NJ Paper: Christie ‘Seriously Rethinking’ And May Make Presidential Run | Election 2012

Chris Christie is a thin-skinned hothead, I can say from personal experience. But he is also smart and savvy and cocky. It must be very difficult to keep your wits about you when everyone around you is fawning and flattering. Hard to remind yourself that you are just a half-term governor and former prosecutor with a quick-lip and a bullying streak and maybe you need a good deal more seasoning.

So you count on your wife to talk sense into you. Then Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan call her...and now she begins to allow herself to entertain thoughts of life on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the arcade fire begins to build...

NJ Paper: Christie ‘Seriously Rethinking’ And May Make Presidential Run | Election 2012: " the Star-Ledger’s anonymous source, described as “close to the governor,” says the aggressive “Draft Christie” effort finally seems to be paying off.

“An adviser close to the governor” cites Christie’s wife, Mary Pat, as having previously been a major dampener on any White House ambitions Christie may have harbored. However, the source says Mrs. Christie’s objections to raising a family in the White House diminished after a call from former first lady Barbara Bush. A discussion with Nancy Reagan is also said to have helped change her mind."

'via Blog this'

NJ Supreme Court Committee bars negotiating for agreement not to file ethics complaint

Saying that the matter of attorney discipline is an entirely public matter, the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics has barred agreements to withhold filing an ethics complaint as a condition of settlement of a dispute with a client.  In Opinion 721 the ACPE explained:

"The Committee finds that such an agreement is prejudicial to the administration of justice and, accordingly, violates Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(d).  An agreement conditioned on the withdrawal of a grievance already filed similarly would violate Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(d). "

Although one may settle a fee or malpractice dispute with an independently represented client, the Committee ruled that

"Attorney discipline is not a private  cause of action or private remedy for misconduct that can be negotiated between an attorney and  the aggrieved party.  The discipline process furthers public, not private interests: it is not intended to punish the attorney or vindicate the aggrieved party but, rather, “to preserve the confidence of the public in the integrity and trustworthiness of lawyers in general.”  In re Wilson, 81 N.J. 451, 456 (1979). ”

The Committee’s formal opinions are binding, not advisory.  Under the New Jersey Rules of Court any aggrieved attorney or bar association may petition the state’s Supreme Court for review.

David C. Baldus, 75 dies - studied race and the law - NY Times

David C. Baldus   NY Times photo

David Baldus was a great man. His analyses of how arbitrary was the death penalty: which fell particularly harshly on African American citizens.

The New Jersey Supreme Court appointed him a special master to conduct a "proportionality review".  Ultimately New Jersey repealed the death penalty in 2007. 


Reflecting on proportionality review - the effort to assure that like cases are treated alike - retired Chief Justice Deborah Poritz (who oversaw the effort)  acknowledged at a conference at Seton Hall Law School  that it proved" impossible" to eliminate the arbitrariness in the imposition of the death penalty.  As Associate Justice Barry Albin observed - the killers languishing on death row could not be meaningfully distinguished from those serving terms of 25 years to life in prison.  - GWC

David C. Baldus dies at 75 - studied race and the law - NY Times:

"David C. Baldus, whose pioneering research on race and the death penalty came within a vote of persuading the Supreme Court to make fundamental changes in the capital justice system, died on Monday at his home in Iowa City. He was 75.
The cause was complications of colon cancer, his wife, Joyce C. Carman, said."

NJ Ethics Advisory Committee Guidance on Mortgage Modification Work

The New Jersey Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics and its Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law have issued a joint Opinion on Lawyers Performing Loan or Mortgage Modification Services for Homeowners. (ACPE No. 716, UPL No. 45)

The ACPE is responding to inquiries from attorneys regarding the propriety of performing loan or mortgage modification services for homeowners. For-profit loan modification companies, some with significant direct-to-consumer marketing budgets, are approaching New Jersey lawyers asking to partner with them to negotiate loan or mortgage modifications on behalf of distressed homeowners. Attorneys have also inquired about using financial or mortgage analysts in the course of providing loan or mortgage modification services for homeowners who have directly retained the attorney.

Opinion 716, which is binding on New Jersey attorneys unless revoked or modified by the Supreme Court, states these principles:

1) A New Jersey Attorney May Not Pay Fees to the Loan Modification Company for Clients Referred to the Attorney by the Company and an Attorney May Not Share Fees With the Company.

