Justice Department Pledges to Step Up Crime Fighting in Indian Country: At Blog of Legal Times, Mike Scarcella reports that the Department of Justice plans to partner with tribal leaders to improve law enforcement in tribal communities. At the National Congress on American Indians in New York, Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli stated that $225 million in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
is dedicated to improving and building correctional facilities on Indian land with an additional $20 million in the 2009 omnibus appropriations bill designated to provide equipment, technology and training to law
enforcement officers.
Federal Judge Allows Padilla v. Yoo to Go Forward: Ashby Jones reports at Wall Street Journal's Law Blog that Judge Jeffrey White of San Francisco ruled that convicted terrorist Jose Padilla can sue John Yoo for drafting legal theories that led to his alleged torture. Reasoning that Yoo went beyond the normal role of an attorney when he helped write the Bush administration's detention and torture policies and drafted legal opinions to justify those policies, Judge White stated that "government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct." Jones reports that the ruling rejected government's arguments that the courts are barred from examining top-level administration decisions in wartime
Papers and Studies of the Supreme Court: On Sunday David Stras posted an "Academic Roundup" on SCOTUSblog, and reviewed two academic articles discussing the Supreme Court. The first, Remaking the United States Supreme Court in the Courts' of Appeals Image, proposes that the United States Supreme Court be modeled after the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Its authors, Tracey George and Chris Guthrie believe increasing the number of Justices, and having them sit in panels of three, could increase the decision-making capacity of the Court. They believe this would ultimately improve the consistency and clarity of the law. The second article, Ducking Trouble: Congressionally-Induced Selection Bias in the Supreme Court's Agenda, addresses whether the Court is influenced by Congressional preferences, and concludes that between 1987 and 2001, the Rehnquist Court behaved differently when there was a Democratic Congress rather than a Republican one. The studies authors, Barry Friedman and Anna L. Harvey wrote "[t]he Court is significantly less likely to review statutes when there are large congressionally-induced deviations between what the Court would like to do, and what is can do in its final rulings."
The Next Pick. Amy Harder at The Ninth Justice speculates on who the next Supreme Court nominee will be in the event of another vacancy. "Should another vacancy open up in the near future, with Obama busy tackling issues like health care and the economy, he would be unlikely to nominate a crusading liberal justice in the mold of William Brennan or Thurgood Marshall despite calls from the left, [UC's Geoffrey] Stone said." We certainly hope so.
Federal Judge Allows Padilla v. Yoo to Go Forward: Ashby Jones reports at Wall Street Journal's Law Blog that Judge Jeffrey White of San Francisco ruled that convicted terrorist Jose Padilla can sue John Yoo for drafting legal theories that led to his alleged torture. Reasoning that Yoo went beyond the normal role of an attorney when he helped write the Bush administration's detention and torture policies and drafted legal opinions to justify those policies, Judge White stated that "government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct." Jones reports that the ruling rejected government's arguments that the courts are barred from examining top-level administration decisions in wartime
Papers and Studies of the Supreme Court: On Sunday David Stras posted an "Academic Roundup" on SCOTUSblog, and reviewed two academic articles discussing the Supreme Court. The first, Remaking the United States Supreme Court in the Courts' of Appeals Image, proposes that the United States Supreme Court be modeled after the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Its authors, Tracey George and Chris Guthrie believe increasing the number of Justices, and having them sit in panels of three, could increase the decision-making capacity of the Court. They believe this would ultimately improve the consistency and clarity of the law. The second article, Ducking Trouble: Congressionally-Induced Selection Bias in the Supreme Court's Agenda, addresses whether the Court is influenced by Congressional preferences, and concludes that between 1987 and 2001, the Rehnquist Court behaved differently when there was a Democratic Congress rather than a Republican one. The studies authors, Barry Friedman and Anna L. Harvey wrote "[t]he Court is significantly less likely to review statutes when there are large congressionally-induced deviations between what the Court would like to do, and what is can do in its final rulings."
The Next Pick. Amy Harder at The Ninth Justice speculates on who the next Supreme Court nominee will be in the event of another vacancy. "Should another vacancy open up in the near future, with Obama busy tackling issues like health care and the economy, he would be unlikely to nominate a crusading liberal justice in the mold of William Brennan or Thurgood Marshall despite calls from the left, [UC's Geoffrey] Stone said." We certainly hope so.
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