of Notre Dame, blends a bit of both of these critiques to insist that liberalism leaves a working class floundering in chaos while disguising that same class' marginalization by a "managerial elite."

Needed, he insists, is a revolutionary regime change to replace liberalism with "aristopopulism."

Patrick Deneen (Courtesy of University of Notre Dame)

Regime Change begins with a brief reprise of Deneen's 2018 bestseller, Why Liberalism Failed, which highlighted the forces behind the election of President Donald Trump. Contending that we live in dystopian times thanks to the havoc generated by our liberal political order, the analysis is that liberalism is essentially an engine for progress. Generations ago, such progress seemed a good thing — overcoming slavery and so on — but in our time, liberalism's unremitting progressive change is eroding the foundations of civilization's social order. 

As Regime Change proceeds, we learn that these eroding foundations are the "traditional" structures of society, like family, religion, morality and local community. Today's upper class, the managerial elite, ostensibly is insulated from the ill effects of this erosion thanks to various forms of privilege and being educated in techniques to navigate disruptive change. But not the working class.

When Deneen speaks of the working class, the image conveyed is of white blue-collar workers displaced economically by globalization's mauling of "flyover country" smokestack industries. Yet, while globalization's economic dislocations are also purported to be the result of liberalism, it is liberalism's disruption of the social structures of the working class that is the book's focus.

For the working class, we are told that traditional marriage and family can no longer be expected, that church is increasingly not part of working-class lives and that time-honored mores and moral norms no longer have convincing authority. Unions, clubs and civic organizations are less available for communal solidarity. Small towns and old blue-collar neighborhoods decay and wither. 

KEEP READING

Kevin Vallier offers a precise, thoughtful analysis of Integralism" an unhinged movement | National Catholic Reporter

Kevin Vallier offers a precise, thoughtful analysis of an unhinged movement | National Catholic Reporter

By Michael Sean Winters  - Part II of a review of KevinValliers critique of "Integralism"

Last week, I began my review of Kevin Vallier's book about Catholic integralism, All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism. Today, I will finish my examination of this fascinating and exasperating book.

The chapter on "Transition" exemplifies this problem with the book, the precise and thoughtful analysis of what is, in the end, insanity. Vallier makes the argument that the transition from a liberal state to an integralist one would require the integralists to violate the very Catholic moral norms they claim to want to embed into the body politic. 

He notes that the value of democracy, which has become central to Catholic social doctrine in the post-World-War-II era, is abandoned: "Integration from within attempts state capture," he writes. "The goal? Install integralists in powerful positions in a liberal nation-state. As liberalism falls, integralists seize the state and turn it toward religious objectives."

In addressing Harvard University's Adrian Vermeule's approach to transition specifically, Vallier observes:

As Vermeule so evocatively claims, we must "sear the liberal faith with hot irons." It must not rise again. Only a strong state combined with a strong church can complete this urgent task. Vermeulean protectors must become conquerors. They must rule with an iron rod. And, so, however much Vermeule wants to avoid coercion, he is stuck with it. Integralists must exercise hard power.

Images of the Jan. 6 insurrection flood the mind, only led by the cross and nationwide. It is too horrific to contemplate, and Vallier is right to insist we must not avert our eyes. 

In this same chapter, Vallier provides a useful, concise history of the development of the "thesis-hypothesis" theological framing of church-state relations. In an effort to "soften the blow" of Pope Pius IX's condemnation of liberal regimes, the great Bishop Félix Dupanloup of Orleans, France, argued that the pope had articulated the "ideal" situation of the state supporting the Catholic Church as a "thesis," but that the "hypothesis" governed situations where Catholics were in the minority or where, for particular reasons, the ideal could not be realized. In the latter situation, such as in the United States, religious liberty could be embraced. 

Vallier goes on to note, "This distinction, designed to save liberalism, later became an obstacle." This is a useful reminder that we ought not abstract issues from the times in which they were debated. 

Vallier makes many other intelligent, incisive remarks about a variety of topics in his treatment of "Transition," exposing flaws in the integralist approach. 

