Cass Sunstein: Same-Sex Marriage Law Has Four Possible Paths - Bloomberg

Harvard Law prof and polymath Cass Sunstein sketches out four paths for the Supreme Court in the constitutional challenge to laws barring same-sex marriage. - GWC
Same-Sex Marriage Law Has Four Possible Paths - Bloomberg:

Football teams hate punting, and the same may be true of the court. Some of its members might be tempted to draw on another analogy that, while publicly obscure, is well-known among judges and constitutional specialists.

In its 1971 decision in Reed v. Reed -- its first serious effort to engage the problem of sex discrimination -- the court took the path of minimalism. Striking down an odd Iowa law that gave a preference to men over women as administrators of estates, the court declined to issue a broad pronouncement that would immediately threaten all discrimination on the basis of sex.
Instead it began a long series of case-by-case rulings -- accompanying, but not pre-empting, democratic judgments -- that ultimately produced strong safeguards against such discrimination.
With respect to same-sex marriage, the court might be able to adopt a similar approach. For example, the Justice Department has sketched some ways for the court to rule relatively narrowly, striking down the laws in question while avoiding the broadest pronouncement about marriage equality.

'via Blog this'

More Intuition than Argument | Koppelman - Commonweal magazine

In ` What is marriage?'  two conservative Catholic thinkers, Robert George and his Yale law student co-author Sherif Gergis  argue  - as they do in an amicus brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry - the `gay marriage case ' - that marriage is a "conjugal relationship", not simply an "emotional bond".  The "marriage-based family", they assert, is the "free community on which all others depend".   Andrew Koppelman practices a virtue that does not come easily: to take opponents arguments' seriously, to present them fairly, and patiently explain why he is not persuaded. - GWC
More Intuition than Argument | Commonweal magazine:

What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense

Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson, and Robert P. George

Encounter Books, $15.99, 133 pp.
reviewed by Andrew Koppelman

The union of the married heterosexual couple is uniquely good because...well, because the union of the married heterosexual couple is uniquely good. This raw intuition comes decorated with a complex theoretical apparatus, but that apparatus does no work. It’s like one of those old trick math problems, which at first glance seems to require complex computations:

7 + 8,398.14 × B ÷ √55 - 8,398.14 × √55 ÷ B = ?
Look again, and it’s clear that all the complexity cancels itself out, and that you end up right back where you began.
The publication of What Is Marriage? is a public service. It advances understanding of a perspective that many (though fewer and fewer) Americans share, but it is unlikely to persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with its claims. It is a lucid window into a disappearing worldview.

'via Blog this'

Why Don’t Politicians Care about the Working Class?

Why Don’t Politicians Care about the Working Class?: "By MARK THOMA, The Fiscal Times

If we want to ensure that our children and grandchildren have the brightest possible future, the national debt is not the most important problem to address. Reversing the polarization of the labor market – the hollowing out of the middle class and the associated rise in inequality over the last thirty years or so – is much more important. But money driven politics and a political class that has all but forgotten about the working class – Democrats in particular have forgotten who they are supposed to represent – stand in the way of progress on this important problem. 

As everyone surely knows by now, the last few decades have not been kind to workers in the middle and lower parts of the income distribution. Technological change, globalization, and the decline of unions that gave workers political clout and countervailing power in negotiations over wages, benefits, and working conditions have eroded the economic opportunity and security that the post World War II era brought to working class households" 'via Blog this'

Anthony Lewis, Who Transformed Coverage of the Supreme Court, Dies at 85 - NYTimes.com

Fifty years ago the United States Supreme Court announced in Gideon v. Wainwright that the Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel is so essential to a fair trial that government must provide a lawyer to a defendant who cannot afford one.

No one did more to celebrate the importance of the decision than did Times Supreme Court reporter and columnist Anthony Lewis, who died yesterday.  The tribute below by Harvard professor Paul Freund is as fine a eulogy as any.  He leaves his wife Margaret Marshall, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.  A native of South Africa, she saw early (much earlier than did I) the continuity between the fight against racial discrimination and that for marriage equality.  Her 2003 opinion for the court in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health was the first to recognize the right of same-sex couples to marry. - GWC
Anthony Lewis, Who Transformed Coverage of the Supreme Court, Dies at 85 - NYTimes.com:

Mr. Lewis wrote “Gideon’s Trumpet” in large part during a four-month newspaper strike. The book told the story of Clarence Earl Gideon, a Florida drifter accused of breaking into a poolroom who was tried and convicted without a lawyer, and it sought to place the decision his case gave rise to in a larger context.
Mr. Lewis wrote: “Just as the Gideon case was part of the movement of the law on the right to counsel, and that in turn was but one aspect of the fundamental change taking place in the constitutional doctrine of fair criminal procedure, so the criminal law trend was part of a larger picture.  In many other areas the Supreme Court in the last generation has enlarged the dimensions of individual liberty.”

Paul Freund, a law professor at Harvard, reviewed the book for The Times. “The surpassing merit of Anthony Lewis’s book, sensitive but unsentimental, scholarly but not pedantic, is that we are made to see the general in the particular, to feel that, in the redemption of a forlorn outcast, the legal process is redeeming itself,” Professor Freund wrote.

'via Blog this'

TIM JOST INTERVIEWS ANDY KOPPELMAN ABOUT KOPPELMAN’S NEW BOOK, THE TOUGH LUCK CONSTITUTION (Oxford University Press 2013). : HEALTH REFORM WATCH

