Supreme Court to Hear Oral Arguments on Accountability for Detaining Citizens on Phony Grounds

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this week in Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd, a case concerning an American citizen detained for more than two weeks in harsh conditions on the specious grounds that he was a material witness.Abdullah Al-Kidd is an American-born United States citizen and convert to Islam who lives in Idaho. The FBI targeted Al-Kidd and his wife for surveillance and interviews during a broad terrorism investigation in the state following the attacks of September 11, 2001. The investigation revealed no evidence of wrongdoing by Al-Kidd or his wife. However, FBI agents arrested him...

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A Call for Supreme Court Ethics Reform

There have been dozens of stories written in the past few weeks about whether or not several Supreme Court justices have been upholding the high ethical standards we expect of our nation's highest court. The reports have looked at the justices’ participation in political activities and fundraising events, as well as questions related to whether justices should recuse themselves -- or should have recused themselves -- from cases before the Court.Disturbed by these accounts, 107 law professors from 76 law schools all across the country have come together to voice their concern and suggest solutions....

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Tell Congress: Act Now on Judicial Ethics

** UPDATE: THIS ALERT IS NO LONGER ACTIVE **  We expect our courts to be impartial and independent – it’s essential to the public’s faith in the judicial system. That’s why federal judges must adhere to a Code of Conduct that requires judges to “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary” and explicitly bans political activity.Shockingly, these rules do not apply to the Supreme Court.Likewise, when it comes to deciding whether or not to sit on a case in which his or her impartiality has been called into question, a...

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Justice Department Won't Fight for DOMA

Yesterday, President Obama announced that the Department of Justice would no longer defend against legal challenges to the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It’s an acknowledgment of what many already knew: that DOMA is unconstitutional and un-American. On its own, that’s a big step for equality in this countryBut it also means government lawyers will no longer spend time or taxpayer money fighting to keep millions of Americans from having the right to marry. The effort put into upholding DOMA was a stain on the American legal system, and its end marks a turning point in the fight...

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Supreme Court Allows Seatbelt Lawsuits to Go Forward

The Supreme Court held today in Williamson v. Mazda that a federal regulation requiring car manufacturers to install either lap-only seatbelts or lap-and-shoulder seatbelts does not preempt state tort suits claiming that the manufacturer should have chosen a lap-and-shoulder seatbelt. Thanh Williamson’s family sued Mazda in state court after she died from severe abdominal injuries and internal bleeding in a car accident when her body jackknifed around her lap seatbelt.The court distinguished this case from a 2000 decision – Geier v. Honda – which held that a regulation requiring manufacturers...

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Supreme Court Sides With Corporations and Rules Against Individuals Injured by Poorly Designed Vaccines

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) prevents individuals from suing vaccine manufacturers in state court for injuries arising from design defects in vaccinations. The law protects vaccine manufacturers from side effects that are unavoidable, but not all defects. The plaintiffs sued because their baby suffered seizures and became permanently injured after being injected with a vaccine that has since been altered.The Supreme Court upheld the Third Circuit’s ruling that the plaintiffs' claims were preempted by the NCVIA....

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Raising the Price of Justice

Late last week, the House of Representatives passed a budget amendment that has serious ramifications for access to justice in America.The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) provides some reimbursement for court costs incurred when individuals, small businesses, or certain non-profits successfully use the courts to hold the government accountable for an illegal action. As of 2009, most of those reimbursed by EAJA have been involved in Social Security and Veterans Affairs cases.Now, the House of Representatives, led by Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) has voted to stop repaying those legal fees.EAJA...

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Letters to the New York Times on Supreme Court Ethics

This weekend, the New York Times ran a letter from AFJ President Nan Aron, responding to recent discussions of ethics on the Supreme Court. We agree that justices needn’t live like “monks,” but the meetings attended by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas organized by the Koch brothers weren’t high-minded social events. Their purpose was to solicit and direct millions of dollars from wealthy donors to influence elections. Not only did the justices lend the prestige of their office to an overtly political event, but they also interacted directly with individuals and corporations...

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BP Responds to GCCF Claims Methodology

Today’s New York Times reports that BP has weighed in on the proposed claim and compensation methodology set forth by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility. The proposal outlines the steps and methods GCCF will use to determine how much to compensate the people who were harmed by BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.The oil giant is arguing that if anything, Mr. Feinberg’s proposed settlements are too generous. The planned payments far exceed the extent of likely future damages because they overstate the potential for future losses, the company insists in a strongly worded, 25-page document that was posted...

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Obama Nominates Two District Court Judges, Four Other Nominees Sent to the Senate Floor

Last night President Obama nominated two more judges to the federal bench. Judge Timothy M. Cain was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, and Judge Scott W. Skavdahl to the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming. Mr. Cain currently serves as a Family Court Judge in South Carolina's Tenth Judicial Circuit, and Mr. Skavdahl is a United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Wyoming.This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee considered nominees and sent four to the full Senate for a vote:Sue E. Myerscough and James E. Shadid, nominees...

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Gulf Coast Claims Methodology Needs Changes

As part of its ongoing effort to promote justice for the individuals struggling to recover from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Alliance for Justice has sent recommendations to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) on the proposed methodology for processing claims and calculating damages.Many Gulf Coast claimants face tough legal and procedural difficulties as they fight for fair compensation for their losses, and AFJ’s analysis has found that GCCF’s proposed methodology does not adequately protect residents’ rights. We found numerous ways in which the methodology needs to be improved if it...