KEEP READING

Winters: Kevin Vallier's book takes on the rise of integralism | National Catholic Reporter

Kevin Vallier's book takes on the rise of integralism | National Catholic Reporter

By Michael Sean Winters   November 22, 2023

Integralism is the latest iteration of right-wing zaniness in Catholic circles. It is different from the other more populist expressions of reactionary Catholicism in part because it is proposed by brilliant scholars such as Harvard University's Adrian Vermeule and University of Notre Dame's Patrick Deneen. Political philosopher Steve Schneck recently reviewed Deneen's latest book for NCR and NCR staff reporter Brian Fraga wrote about a conference at which Vermeule spoke. 

The integralist movement is not univocal, but its various proponents share a common critique of liberalism and look to past regimes that united church and state as a preferable alternative. The more benign rationale for uniting the ecclesial with the temporal realms is that government seeks the common good and the supernatural good should not be a priori excluded from the common good.

The more accurate, and frightening, rationale is that demonic forces seek to rule the world, and that the church, in order to establish the kingdom of God, "must contest demonic rule and seek the spiritual governance of the entire world. … The church cannot abandon earthly rulers to stand alone against the darkness," as Kevin Vallier explains in his new book from Oxford University Press, All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism. 

It is not an easy read, fluctuating between academic verbiage and a chatty, conversational style, and tackling an admittedly difficult and abstruse topic. It is nonetheless an important read because none of us yet knows how influential these integralists will become and because Vallier takes the movement seriously. 

KEEP READING

The Justice Scalia Mythology that Still Haunts our Politics and our Law

The Justice Scalia Mythology that Still Haunts our Politics and our Law

By Eric Segall - August 16, 2021

 By Eric Segall

Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in 2016 but his legacy and the myths surrounding his jurisprudence still severely impact our politics and our law. Not long after his death, George Mason University received a large sum of money from private donors (including the Koch Brothers) to change the law school’s name to the Antonin Scalia Law School. Recently, Harvard Law School announced that it filled its outside-funded Antonin Scalia Professor of Law position. While running for President, Donald Trump repeatedly used the name Antonin Scalia to signify the kinds of judges he would appoint. There is even a play written about Scalia which was performed in the shadow of the highest Court in the land.

These lavish testaments to the late Justice are deeply insulting to women, people of color, LGBTQ folks, and non-Christians, as well as dangerous perpetuations of the fiction that Scalia was a Justice worth honoring. What Scalia stood for the most was the privileging as a matter of law of antiquated and unjust legal traditions, favoring white males over outsider groups, and allowing the government to treat the religious over the secular under the establishment clause. Mountains of evidence for these claims can be found in Scalia’s written opinions, his questions during oral arguments, and his off-the-court statements.

Before turning to that evidence, however, it is important to discredit one of the most common myths surrounding Justice Scalia. As I have written elsewhere, he was no originalist, despite his oft-repeated claims to the contrary. Scalia often ignored originalism altogether (affirmative action cases); distorted history beyond recognition (Second Amendment and Federalism cases); or just looked at those isolated historical sources that supported the conservative results he wanted to reach (campaign finance regulation). Scalia is often credited by conservatives for voting liberal in criminal procedure cases but he did not vote that way very often and, according to Professor Lawrence Rosenthal, he only voted originalist in 18% of fourth amendment cases. Scalia was in no sense an originalist Justice when it came to his votes.

Apart from his faux originalism, Justice Scalia’s opinions and heated rhetoric in civil rights cases should disturb people of even moderate sensibilities. It must be remembered, of course, that Supreme Court Justices should be judged according to the values of the times in which they lived. There are numerous Supreme Court Justices, maybe most Justices prior to 1954, who we still honor and who undoubtedly held racist, sexist, and anti-LGBTQ views. But Justice Scalia made all of the statements below (and issued all of the votes discussed in this post) in the last 35 years.

Sherrilyn Ifill | U.S. courts fear the radical 14th Amendment - The Washington Post

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Opinion | U.S. courts fear the radical 14th Amendment - The Washington Post

By Sherrilyn Ifill

Sherrilyn Ifill, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, will launch the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy at Howard Law School in 2024.