Prof.
Andrew Koppelman
 Northwestern U. Law School

Andrew Koppelman is a straight talker and clear thinker. - gwc
 TIM JOST INTERVIEWS ANDY KOPPELMAN ABOUT KOPPELMAN’S NEW BOOK, THE TOUGH LUCK CONSTITUTION (Oxford University Press 2013). : HEALTH REFORM WATCH:
"Q. (Tim Jost) Your book explains, for the general reader, what was at stake in the health care fight and what the Supreme Court did.  Why should the general reader care?  All this is old news. A. (Andy Koppelman) If you’re sitting on a hill, and a large boulder rolls past you, it’s a good idea to look uphill to see if any more boulders are coming.  The history matters because it shows that there are real dangers."
  A.  The Republicans’ objection to the Act was a combination of politics and substance.  Some of them honestly thought it was bad policy.  But you can’t challenge a law in court because you don’t like the policy.  You need to make a constitutional objection.  The constitutional objection was invented, in sketchy form, just as the bill neared passage and almost instantly became Republican Party orthodoxy.  It relied on an extreme libertarian philosophy, which holds that, if you get sick and can’t pay for it, that’s your tough luck.  The challengers’ arguments would have struck down the Act even if the alternative was a huge population of uninsured.  The dark heart of the case against the ACA is the notion that the law’s trivial burden on individuals was an outrageous invasion of liberty, even when the alternative was a regime in which millions were needlessly denied decent medical care. 'via Blog this'

The Doctor's New Prescription: A Lawyer - NYTimes.com

Maureen Lao, a law student, assists a patient

An Elder Law volunteer service clinical program at Hastings.  Sounds like a great program.  If only we could get the voters to restore funding to the Legal Services program at the levels it once had. - GWC
The Doctor's New Prescription: A Lawyer - NYTimes.com:
by Paula Span

Consider the geriatricians working at the Lakeside Senior Medical Center, an outpatient clinic at the University of California, San Francisco. Many of their patients, despite multiple chronic diseases and advanced age, have never filled out power-of-attorney documents or appointed someone to make health care decisions if they are unable to.
Sometimes, the doctors suspect their patients might qualify for public benefits they are not getting, like food stamps or MediCal, the state’s version of Medicaid. Perhaps they face problems with landlords or appear to be victims of financial abuse, or they ought to have a simple will.
In other words, they need lawyers. But trying to get frail, low-income seniors to consult an elder attorney can seem an insurmountable problem. How will they travel to a law office? Or pay a fee that can reach $300 an hour? Even if the doctors can refer them to a legal aid office, will their elderly patients actually make an appointment? Then remember to go?
At Lakeside there is a simpler solution, said Sarah Hooper, who teaches at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. “The physicians do the initial screenings, hear what their patients’ problems are, take the history — and they essentially write a prescription: ‘Go down the hall and see my friends at U.C. Hastings for help with this housing issue,’ ” she said.....

'via Blog this'

Widener Law must defend misrepresentation claim by grads: District Judge

Widener Law School stated publicly:

f. “Graduates of the Class of 2010 had a 93% employment/advanced degree rate within nine months of graduation.” 

Eight graduates claim that they relied on such representations in their decisions to choose Widener for law school.  But they now know that the statistics were overstated in a misleading nd harmful way.  In Harnish v. Widener Senior Judge William Walls, U.S.D.J. (DNJ) denied the law school's FRCP 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, saying:

The study of law is the learning of a profession. Widener’s website promotes a professional school. Its function is to persuade a prospective law student to attend Widener in order to receive a degree in law. The employment rate was disseminated to third-party evaluators to establish Widener’s standing among law schools. Within this context, it is not implausible that a prospective law student making the choice of whether or which law school to attend, would believe that the employment rate referred to law related employment .

The case was allowed to proceed under both the New Jersey and Delaware Consumer Fraud acts.

  Harnish v. Widener University School of Law

Savoring The Afterglow Of Obama's Speech - Americans for Peace Now

I agree.  And HERE is my earlier post with a link to the text of the President's speech. - GWC
Savoring The Afterglow Of Obama's Speech - Americans for Peace Now:
by Rabbi Alana Suskin

"Today President Obama made the most passionate, and compassionate, case for Israeli-Palestinian peace any U.S. leader has ever made. The case he made was politically pragmatic, grounded in the legitimate security concerns that define Israelis' existence. It was also grounded, unapologetically and unambiguously, in universal moral truths, including the indefensibility of the occupation and of denying the Palestinians dignity, security, and self-determination in their own state."  'via Blog this'

"Look at the world through their eyes" - Obama to Israeli youth

"But the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, their right to justice must also be recognized.And put yourself in their shoes. Look at the world through their eyes.
It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of their own -- living their entire lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements, not just of those young people but their parents, their grandparents, every single day. It’s not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished.  It’s not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands or restricting a student’s ability to move around the West Bank or displace Palestinian families from their homes. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land."

President Obama to Israeli youth, March 21, 2013
Full transcript
Israeli youth - Jewish and Arab react to Obama's speech

DWQ: times change on gay marriage

When James Michael McConnell and his partner Jack Baker applied for a marriage licence in Minnesota it was attention getting.  It was 1969 and such suggestions were  greeted with derision or indifference.  But times have changed and such distant efforts forgotten, so we are grateful for Linda Greenhouse, the fine Times Supreme Court observer (now at Yale) for digging out the McConnell and Baker saga.  In the aftermath of the "marriage license incident" the men sued, taking it all the way to the Supreme Court which did not take the case.  "DWQ" Harry Blackmun wrote on the petition - "deny for lack of a substantial federal question".
Baker became a lawyer but McConnell's career plans were disrupted when the Regents of the University of Minnesota voided his contract.  That lawsuit too was dismissed.  In McConnell v. Anderson (8th Cir. 1971) the U.S. Court of Appeals wrote:

 [I]t is at once apparent that this is not a case involving mere homosexual propensities on the part of a prospective employee. Neither is it a case in which an applicant is excluded from employment because of a desire clandestinely to pursue homosexual conduct. It is, instead, a case in which something more than remunerative employment is sought; a case in which the applicant seeks employment on his own terms; a case in which the prospective employee demands, as shown both by the allegations of the complaint and by the marriage license incident as well, the right to pursue an activist role in implementing his unconventional ideas concerning the societal status to be accorded homosexuals and, thereby, to foist tacit approval of this socially repugnant concept upon his employer, who is, in this instance, an institution of higher learning.

We know of no constitutional fiat or binding principle of decisional law which requires an employer to accede to such extravagant demands. We are therefore unable fairly to categorize the Board's action here as arbitrary, unreasonable or capricious.

Baker and McConnell - still together and still in Minnesota  - may soon get that marriage license.  I hope they get the first one.