2) A New Jersey Attorney May Not Work As In-House Counsel to a For-Profit Loan Modification Company, Formally Affiliate or Partner With the Company, or Be Retained by the Company to Provide Legal Services to the Company’s Customers, and an Attorney May Not Assist the Company in the Unauthorized Practice of Law.

[An exception for non-profits is that legal services may be provided by a staff attorney to beneficiaries of a nonprofit legal assistance organization incorporated to provide legal assistance to the poor or functioning as a public interest law firm that provides legal assistance to a defined and limited class of clients.]

3) A New Jersey Attorney May Use an In-House Financial or Mortgage Analyst or Contract With an Analyst, Provided the Attorney is Responsible For and Supervises the Work, the Compensation to the Analyst Is Not Improper Fee-Sharing, and the Attorney Solicits the Work and is Retained Directly by the

Homeowner Client.

The Committees find that foreclosure prevention counseling by housing counselors certified by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and the New Jersey Housing Mortgage Finance Agency (HUD/NJHMFA), who provide mortgage loan modification negotiation services are not engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.

Of note in this regard is the New Jersey Supreme Court's foreclosure prevention mediation program. Resources are on the New jersey judiciairy's website here.

Herald of Change? New Jersey's Repeal of the Death Penalty

My essay - which introduces the Proceedings of last year's symposium at Seton Hall on the repeal of the death penalty -has now been published by the Seton Hall Legislative Journal at 33 Seton Hall Leg. J. 21 (2008).

It is available on SSRN here. Abstract below.

The complete proceedings are available on SSRN here and via the post just below this one.

The symposium did what we sought - built the historical record and demonstrated how the change came to America. It was a powerful message, which I delivered several times in China in December 2008. I had the good fortune to be invited by NYU Law Prof. Jerome Cohen to join him, his staff Yu Ping and Margaret Lewis, along with judges Jed Rakoff (Southern District NY) and John M. Walker (2d Circuit). We spoke to judges, prosecutors, and students at universities in Guangzhou and Beijing. I went on to Wuhan to Huazhong University of Science & Technology. (More on that in a future post.)

Abstract

Herald of Change

In 2007, the New Jersey Legislature repealed the death penalty, twenty five years after it had reinstated capital punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court suspended all executions in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia. New Jersey restored the measure in 1982 - relying on specified aggravating and mitigating factors to cure the arbitrariness that the Supreme Court had declared made execution as random as being struck by lightning.

Of 228 death penalty trials 60 were sentenced to death, 57 death sentences were reversed on appeal. 9 condemned men remained on death row when the Legislature’s Study commission recommended repeal in 2007. No one was executed from reinstatement to the Legislature acted in December 2007, replacing execution with life imprisonment without parole.

The New Jersey courts took their mandate to avoid arbitrariness with utmost earnestness and approached their task with scientific rigor. The Office of the Public Defender, in its mission to "save lives" used advanced statistical methods to examine death penalty outcomes across a spectrum of circumstances. The appointed a Special Master to determine if racial or other impermissible disparity tainted the death sentences. The Supreme Court itself used what Justice Alan Handler (a death penalty opponent) called "super due process" and Justice John Wallace labeled "exacting review" - a fusion of the lessons of the 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th amendments. It was this process, not, as some detractors would argue, obstruction, that led to the lack of executions.

Justice Virginia Long felt that the "proportionality review" process used by the courts to be "futile" and wanted to outlaw the death penalty based on "evolving standards of decency". The majority was unpersuaded. Justice Barry Albin agreed with her assessment but believed the court must defer to the voting public, which had affirmed in a 1992 amendment that execution was supported by common sentiment. Indeed, this was the ultimate outcome - the elected Legislature acted and repealed the death penalty on December 17, 2008.

The next day the United Nations General Assembly called for a moratorium on executions. In Italy the Colosseum, ancient site of executions, was bathed n light in tribue

New Jersey, with its urban and diverse population, has long been a bellwether state on social issues such as fair employment practices, and civil union. The death penalty is no exception. 15 months after repeal one state (New Mexico) has followed New Jersey’s lead and has abolished the death penalty.