Why are U.S. courts so determined to dilute the 14th Amendment?

Consider the recent ruling upholding former president Donald Trump’s appearance on Colorado’s 2024 presidential ballot. Here we have the latest entry in a dismaying 155-year tradition of American judges stripping that radical amendment to the U.S. Constitution of its intended power.

Judge Sarah B. Wallace’s decision that Trump engaged in insurrection but is nevertheless qualified to run for office is emblematic of the often outright resistance courts have shown to the 14th Amendment’s guarantees and protections. This instance applies to Section 3, which bars any participant in a rebellion against the government of the United States from holding public office. But almost from its inception, all the amendment’s radical provisions have inspired fear and timidity in jurists of every stripe.

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Colorado Judge [wisely] Keeps Trump on Ballot in 14th Amendment Case - The New York Times

The 14th Amendment textual argument that incitement of an insurrectionary attempt to block the lawful transfer of power disqualified one from holding future office is strong.  But the judicious decision is not to so hold - unless the officer one seeks to bar has engaged in a coup d'etat.

As vile a character is Donald J. Trump, he retains a huge band of loyalists.  Only the plainest of grounds would make barring him from the ballot or office prudent.

- GWC

Colorado Judge Keeps Trump on Ballot in 14th Amendment Case - The New York Times

By Maggie Astor

Nov. 17, 2023

A Colorado judge ruled on Friday that former President Donald J. Trump could remain on the primary ballot in the state, rejecting the argument that the 14th Amendment prevents him from holding office again — but doing so on relatively narrow grounds that lawyers for the voters seeking to disqualify him said they would appeal.

With his actions before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Judge Sarah B. Wallace ruled, Mr. Trump engaged in insurrection against the Constitution, an offense that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — which was ratified in 1868 to keep former Confederates out of the government — deems disqualifying for people who previously took an oath to support the Constitution.

But Judge Wallace, a state district court judge in Denver, concluded that Section 3 did not include the presidential oath in that category.

The clause does not explicitly name the presidency, so that question hinged on whether the president was included in the category “officer of the United States.”
Because of “the absence of the president from the list of positions to which the amendment applies combined with the fact that Section 3 specifies that the disqualifying oath is one to ‘support’ the Constitution whereas the presidential oath is to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution,” Judge Wallace wrote, “it appears to the court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section 3 did not intend to include a person who had only taken the presidential oath.”




“Part of the court’s decision,” she continued, “is its reluctance to embrace an interpretation which would disqualify a presidential candidate without a clear, unmistakable indication that such is the intent of Section 3.”

She added in a footnote that it was “not for this court to decide” whether the omission of the presidency was intentional or an oversight.


Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement: “We applaud today’s ruling in Colorado, which is another nail in the coffin of the un-American ballot challenges.” He added, “These cases represent the most cynical and blatant political attempts to interfere with the upcoming presidential election by desperate Democrats who know Crooked Joe Biden is a failed president on the fast track to defeat.”

Mario Nicolais, one of the lawyers representing the six Colorado voters who filed the lawsuit in September, said he was encouraged by the narrow grounds on which they had lost — not on the substance of Mr. Trump’s actions, but on the scope of the amendment’s applicability. The voters will appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court within three days, but the United States Supreme Court will most likely have the final say.

It's Not So Hard to Write an Opinion Following Bruen and Reversing in Rahimi

Will Baude is right here. Amy Barrett when on the 7th Circuit wrote the road map - explaining that a convicted tax cheat should not be denied a gun, even though he is a felon.

It's Not So Hard to Write an Opinion Following Bruen and Reversing in Rahimi: a contrary view to Josh's

Supreme Court term limits are necessary to mitigate corruption - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Supreme Court term limits are necessary to mitigate corruption - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

By Sara Wiatrak

The Supreme Court’s ethical failures that have come to light this year have raised questions of how to implement enforceable accountability measures. One possible answer is staggered term limits.