1 million police hours for marijuana arrests ??Drug Policy Alliance

One Million Police Hours | Drug Policy Alliance:

A new report documents the astronomical number of hours the New York Police Department has spent arresting and processing hundreds of thousands of low-level misdemeanor marijuana possession arrests during Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure from 2002 to 2012. The report finds that NYPD used approximately one million hours of police officer time to make 440,000 marijuana possession arrests. Under Mayor Bloomberg, New York City has made more marijuana possession arrests than under mayors Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani combined.

Brooklyn Prosecutor to Seek Freedom of Man Convicted in 1990 Killing of Rabbi - NYTimes.com

David Ranta, 58, in prison 23 years
for a murder he did not commit

Confession of error is good for the soul.   But how did such a mistake occur?
Brooklyn Prosecutor to Seek Freedom of Man Convicted in 1990 Killing of Rabbi - NYTimes.com:
by Michael Powell and Sharon Otterman

The new Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, stood shoulder to shoulder with fur-hat-wearing Satmars, watching as they rocked back and forth and wailed as the pinewood coffin was carried out. He vowed to bring the killer to justice.

Forty detectives worked the case, soon led by the swaggering, cigar-chewing Detective Louis Scarcella. Working closely with an influential Satmar rabbi, Detective Scarcella arrested a drug-addicted, unemployed printer named David Ranta. Hasidic Jews surrounded the car that carried the accused man to jail, slapping the roof and chanting, “Death penalty!”

Mr. Ranta was convicted in May 1991 and sentenced to 37.5 years in maximum-security prison, where he remains to this day.

He is almost certainly not guilty.

This week Mr. Hynes, after a long investigation by a unit that he created to look into questionable convictions, plans to ask a state judge to release the prisoner. Mr. Ranta’s lawyer, Pierre Sussman, who conducted his own inquiry, said his client has been instructed to pack up his cell.

Mr. Ranta could walk free as early as Thursday. In the decades since a jury convicted him of murder, nearly every piece of evidence in this case has fallen away. A key witness told The New York Times that a detective instructed him to select Mr. Ranta in the lineup. A convicted rapist told the district attorney that he falsely implicated Mr. Ranta in hopes of cutting a deal for himself. A woman has signed an affidavit saying she too lied about Mr. Ranta’s involvement.'via Blog this'

Gideon’s Muted Trumpet - NYTimes.com

Gideon’s Muted Trumpet - NYTimes.com:
by Paul Butler

FIFTY years after the Supreme Court, in Gideon v. Wainwright, guaranteed legal representation to poor people charged with serious crimes, low-income criminal defendants, particularly black ones, are significantly worse off.Don’t blame public defenders, who are usually overwhelmed. The problem lies with power-drunk prosecutors — I know, because I used to be one — and “tough on crime” lawmakers, who have enacted some of the world’s harshest sentencing laws. They mean well, but have created a system that makes a mockery of “equal justice under the law.” A black man without a high school diploma is more likely to be in prison than to have a job.A poor person has a much greater chance of being incarcerated now than when Gideon was decided, 50 years ago today. This is not because of increased criminality — violent crime has plunged from its peak in the early 1990s — but because of prosecutorial policies that essentially target the poor and relegate their lawyers to negotiating guilty pleas, rather than mounting a defense.

'via Blog this'

So smart, the smart guys who brought us the Iraq War

More on the tenth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.
Let's remember that the Washington know-it-alls - including my heroes John Kerry and Hillary Clinton - bought the weapons of mass destruction line that brought us the second Iraq war.  I did not.  Here is a chart - thanks James Fallows - and a quote from smart guy Paul Wolfowitz.  Thirty years ago I heard Ambassador Paul Warnke say to a dinner audience "when they tell you to trust them because  they know things you don't...they don't" - gwc

By late December [2002] some 200,000 members of the U.S. armed forces were en route to staging areas surrounding Iraq.... Declaring that it was impossible to make predictions about a war that might not occur, the Administration refused to discuss plans for the war's aftermath--or its potential cost. In December the President fired Lawrence Lindsey, his chief economic adviser, after Lindsey offered a guess that the total cost might be $100 billion to $200 billion. 

Then, official estimates as combat began a few months later:

On March 27 [2003], eight days into combat, members of the House Appropriations Committee asked Paul Wolfowitz for a figure. He told them that whatever it was, Iraq's oil supplies would keep it low. "There's a lot of money to pay for this," he said. "It doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." 

Conservatives and American Power | Commonweal magazine

Brilliant observation: the GI Bill and the Marshall Plan go hand in hand. - gwc
Conservatives and American Power | Commonweal magazine:
by E.J. Dionne

Those who share Paul's philosophical orientation are quite right in seeing the rise of American power in the world as closely linked to the rise of the New Deal/Great Society state at home. But this means that those who want the United States to play a strong role in global affairs need to ask themselves if their attitudes toward government's role inside our country, which are similar to Paul's, are consistent with their vision of American influence abroad.

After World War II, there was a rough consensus in America, confirmed during Dwight Eisenhower's presidency in the 1950s, in favor of an energetic national government.We emerged from the war as a global power that had learned lessons from the Great Depression. Government action could lessen the likelihood of another disastrous economic downturn and build a more just and prosperous society at home by investing in our people and our future.

Thus did the Marshall Plan and the GI Bill go hand in hand. The Marshall Plan eased Western Europe's recovery from the devastation of war, thereby protecting friendly governments and opening new markets for American goods. The GI Bill educated a generation of veterans, spurring prosperity from the bottom up by enabling millions to join a growing middle class.Eisenhower built on these achievements by creating the first college loan program and launching the interstate highway system. It's no accident that the former was establishing by the National Defense Education Act while the latter was known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act.