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Alliance for Justice Joins 75 Organizations to Call on Senate to Return to "Regular Order" on Judicial Nominations

Alliance for Justice has joined with a diverse coalition of 75 other organizations in signing an open letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, urging the Senate to return to “regular order” and permit swift confirmation votes on President Obama’s judicial nominees.The letter decries the persistent pattern of obstruction in the last Congress that “led to the lowest percentage of a president’s nominees being confirmed at this point in his presidency than any president in American history.”The 76 groups signing the letter represent a wide range of constituencies...

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Senate Confirms Two Judges

Tonight the Senate confirmed James Graves Jr. to the United States Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit on a voice vote, and Edward Davila to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California by a vote of 93-0.Judge Graves is the first African American from Mississippi to serve on the Fifth Circuit, which hears cases from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Judge Davila is the second Latino judge (and the only active Latino judge) to serve on Northern District of California, which encompasses much of the California coast from the Oregon border down to Monterrey.The Senate...

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Taking Judicial Vacancies Seriously

During the first two years of President Obama’s term, an attitude has developed that the president’s nominees are routinely stalled or filibustered in the Senate, and that there’s nothing that can be done about it. To be sure, the Republican minority in the Senate has launched an unprecedented number of filibusters, and has run out the clock on dozens of nominees. But that’s only part of the story.In today’s New York Times, Jonathan Bernstein looks at whether there’s more that the Obama Administration could be doing.For one thing, the president has named only nine judges for the 17 appeals court...

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Will the Court Decide ACA's Constitutionality On a Party-Line Vote?

Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe wrote an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday rejecting the claim that the Supreme Court will overturn President Obama's health care reforms by a 5-4 party-line vote. Professor Tribe states that the conscious choice to opt out of carrying health insurance does indeed have a profound impact on the nationwide health care market, which puts it well within the established bounds of the Constitution's Commerce Clause:The justices aren’t likely to be misled by the reasoning that prompted two of the four federal courts that have ruled on this legislation...

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As Judicial Vacancies Rise to Crisis Levels, the Senate Confirms Three District Court Nominees, the First of the 112th Congress

This morning’s Washington Post ran a front page, above-the-fold article entitled "Federal judicial vacancies reaching crisis point." The Post reported that "Federal judges have been retiring at a rate of one per week this year, driving up vacancies that have nearly doubled since President Obama took office. The departures are increasing workloads dramatically and delaying trials in some of the nation's federal courts."The article contains several notable quotes from judges in overburdened districts. Chief Judge Roslyn O. Silver of the District of Arizona—which was declared a judicial emergency...

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CCR Files Indictment Against Bush Under International Anti-Torture Law

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), an Alliance for Justice member organization, and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) yesterday released a 42-page indictment [PDF link] against President Bush, making the case for his indictment under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).The groups had planned to file the document as an individual criminal complaint with the Swiss authorities in anticipation of the former president’s trip to Switzerland, but did not do so due to Bush canceling his trip the night before the complaint was to be filed. Instead, the groups released...

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President Bush Cancels Trip to Switzerland in Face of Possible Prosecution for Torture

It was recently announced that President Bush has canceled his upcoming trip February 12 trip to Switzerland, following a request by human rights organizations that the Swiss Justice Ministry open a criminal investigation into the former president based on his recent admission that he ordered the waterboarding of terrorist suspects. The groups argued that under the UN Convention Against Torture and domestic law, Swiss authorities were obligated to undertake investigation into acts of torture ordered by any individual on Swiss territory – including heads of state.The Washington Post has more...

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Judge Holds that Feinberg and GCCF Are Not Fully Independent of BP

Yesterday, Judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing the Gulf oil spill litigation against BP, held that Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) and its administrator, Ken Feinberg, are not fully independent of BP. As such, the Court held that GCCF must abide by certain limitations when communicating with people who might have claims against BP and other potentially liable parties.BP hired Feinberg to discharge its statutory duty to process claims for damages under the Oil Pollution Act (OPA). Judge Barbier wrote that in this sort of third-party arrangement, transparency is essential. The administration...

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Tea Party Judge Strikes Down Affordable Care Act in Sweeping Decision

On Monday, Judge Roger Vinson, a Reagan appointee, struck down the Affordable Care Act. The New York Times today published an editorial condemning Judge Vinson’s decision to find the entire health care bill unconstitutional as "a breathtaking example of judicial activism and overreach." When judges strike down part of a law as unconstitutional, the traditional practice is to issue a ruling as narrowly as possible, leaving intact parts of the law that do not raise constitutional concerns. Yet with reasoning that the New York Times characterized as "stretched past the breaking point," Judge...

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White House Counsel Seeks Up or Down Votes on Obama Nominees

Yesterday White House Counsel Bob Bauer called on the Senate to allow a vote on President Obama’s judicial nominees in order to address the growing judicial vacancy crisis. At a forum sponsored by the American Constitution Society, Bauer called the current rate of confirmations "perilously low" and stated that the Senate's failure to fill vacancies is overwhelming court dockets in a way that threatens the quality of justice.Currently, 101 of the 875 federal judgeships in the United States are vacant. Bauer stated that more than half of the jurisdictions with a vacancy have been declared...

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