Symposium proceedings: Legislative Repeal of the Death Penalty in New Jersey

SETON HALL LEGISLATIVE JOURNAL

SYMPOSIUM ISSUE

VOLUME 33, No. 1 (2008)

Constance Desena, Editor In Chief

download at SSRN

LEGISLATION, LITIGATION, REFLECTION & REPEAL:

THE LEGISLATIVE REPEAL OF THE DEATH PENALTY IN NEW JERSEY

April 14, 2008 symposium website

Herald of Change? New Jersey’s Repeal of the Death Penalty ... George W. Conk

Proceedings

Call to Order & Welcome

Patrick E. Hobbs, Dean, Seton Hall Law School

George W. Conk, Stein Center for Law & Ethics, Fordham Law School, Symposium Co-Chairman

Keynote Address... James R. Zazzali, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

Symposium Chairman

Panel I: The Struggle in the Courtroom

Moderator: Hon. W. Michael Murphy

Dale Jones, Assistant Public Defender; William A. Zarling, First Deputy Assistant Prosecutor (Ret.); David A. Ruhnke, Esq.

Panel II: The Death Penalty on Appeal

Moderator: Hon. James R. Zazzali, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

Hon. Deborah T. Poritz, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

James K. Smith, Assistant Public Defender

Hon. Alan B. Handler, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

Hon. Peter G. Verniero, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

Lawrence S. Lustberg, Esq., Gibbons P.C.

Address: Hon. Jon S. Corzine, Governor, State of New Jersey

Legislative Resolution presented to Celeste Fitzgerald, New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, by Senator Raymond J. Lesniak

Panel III: Legislative Moratorium and the Death Penalty Study Commission

Moderator: Prof. R. Erik Lillquist, Gibbons Institute, Associate Dean, Seton Hall Law School

Celeste Fitzgerald, Director, New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Kevin D. Walsh, Esq., New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Hon. James H. Coleman, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

Miles S. Winder, III, NJ State Bar Association Member of NJ Death Penalty Study Commission

Panel IV: The Final Act - Repeal - Marshaling the Votes

Moderator: Kathy Barrett Carter, Editorial Board member, The Star Ledger

Hon. Robert Martin, Sponsor - NJ State Senate; Professor, Seton Hall Law School, Co-chairman

Hon. Wilfredo Caraballo, N.J. Assembly Sponsor; Professor, Seton Hall Law School

Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, Majority Leader

Hon. Christopher “Kip” Bateman, N.J. Assembly Sponsor

Conference chairs:

Hon. James R. Zazzali, Chairman

Co-chairs:

George Conk - Stein Center for Law & Ethics, Fordham Law School

Robert Martin - Seton Hall Law School

Lynne Newsome - New Jersey State Bar Association

Stephen Greenwald - Capital Punishment committee, New York City Bar Association

New Mexico follows N.J. in Death Penalty Repeal

The New Mexico Legislature last week voted to replace the death penalty with life impriosnment without parole.  Yesterday Gov. Bill Richardson signed House Bill 285, making New Mexico the second state to repeal the death penalty by vote of elected representatives.  It shows that New Jersey's 2007 repeal earns it the title, as my forthcoming essay declares,  "herald of change".

New Mexico last executed a person in 1960.  State Representative Gail Chasey introduced the measure and led the effort in the legislature.

Troubled by the heavy minority poplation in the state's prisons, and the possibility of error, he nonetheless found the decision difficult.  Richardson explained in his signing statement:

"With my signature, we now have the option of sentencing the worst criminals to life in prison without the possibility of parole. They will never get out of prison. 

Faced with the reality that our system for imposing the death penalty can never be perfect, my conscience compels me to replace the death penalty with a solution that keeps society safe.

The bill I am signing today, which was courageously carried for so many years by Representative Gail Chasey, replaces the death penalty with true life without the possibility of parole – a sentence that ensures violent criminals are locked away from society forever, yet can be undone if an innocent person is wrongfully convicted. More than 130 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 10 years in this country, including four New Mexicans – a fact I cannot ignore.

From an international human rights perspective, there is no reason the United States should be behind the rest of the world on this issue. Many of the countries that continue to support and use the death penalty are also the most repressive nations in the world. That’s not something to be proud of.

In a society which values individual life and liberty above all else, where justice and not vengeance is the singular guiding principle of our system of criminal law, the potential for wrongful conviction and, God forbid, execution of an innocent person stands as anathema to our very sensibilities as human beings. That is why I’m signing this bill into law."

As in New Jersey the Catholic Church, and citizen activists like the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty (picture above) made a major contribution.