'via Blog this'

Democrats don't plan hearings on Christie's N.J. Supreme Court nominees for at least 8 months | NJ.com

You can't put Humpty Dumpty together again.  For 50 years New Jersey's Supreme Court worked within a range from moderate Republican to liberal Democrat.  When Chris Christie came in he said he was going to break some china - reverse the court's excessive (in his view) liberalism.  Chief among his suburban resentments were the  Abbott v. Burke 40 year old litigation for equitable funding of urban schools, and the Mt. Laurel open housing - land use controls.
Christie promptly  denied a tenure nomination to 68 year old John Wallace - a moderate Black Democrat on the state's high court, citing his record as too liberal.  That introduction of a previously unseen ardent partisanship is the genie that the Governor cannot put back in the bottle.  Having embraced partisanship, he enters his re-election campaign with two vacancies on the Supreme Court.  The Democrat-controlled legislature wants a Democrat to be one of them.   The standoff appears headed to resolution after the November general elections. - gwc
Democrats don't plan hearings on Christie's N.J. Supreme Court nominees for at least 8 months | NJ.com:

TRENTON — Senate Democrats don’t plan hearings on Gov. Chris Christie’s two nominees for the state Supreme Court until at least November, two senior Democrats with knowledge of the party’s thinking confirmed to the Star-Ledger.
After Democrats rejected his previous two nominees, Christie in December nominated Superior Court Judge David Bauman, a Republican, and Board of Public Utilities President Robert Hanna, an independent.
But Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), who decides whether or not to post nominations, has not said much about the nominees.

Federal jury convicts Paul Bergrin of murder, racketeering, 21 other charges | NJ.com

Paul Bergrin

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney turned high profile defense lawyer Paul Bergrin was convicted of murder and twenty other serious charges today.  Representing himself, this was his second trial.  Last year a mistrial was declared after jury deadlock.  At the government's request the Third Circuit removed trial judge William Martini, saying that there appeared to be bias toward defendant in his handling of the Bergrin trial.  It is the final descent for the formidable but tragically flawed lawyer. - gwc
Federal jury convicts Paul Bergrin of murder, racketeering, 21 other charges | NJ.com:

by Jason Grant- The StarLedgerPaul Bergrin, the once-prominent defense lawyer, has been found guilty of all 23 criminal counts today, including murder and conspiracy to murder, following a long high-profile criminal trial in federal court.The verdict was announced moments ago in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh in Newark.  "it's been a long time coming. We have a great team." U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said shortly after the verdict was read.Prosecutors John Gay and Joseph Minish have been trying for years to win a verdict against Bergrin and put him away. With the across-the-board guilty verdict, Bergrin, 57, now faces the real prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars, lawyers on both sides of the case say.A hard-charging criminal lawyer who has said he's handled more 150 trials, Bergrin represented himself against a litany of counts. His trial began Jan. 22. Some of the counts focused on allegations that Bergrin plotted to kill witnesses against legal clients while others zeroed in on allegations he was involved in trafficking cocaine.Bergrin became well known after representing drug kingpins, rap stars such as Lil’ Kim, and U.S. soldiers in Iraq in the 2000s. He has been held in federal, pre-trial lockup since he was arrested in 2009.  'via Blog this'

Maids and judges: who deserve a bigger raise? | South China Morning Post

Current exchange rate: 1 Hong Kong $ =  $0.13 U.S.
Maids and judges: who deserve a bigger raise? | South China Morning Post: 

"Hong Kong gave pay raises to two groups of people recently. The city's 300,000 foreign domestic helpers had their minimum wage bumped up 4.8%, or HK$180 per month. "Too big," says a representative of their employers, who believes 3% would have been much more reasonable.  Meanwhile, the city's judicial elite of 144 judges got a 5.66% pay rise. The response from concerned groups -- lawmakers and lawyers -- however, is quite different. They believe the judges' pay, which ranges between HK$200,000 and HK$250,000 a month, is still too low to attract top judicial talent.  Both groups are hard-working and indispensable to Hong Kong. But who deserves a bigger raise? "

'via Blog this'

China's government reorganizes - SCMP

Newspapering Is a Business: The Death of the Legendary Boston Phoenix | TPM News

"never got rich but we are going to heaven"
Clif Garboden (1948-2011), Sr. Managing Editor, the Boston Phoenix

Newspapering Is a Business: The Death of the Legendary Boston Phoenix | TPM News:
Camille Dodero at Gawker remembers Clif Garboden and the Boston Phoenix, theAlternative Newsweekly.

To Clif, the collection of people around him, for all their faults and foibles, was something very special. They could see the hypocrisies in the world and felt an existential obligation to do something about them—and more than that, to nurture and to recruit people who could do the same, his kind of people.By that, he meant a few things: Smart People Who Gave a Fuck, People With a Work Ethic, People With Talent, but also, in some cases, People From Blue-Collar/Low Income Families. People like Clif himself, a kid from the bad neighborhood in Pittsburgh, who once likened his socio-economic escape to sneaking across the tracks and under barbed wire. People like Chris, a brilliantly witty British writer who’d spent years working as a mover and started his entry-level writing job answering phones as an editorial assistant at the age of 32. People who otherwise would’ve ended up restaurant staff or retail employees or other assorted cogs because they didn’t have parents who could help with the rent while they struggled to become writers. People like me.

'via Blog this'

Man Behind '47 Percent' Video Says Camera Wasn't Hidden | TPM LiveWire

Man Behind '47 Percent' Video Says Camera Wasn't Hidden | TPM LiveWire:
Scott Prouty, the bartender who filmed the Romney `47% speech/, is interviewed by Huffington Post Live.
He is an impressive guy who made a stubborn effort to get the video out.  He posted the first clip on May 31 on YouTube as "Romney Exposed".  Others followed  - and some were blocked!  Finally HuffPost broke the story in October.  He has a working class perspective that is both naive and brilliant. Watch it.

Who are the people who were waiting for Pope Francis? = Sr. Joan Chittester - NCRonline

Joan Chittister, O.P.

Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister asks

Who are the people who were waiting for Pope Francis?  (National Catholic Reorter Online)
It gets spiritually exhausting to go on waiting for a pastor again and instead getting a scolding, reactionary church whose idea of perfection is the century before the last one rather than the century after this one.

They're weary of seeing contraception being treated as more sinful than the sexual abuse of children.

All in all, they're weary of being told, "Don't even think about it." They're weary of being treated as if they are bodies and souls without a brain.

It's weariness, weariness, weariness. It's not an angry, violent, revolutionary response. It's much worse than that. It's a weary one, and weariness is a very dangerous thing. When people are weary, they cease to care; they cease to listen; they cease to wait.