The Supreme Court is a uniquely powerful American institution held to uniquely lax ethics regulations compared to the rest of the nation’s court systems and other federal branches. With lifetime appointments and a high bar for impeachment—only one Supreme Court justice has ever been impeached, in 1805—there are functionally no substantial consequences for justices who engage in unethical behavior or refuse to recuse themselves from cases where they have conflicts of interest. And when transparency and ethics laws are rarely abided by, lifetime appointments not only permit but encourage powerful outside actors to unethically gain justices’ favor using expensive personal gifts, travel and other means.

This April, ProPublica revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas accepted luxury trips from billionaire donor Harlan Crow almost every year for over 20 years without disclosing them. Crow also paid the boarding school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew for two years, and in 2014, Thomas sold to Crow three Georgia properties including a house where Thomas’s mother continued to live (Crow then invested in a series of renovations to Thomas’s mother’s home). Thomas, who has served on the Court for over 32 years, will become the 10th-longest serving Supreme Court justice in history in April.

ProPublica also reported this year that Justice Samuel Alito accepted an undisclosed luxury trip from a megadonor with business before the Supreme Court in 2008, when billionaire Paul Singer flew Alito on a private jet to a luxury Alaskan fishing lodge. Singer has since had business before the Court at least 10 times, including at least one case in which Alito failed to recuse and the Court voted in Singer’s favor. Shortly before, Politico reported that Justice Neil Gorsuch received an offer for a property he co-owned from Brian Duffy—the head of Greenberg Traurig, one of the country’s biggest law firms—nine days after being confirmed by the Senate in 2017. The sale went through a month later. The firm has had at least 22 cases before the Supreme Court since, and Gorsuch sided with its clients in eight out of the 12 cases where his opinion is recorded.

A term limit of 18 years would ensure that such conflicts of interest would endure for much less time, and make expensive, extremely long-term investments into a justice’s good favor harder to make with less payoff. Under this limit, for example, Thomas’s term would have ended in 2009, amid Crow covering Thomas’s nephew’s tuition bill, and several years before his property deal with Crow came to fruition. It would also develop a healthier cycle of justice appointments by spreading appointments evenly over presidential terms, ensuring that the Court isn’t perceived as representing only one party or president. Most importantly, justices who face doubt about their integrity will naturally be term-limited, helping to mitigate the problem of the Court facing dwindling credibility over decades at a time.

keep reading

Harvard Law Review Blocks Article About Genocide in Gaza

Harvard Law Review Blocks Article About Genocide in Gaza: The Harvard Law Review censored a piece by a Palestinian scholar on applying a genocide framework to Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

Lawsuit filed to remove Trump from ballot in CO under 14th Amendment - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Lawsuit filed to remove Trump from ballot in CO under 14th Amendment - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: Having disqualified himself from public office by violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Donald Trump must be removed from the ballot.

Supreme Court term limits are necessary to mitigate corruption - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Supreme Court term limits are necessary to mitigate corruption - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

The Supreme Court’s ethical failures that have come to light this year have raised questions of how to implement enforceable accountability measures. One possible answer is staggered term limits.

The Supreme Court is a uniquely powerful American institution held to uniquely lax ethics regulations compared to the rest of the nation’s court systems and other federal branches. With lifetime appointments and a high bar for impeachment—only one Supreme Court justice has ever been impeached, in 1805—there are functionally no substantial consequences for justices who engage in unethical behavior or refuse to recuse themselves from cases where they have conflicts of interest. And when transparency and ethics laws are rarely abided by, lifetime appointments not only permit but encourage powerful outside actors to unethically gain justices’ favor using expensive personal gifts, travel and other means.

This April, ProPublica revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas accepted luxury trips from billionaire donor Harlan Crow almost every year for over 20 years without disclosing them. Crow also paid the boarding school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew for two years, and in 2014, Thomas sold to Crow three Georgia properties including a house where Thomas’s mother continued to live (Crow then invested in a series of renovations to Thomas’s mother’s home). Thomas, who has served on the Court for over 32 years, will become the 10th-longest serving Supreme Court justice in history in April.