These are the kind of people who waited for a new pope, whatever kind of man he might be.

At first sight, Jorge Mario Bergoglio -- Pope Francis -- is a quiet and humble man, a pastoral man and as a Latin American, a leader of 51 million Catholics, or the largest concentration of Catholics on the planet, which is not business-as-usual as far as papal history goes.

But perhaps the most profound and memorable moment of his introduction is that he presented himself on the balcony in front of thousands of people from all parts of the world not in the brocaded fashion of a pope, but in a simple white cassock.

And then came the real shock: He bowed to the people. Bowed. And asked them to pray a blessing down on him before he blessed them. Francis, I remembered, was the Christian who reached out to Muslims. Francis, the one who listened to every creature in the universe and dialogued with it.

Indeed, if this Francis, too, is a listener, there is hope for reconciliation, hope for healing, hope for the development of the church.

No doubt about it: We know who the people are who have been waiting for a pope and why they are weary. The question now is, Does he know how weary they are? And does he care? Really?

From where I stand, something has to change. Maybe, just maybe, this time ...

Francis - the new, Jesuit Pope

Pope Francis

John Allen - the National Catholic Reporter's superb Vatican reporter - commented a few days ago on Cardinal Bergoglio as a candidate.  Now that we actually have a Jesuit pope! one has to say it is encouraging.  Not because he is a liberal - all signs are that he is not - but because he has accommodated himself to membership in an order which values education, science, and has withstood persecution - by Popes.  And that he has taken the name Francis is a sign that he embraces the Society's "preferential option for the poor".  But as my Buenos Aires-born associate Pablo Blanco often said "an Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish and thinks he's a Brit".  Time will tell. - GWC

ROMEIn the days leading up to the conclave, John Allen offered a profile each day of one of the most frequently touted papabili, or men who could be pope. On March 3, he profiled Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was elected March 13 to be Pope Francis. Here is the profile Allen wrote:by John Allen/National Catholic ReporterWhile there are still no tracking polls to establish who's got legs as a papal candidate, the 2013 conclave at least has one objective measure not available in 2005: past performance. Many of the cardinals seen as candidates now were also on offer the last time around, and someone who had traction eight years ago could be a contender again.By that measure alone, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, at least merits a look.

After the dust settled from the election of Benedict XVI, various reports identified the Argentine Jesuit as the main challenger to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. One cardinal later said the conclave had been "something of a horse race" between Ratzinger and Bergoglio, and an anonymous conclave diary splashed across the Italian media in September 2005 claimed that Bergoglio received 40 votes on the third ballot, just before Ratzinger crossed the two-thirds threshold and became pope.

Though it's hard to say how seriously one should take the specifics, the general consensus is that Bergoglio was indeed the "runner-up" last time around. He appealed to conservatives in the College of Cardinals as a man who had held the line against liberalizing currents among the Jesuits, and to moderates as a symbol of the church's commitment to the developing world.

Support NCR's coverage of the conclave.



Donate now!Back in 2005, Bergoglio drew high marks as an accomplished intellectual, having studied theology in Germany. His leading role during the Argentine economic crisis burnished his reputation as a voice of conscience, and made him a potent symbol of the costs globalization can impose on the world's poor.




Bergoglio's reputation for personal simplicity also exercised an undeniable appeal – a Prince of the Church who chose to live in a simple apartment rather than the archbishop's palace, who gave up his chauffeured limousine in favor of taking the bus to work, and who cooked his own meals.

Another measure of Bergoglio's seriousness as a candidate was the negative campaigning that swirled around him eight years ago.

Three days before the 2005 conclave, a human rights lawyer in Argentina filed a complaint charging Bergoglio with complicity in the 1976 kidnapping of two liberal Jesuit priests under the country's military regime, a charge Bergoglio flatly denied. There was also an e-mail campaign, claiming to originate with fellow Jesuits who knew Bergoglio when he was the provincial of the order in Argentina, asserting that "he never smiled."

All of that by way of saying, Bergoglio was definitely on the radar screen. Of course he's eight years older now, and at 76 is probably outside the age window many cardinals would see as ideal. Further, the fact he couldn't get over the hump last time may convince some cardinals there's no point going back to the well.

That said, many of the reasons that led members of the college to take him seriously eight years ago are still in place.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1936, Bergoglio's father was an Italian immigrant and railway worker from the region around Turin, and he has four brothers and sisters. His original plan was to be a chemist, but in 1958 he instead entered the Society of Jesus and began studies for the priesthood. He spent much of his early career teaching literature, psychology and philosophy, and early on he was seen as a rising star. From 1973 to 1979 he served as the Jesuit provincial in Argentina, then in 1980 became the rector of the seminary from which he had graduated.

These were the years of the military junta in Argentina, when many priests, including leading Jesuits, were gravitating towards the progressive liberation theology movement. As the Jesuit provincial, Bergoglio insisted on a more traditional reading of Ignatian spirituality, mandating that Jesuits continue to staff parishes and act as chaplains rather than moving into "base communities" and political activism.

Although Jesuits generally are discouraged from receiving ecclesiastical honors and advancement, especially outside mission countries, Bergoglio was named auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and then succeeded the ailing Cardinal Antonio Quarracino in 1998. John Paul II made Bergoglio a cardinal in 2001, assigning him the Roman church named after the legendary Jesuit St. Robert Bellarmino.

Over the years, Bergoglio became close to the Comunione e Liberazione movement founded by Italian Fr. Luigi Giussani, sometimes speaking at its massive annual gathering in Rimini, Italy. He's also presented Giussani's books at literary fairs in Argentina. This occasionally generated consternation within the Jesuits, since the ciellini once upon a time were seen as the main opposition to Bergoglio's fellow Jesuit in Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini.

On the other hand, that's also part of Bergoglio's appeal, someone who personally straddles the divide between the Jesuits and the ciellini, and more broadly, between liberals and conservatives in the church.

Bergoglio has supported the social justice ethos of Latin American Catholicism, including a robust defense of the poor.

"We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least," Bergoglio said during a gathering of Latin American bishops in 2007. "The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers."

At the same time, he has generally tended to accent growth in personal holiness over efforts for structural reform.

Bergoglio is seen an unwaveringly orthodox on matters of sexual morality, staunchly opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception. In 2010 he asserted that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children, earning a public rebuke from Argentina's President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Nevertheless, he has shown deep compassion for the victims of HIV-AIDS; in 2001, he visited a hospice to kiss and wash the feet of 12 AIDS patients.

Bergoglio also won high marks for his compassionate response to the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires of a seven-story building housing the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association and the Delegation of the Argentine Jewish Association. It was one of the worst anti-Jewish attacks ever in Latin America, and in 2005 Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, praised Bergoglio's leadership.

"He was very concerned with what happened, Ehrenkranz said. "He's got experience."

Nevertheless, after the conclave of 2005 some cardinals candidly admitted to doubts that Bergoglio really had the steel and "fire in the belly" needed to lead the universal church. Moreover, for most of the non-Latin Americans, Bergoglio was an unknown quantity. A handful remembered his leadership in the 2001 Synod of Bishops, when Bergoglio replaced Cardinal Edward Egan of New York as the relator, or chairman, of the meeting after Egan went home to help New Yorkers cope with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In that setting, Bergoglio left a basically positive but indistinct impression.

Bergoglio may be basically conservative on many issues, but he's no defender of clerical privilege, or insensitive to pastoral realities. In September 2012, he delivered a blistering attack on priests who refuse to baptize children born out of wedlock, calling it a form of "rigorous and hypocritical neo-clericalism."

The case for Bergoglio in 2013 rests on four points.

First and most basically, he had strong support last time around, and some cardinals may think that they're getting another bite at the apple now.

Second, Bergoglio is a candidates who brings together the first world and the developing world in his own person. He's a Latin American with Italian roots, who studied in Germany. As a Jesuit he's a member of a truly international religious community, and his ties to Comunione e Liberazionemake him part of another global network.

Third, Bergoglio still has appeal across the usual divides in the church, drawing respect from both conservatives and moderates for his keen pastoral sense, his intelligence, and his personal modesty. He's also seen as a genuinely spiritual soul, and a man of deep prayer.

"Only someone who has encountered mercy, who has been caressed by the tenderness of mercy, is happy and comfortable with the Lord," Bergoglio said in 2001. "I beg the theologians who are present not to turn me in to the Sant'Uffizio or the Inquisition; however, forcing things a bit, I dare to say that the privileged locus of the encounter is the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ on my sin."

Fourth, he's also seen as a successful evangelist.

"We have to avoid the spiritual sickness of a self-referential church," Bergoglio said recently. "It's true that when you get out into the street, as happens to every man and woman, there can be accidents. However, if the church remains closed in on itself, self-referential, it gets old. Between a church that suffers accidents in the street, and a church that's sick because it's self-referential, I have no doubts about preferring the former."

On the other hand, there are compelling reasons to believe that Bergoglio's window of opportunity to be pope has already closed.

First, he's eight years older than in 2005, and at 76 he would only be two years younger than Benedict XVI was when he became pope. Especially on the heels of a papal resignation on the basis of age and exhaustion, many cardinals may balk at electing someone that old, fearing it would set the church up for another shock to the system.

Second, although Bergoglio was a serious contender in 2005, he couldn't attract sufficient support to get past the two-thirds threshold needed to be elected pope. Especially for the 50 cardinals who were inside the conclave eight years ago, they may be skeptical that the results would be any different this time around.

Third, the doubts that circulated about Bergoglio's toughness eight years ago may arguably be even more damaging now, given that the ability to govern. and to take control of the Vatican bureaucracy, seems to figure even more prominently on many cardinals' wish lists this time. Although Bergoglio is a member of several Vatican departments, including the Congregations for Divine Worship and for Clergy, he's never actually worked inside the Vatican, and there may be concerns about his capacity to take the place in hand.

Fourth, there's the standard ambivalence about Jesuits in high office, both from within the order and among some on the outside. That may have been a factor in slowing Bergoglio's progress last time, and nothing has changed the calculus in the time since.

Whether Bergoglio catches fire again as a candidate remains to be seen; one Italian writer quoted an anonymous cardinal on March 2 as saying, "Four years of Bergoglio would be enough to change things." Given his profile, however, Bergoglio seems destined to plan an important role in this conclave – if not as king, then as a kingmaker.

Marianne of ’68 | Iconic Photos

Unforgettable. To me she was Jeanne D'Arc - gwcMarianne of ’68 | Iconic Photos: "France government came close to collapse in May 1968, enveloped in what was the largest political action in a developed country to date; eleven million workers protested over a period of two weeks in a political anomaly that rejected both communism and capitalism."

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Dworkin was The Most Important Legal Philosopher of Our Time - Sunstein --Bloomberg

Cass Sunstein on the late Ronald Dworkin
The Most Important Legal Philosopher of Our Time - Bloomberg:

Ronald Dworkin, a professor at New York University and the University of Oxford who died this week, was one of the most important legal philosophers of the last 100 years. He may well head the list.

He made countless enduring contributions to philosophy and legal theory. Among his greatest is a distinctive answer to a longstanding question: Do judges find law, or do they make it? His answer is a huge improvement over the crude alternatives that dominate public debates.

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Deciding to Support Pot Legalization | TPM Editors Blog

Talking Points Memo founder/editor/publisher Josh Marshall has changed his mind on legalizing marijuana.  And it's not because he thinks it's good medicine. It's because the drug war has been a catastrophe, and well, read him. - gwc

Deciding to Support Pot Legalization | TPM Editors Blog:
by Josh Marshall

"I mentioned in this earlier post that I now support marijuana legalization. I’m not sure I’m the person anyone looks to on this issue. But I thought I’d share some of why I changed my mind — in part because it has something to do with gay marriage." 'via Blog this'

Former San Francisco archbishop calls for papal reforms ahead of conclave | National Catholic Reporter

Former San Francisco archbishop calls for papal reforms ahead of conclave | National Catholic Reporter:

STANFORD, CALIF.