ProPublica also reported this year that Justice Samuel Alito accepted an undisclosed luxury trip from a megadonor with business before the Supreme Court in 2008, when billionaire Paul Singer flew Alito on a private jet to a luxury Alaskan fishing lodge. Singer has since had business before the Court at least 10 times, including at least one case in which Alito failed to recuse and the Court voted in Singer’s favor. Shortly before, Politico reported that Justice Neil Gorsuch received an offer for a property he co-owned from Brian Duffy—the head of Greenberg Traurig, one of the country’s biggest law firms—nine days after being confirmed by the Senate in 2017. The sale went through a month later. The firm has had at least 22 cases before the Supreme Court since, and Gorsuch sided with its clients in eight out of the 12 cases where his opinion is recorded.

A term limit of 18 years would ensure that such conflicts of interest would endure for much less time, and make expensive, extremely long-term investments into a justice’s good favor harder to make with less payoff. Under this limit, for example, Thomas’s term would have ended in 2009, amid Crow covering Thomas’s nephew’s tuition bill, and several years before his property deal with Crow came to fruition. It would also develop a healthier cycle of justice appointments by spreading appointments evenly over presidential terms, ensuring that the Court isn’t perceived as representing only one party or president. Most importantly, justices who face doubt about their integrity will naturally be term-limited, helping to mitigate the problem of the Court facing dwindling credibility over decades at a time.

Term limits would also help to address the ethical question of the justices’ frequent, privately-funded travels, an ongoing debate that reignites repeatedly following both justices’ personal financial disclosures and reports about undisclosed subsidized travel.

NY Times Op-Ed: "Building a Pro-Democracy Conservative Legal Movement" - Society for the Rule of Law

NY Times Op-Ed: "Building a Pro-Democracy Conservative Legal Movement" - Society for the Rule of Law

November 21, 2023

Read our guest essay in The New York Times by J. Michael Luttig, Barbara Comstock, and George Conway: “America Needs a Pro-Democracy Conservative Legal Establishment.”

In it they write:

“American democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law are the righteous causes of our times, and the nation’s legal profession is obligated to support them. But with the acquiescence of the conservative legal movement, these pillars of our system of governing are becoming increasingly imperiled, and the dangers will only grow should Donald Trump be returned to the White House next November …

We must rebuild a conservative legal movement that supports and defends American democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law.”

As the authors write, the events of the past several years have shown that many of the existing players and institutions have “failed to respond in this period of crisis.” That’s why we started the Society, to push back on these failures and create a pro-Constitution alternative.

Read the entire piece here.

Ex-DOJ Official Loses Bid To Escape Ethics Charges In DC - Law360

Ex-DOJ Official Jeffrey B. Clark Loses Bid To Escape Ethics Charges In D.C .- Law360

By Rose Krebs ·  

Law360 (November 20, 2023, 2:19 PM EST) -- A D.C. ethics panel has rejected the attempt by a former U.S. Department of Justice official and former President Donald Trump ally accused [by D.C. Bar Ethics Counsel] of 2020 election-related ethics breaches to dodge the case based on what he asserted were "inconsistent theories," saying a hearing on the merits should be held.

In a brief order Friday, the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility denied Jeffrey B. Clark's motion to dismiss ethics charges he faces, or in the alternative, require the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel to "pick one theory of violation and stick to it."

Citing board rules and a board precedent, the ethics board said that "once a specification of charges has been filed, 'the underlying purposes of the board require that we proceed directly to a hearing on the merits rather than being detoured into questions of pleading and form.'"

Clark will have a chance "to reassert his contentions in his post-hearing brief," Merril Hirsh, chair of the board's hearing committee, wrote in the order.

The Board on Professional Responsibility is appointed by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, serving "as its disciplinary arm" and it is "responsible for the adjudication of disciplinary cases and the administration of the attorney discipline system," according to the D.C. Bar website.

The D.C. Court of Appeals "has the ultimate authority for disciplining members of the District of Columbia Bar for violations of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct," the website says.