With the world's cardinals set to choose a new pope, Emeritus Archbishop of San Francisco John Quinn on Saturday called for major church governance reforms, including changes in the papacy itself.

"Media reports dealing with reform tend to focus on clerical celibacy and on the ordination of women and on the reform of the [Roman] Curia. ... These are important topics, but it would be a mistake to stop there," Quinn said.

"Today, if we want to deal seriously with the legacy of Vatican II and issues of reform we must have the courage to consider the deeper questions. This is not possible unless the paramount issue of the exercise of the papal office is addressed."

Quinn, who spoke as part of a daylong symposium, "The Legacy of Vatican II: Personal Reflections," at Stanford University, called for major decentralization of Vatican and papal authority. He said this could be achieved through the creation of regional bishops' conferences and synods of bishops with decision-making authority.

This week's conclave, he said, has potential to be one of the most critical moments in the history of the church since the Reformation. The cardinals "need to see themselves and the whole Catholic church poised at a moment of far-reaching consequences," he said.

Key reforms intended by the bishops at Vatican II (1962-1965) have not taken place, Quinn told a packed audience here. The result has been ineffective and even dysfunctional governance in the years since the council, he added.

He said shared bishops' decision-making with the pope is needed. Such decision-making "is not the result of a juridical decree, not the result of the action of a council, and not the result of the decision of any pope." Rather, it is rooted in the ordination of the bishop and the doctrine that he is a successor to the apostles of Jesus, Quinn said.

He said shared episcopal decision-making was "the legacy of Vatican II."

"A very large number of bishops are of the opinion that there is not any real or meaningful collegiality in the church today," he said.

Years after Quinn served as archbishop of San Francisco from 1977 to 1995 and president of the U.S. bishops' conference from 1977 to 1980, he remains an important intellectual figure among the U.S. bishops.

In 1991, in response to Pope John Paul II's request for suggestions on how to reform the papacy he wrote a book on the subject, drawing acclaim at the time.

Quinn offered examples of the ways over-centralized church decision-making has hurt the church, running contrary to ideas of collegiality proposed at the council.

Quinn said local bishops now "have no perceptible influence" in the appointment of bishops. Instead, appointments are made in Rome, often by men who do not adequately know local diocesan needs.

"The bishops of the region may never have heard the name of a bishop sent to their area," Quinn said. "Often, bishops submit multiple names and none of them is accepted."

Quinn also cited changes in the words Catholics use during the Mass. He said the intentions of local bishops "who best understand local language and customs" was disregarded by the Vatican when it decreed new liturgical language norms two years ago.

"The observations of the bishops' conferences had little influence and at the end of the consultation with conferences a very large number of changes were made in the final text which the bishops had never seen," Quinn said.

He suggested two governance changes to rebalance church decision-making and to decentralize church authority. Both, he said, come out of church history and tradition: regional bishops' conferences and deliberative episcopal synods.

These moves, he said, would involve separating two aspects of the function of the papacy: "the unity of faith and communion" and administration. The pope would have "the burden of fostering unity, collaboration and charity, but church administration would become more regional."

In such a reconfiguration, the appointment of bishops, the creation of dioceses, questions of liturgy and other matters of Catholic practices would be up the regional bishops' conferences, Quinn said.

There is no doctrine of faith nor any provision of canon law that would prevent the creation of new patriarchal structures in the church, he said.

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Elizabeth Warren does have a point

We imprison more of our population than any other nation on earth.  But not for money laundering and other financial crimes.  `Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a million and they make you king' is how Dylan put it in Sweetheart Like You.  Here is how Peoples Electric Law School graduate Sen. Elizabeth Warren put it today in Senate hearings:

On Questioning the Jewish State - NYTimes.com

Family, band, clan, tribe, nation.  It seems to be a natural, logical progression.  It certainly is historically descriptive.  But in America we claim (at least formally) that we know no tribe, caste, etc.,  that we are all Americans by birth, or attachment to the idea that we all are equal or welcome, or love freedom, etc.  We promise equal protection to all.  The UMass philosopher Joseph Levine here questions the idea of a tribal state - Israel - whose reasons for being are painfully clear to anyone who remembers what must not be forgotten - the Nazis and the Holocaust. - gwc
On Questioning the Jewish State - NYTimes.com: 
by Joseph Levine, UMass

"There is an unavoidable conflict between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. I want to emphasize that there’s nothing anti-Semitic in pointing this out, and it’s time the question was discussed openly on its merits, without the charge of anti-Semitism hovering in the background...."

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Johnson & Johnson Must Pay $8.3 million in First Hip-Implant Case - NYTimes.com

This plaintiff's victory in the first design defect trial involving the dangerous ASR all-metal hip implant is unsurprising.  The win demonstrates the viability of design defect claims for medical devices.  In Section 6(c) the product liability Restatement Third sought to bar such claims - a position I criticized ten years ago in the UCLA Law Review, and elsewhere..  Fortunately the Restatement was not widely adopted.  But five years ago in Riegel v. Medtronic the U.S. Supreme Court, so often a graveyard for product liability claims, barred design defect cases for devices that went through full new product review by the FDA.  
Plaintiffs in the DePuy were were able to proceed because J&J got approval by claiming that the new device was of a general type in use before 1976, thereby avoiding the new product approval process which the Supreme Court has said preempted tort claims for negligent design.
Surprisingly the jury's rejection of punitive damages may be good news for plaintiffs.  The ample $8.3 million award demonstrates the confidence the jury had that J&J's conduct was wrongful.  Alfred Julien - the great trial lawyer of the 60's and 70's - avoided punitive damages claims.  His insight was that focusing on the failure to take precautions was the most effective way to persuade a the jury that there was a wrong to be righted - empowering it to make a fully adequate damages award.  
Here - as in the typical successful product liability case - the jury learned that engineers and physicians who warned about hazards were overridden by marketing execs.  Neglect of the interests of others - rather than the intent to harm others - is the easier case to prove - and provides sufficient confidence to juries to make full compensation awards.- GWC
Johnson & Johnson Must Pay in First Hip-Implant Case - NYTimes.com:

A jury in Los Angeles on Friday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $8.3 million in damages in the first lawsuit to go to court against the company in connection with a now-recalled all-metal artificial hip implant.But the 12-person panel declined to issue punitive damages against the company’s DePuy orthopedic division, saying it did not act with fraud or malice in its marketing of the device.Johnson & Johnson faces some 10,000 lawsuits from patients who received the implant, which was known as the Articular Surface Replacement, or A.S.R.The A.S.R., which the company recalled in mid-2010, has one of the highest early failure rates of any orthopedic device sold in recent years.An internal Johnson & Johnson document introduced at the Los Angeles trial estimated that some 40 percent of patients who received the device will need to undergo a second operation to have it removed and replaced within five years.

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What’s the Right Prescription for Legal Education? | On Lawyering

What’s the Right Prescription for Legal Education? | On Lawyering:
by Richard T. Cassidy

Recently, I happened upon an opinion piece there by James L. Huffman, Dean Emeritus of the Lewis and Clark Law School and a member of the Hoover Institution’s Task Force on Property Rights, Freedom and Prosperity. Huffman’s piece, entitled “Perverse Incentive of the Lawyers Guild,” (Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2013), analyzes the current problems facing American legal education. As he notes, costs are up and applications are down. Law schools are scrambling to stay afloat. And as mentioned in my most recent post “Distant Rumblings from the ABA Meeting, ” the ABA has created a task force on the future of legal education, charged with studying the problem and recommending solutions.
Huffman rightly suggests that the ABA should look within. He suggests that the fundamental problem is rooted in an endemic tendency of regulation. He argues that the regulators have captured the regulator, here the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
He has a point. The Section on Legal Education is dominated by law school deans and tenured law school faculty. The section sets the accreditation standards for law schools. It’s no surprise that those standards require that 80% of law school teaching be performed by full-time faculty, currently tenured or eligible for tenure.
At almost every law school, tenured faculty have one common characteristic: they were the most academically gifted law students of their generations. In short, they were “good at law school.”
That doesn’t necessarily make law professors good at practicing law. Almost every law professor I know has all the ability it would take to be a great practicing lawyer, but little or no interest in being one. Few have much practical experience.
Most law school faculty members are interested in research and writing about jurisprudence: the philosophy or science of law. It’s an important subject matter and learning about it is critical to being a good lawyer. But as I’ve argued often in the past, it’s just not enough.
To this point in the argument, Huffman and I — liberal and conservative — agree completely. Our analysis of the problem is the same. But his prescription for change and mine differ, at least in emphasis.
Trusting to the market, Huffman suggests that the ABA should “free law schools from most of the existing standards and encourage them to draw on the enormous intellectual power of their faculties to design and test innovative approaches – – and let a thousand flowers bloom.” In his view, “the ABA’s role should be limited to assuring that prospective students and legal employers get full and honest information about what could become a bonanza of legal education alternatives.”
In my view, we know a lot about the knowledge and skills law students ought to be taught to serve the public well as practicing lawyers. Many members of the public are not well-equipped to evaluate whether the lawyer they are hiring has what’s needed to competently handle their problem.
I think the rules of accreditation should be changed to require that law schools be what the name suggests they are: professional schools graduating students with the basic knowledge and skills required to competently handle legal problems requiring professional attention.

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To Place Graduates, Law Schools Are Opening Firms - NYTimes.com

Because these "low bono" law school operated "law firms" are neither law school clinics for the poor nor public interest firms the question arises in New Jersey whether a law school can own and operate such a firm which charges sub-market rates.   Rutgers Dean John J. Farmer in a recent op-ed article in the Times called for such "apprenticeships".  But law firm names in New Jersey must bear the names of the partners, [RPC 7.5] or be legal assistance or public interest law firms. [Rule 1:21-1(e)] These law school-based firms are neither fish nor fowl.
To Place Graduates, Law Schools Are Opening Firms - NYTimes.com: by Ethan Bronner

TEMPE, Ariz. — When Douglas J. Sylvester, dean of the law school at Arizona State University, was visiting the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota a couple of years ago he mentioned the shifting job market for his students — far fewer offers and a new demand for graduates already able to draft documents and interact with clients.The Mayo dean responded that his medical students and graduates gained clinical experience in hospital rounds closely supervised by attending physicians.“I realized that was what we needed,” Mr. Sylvester recalled. “A teaching hospital for law school graduates.”....

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Father of cop cannot hear police cases - NJ Supreme Court

One may kvell at the sight of one's son in uniform - but not from the bench in the town where he serves, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in IMO  Advisory Letter No. 7-11

"Would a reasonable, fully informed person, knowing that Judge Boyd's son is a Perth Amboy police officer, have doubts about Judge Boyd's impartiality in deciding a case that pits the credibility of a Perth Amboy police officer against that of a litigant? We believe the answer to that question is yes," Justice Barry Albin wrote for the court.

George M.  Boyd is the long serving Chief Judge of the Perth Amboy Municipal Court which hears motor vehicle, domestic violence, and low level criminal cases, including many cases involving drug offenses.   Policemen are frequent witnesses, of course.  When Boyd advised  Middle County Assignment Judge Travis Francis of the son's swearing in the son's cases were at first transferred to a neighboring town.  But shortly thereafter, citing a 1992 administrative directive Francis directed Boyd to resign from the bench.  When Boyd protested that Superior Court policies did not bind him Francis referred it to the Advisory Committee on Extra Judicial Conduct.  Boyd petitioned the Supreme Court when the Committee ruled against him.

Now, though winning no prizes for metaphor, or is it simile, the Supreme Court declared:

The figure of justice blindfolded, holding a scale equally balanced, is a common feature atop many courthouses. That symbol carries a simple message -- all stand before the law as  equals, and justice will be administered fairly and impartially. If the public is to keep faith in the ideals represented by that symbol, then it must have complete confidence in the integrity of the judges who administer our system of justice. 

Citing Judicial Canon 2's appearance of impropriety standard the court finds that a member of the public could reasonably suspect bias when a City police officer's credibility is an issue.   Boyd is therefore barred from hearing any cases involving police witnesses.  Since that is a major portion of the work of the court and the two judges he supervises, he appears to have little choice but to resign - or ask his son to give up his post.