Source: http://news.lawreader.com/?m=200809
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 12:25:58+00:00

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Under what circumstances should military members who’ve been convicted of crimes be allowed to file cert petitions with the Supreme Court? That issue — largely upstaged by the congressional vagaries on a certain bailout bill — is now going to the Senate, reports the NLJ.
Over the weekend, the House of Representatives approved, by voice vote, legislation that would open the doors of the Supreme Court to certain petitions by military service members convicted of crimes. Under current law, service members have a direct appeal to the Supreme Court only certain conditions, such as when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces has conducted a mandatory review (death penalty and certified cases) or granted discretionary review of a petition. But if the CAAF has denied a petition for review or a petition for a writ of extraordinary relief, the NLJ explains, Supreme Court review may be obtained only through collateral review, for example, a writ of habeas corpus.
The “Equal Justice for our Military Act” would change that, permitting service members to file high court petitions when the CAAF denies review of their case or their petitions for a writ of extraordinary relief.
“It is unjust to deny the members of our Armed Forces access to our system of justice as they fight for our freedom around the world,” said Susan Davis, D-Calif., the bill’s chief sponsor, at a recent House debate.
The cornerstone of a true democracy is due process. Currently, our active-duty troops under the [Uniform Code of Military Justice] are treated like second-class citizens when it comes to such due process. It is shameful that even enemy combatants have access to our highest court, but those serving to protect and defend us are shut out. . . It is disingenuous for us as a nation to send our uniformed citizens off to faraway countries to promote our democratic way without affording them a fundamental right of democracy . . .
Remember the Great Depression? It is interesting to review what happened then to understand what can happen today.
The following economic tutorial shows that in the run up to the Great Depression of the 1930’s we had many of the same conditions we are seeing now in our economy. The number one issue then was loss of liquidity in the credit markets. That is the problem the Paulson plan seeks to relieve.
The Government did not act to prevent bank failures in the Great Depression, as Hoover stood on doctrinaire grounds and allowed the Free Market to work itself out. This same doctrine was upheld by the House of Representatives yesterday when they failed to pass the Bailout bill.
The Bailout plan by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is an attempt to intervene quickly to prevent an economic collapse similar to that of the 1930’s.
We don’t know if the Paulsen plan is the right one, but we know from history that the Government did very little to save banks, and that in the end lack of consumer confidence in our banking and investment systems caused the problem to snowball.
Many protections (such as insured bank deposits) are in effect that so far has limited the effect on the consumer, of the half dozen bank failures to date. Whether this is enough to continue to uphold the consumer’s faith in our banking system is debatable. The reserves held by the government to insure depositors money up to $100,000 per account, is not a endless supply of funds….it can be depleted under a number of scenarios.
Recession cycles are thought to be a normal part of living in a world of inexact balances between supply and demand. What turns a usually mild and short recession or “ordinary” business cycle into a great depression is a subject of debate and concern. Scholars have not agreed on the exact causes and their relative importance.
The search for causes is closely connected to the question of how to avoid a future depression, and so the political and policy viewpoints of scholars are mixed into the analysis of historic events eight decades ago. The even larger question is whether it was largely a failure on the part of free markets or largely a failure on the part of governments to curtail widespread bank failures, the resulting panics, and reduction in the money supply.
Those who believe in a large role for governments in the economy believe it was mostly a failure of the free markets and those who believe in free markets believe it was mostly a failure of government that compounded the problem.
Current theories may be broadly classified into three main points of view.
First, there is orthodox classical economics: monetarist, Austrian Economics and neoclassical economic theory, all of which focus on the macroeconomic effects of money supply and the supply of gold which backed many currencies before the Great Depression, including production and consumption.
Second, there are structural theories, most importantly Keynesian, but also including those of institutional economics, that point to underconsumption and overinvestment (economic bubble), malfeasance by bankers and industrialists, or incompetence by government officials. The only consensus viewpoint is that there was a large-scale lack of confidence. Unfortunately, once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could make more money by keeping clear of the markets as prices got lower and lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods.
Third, there is the Marxist critique of political economy. This emphasizes contradictions within capital itself (which is viewed as a social relation involving the appropriation of surplus value) as giving rise to an inherently unbalanced dynamic of accumulation resulting in an overaccumulation of capital, culminating in periodic crises of devaluation of capital. The origin of crisis is thus located firmly in the sphere of production, though economic crisis can be aggravated by problems of disproportionality between spheres of production and the underconsumption of the masses.
Debt is seen as one of the causes of the Great Depression, particularly in the United States. Macroeconomists including Ben Bernanke, the current chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, have revived the debt-deflation view] of the Great Depression originated by Arthur Cecil Pigou and Irving Fisher:] in the 1920s, American consumers and businesses relied on cheap credit, the former to purchase consumer goods such as automobiles and furniture, and the latter for capital investment to increase production. This fueled strong short-term growth but created consumer and commercial debt. People and businesses who were deeply in debt when price deflation occurred or demand for their product decreased often risked default. Many drastically cut current spending to keep up time payments, thus lowering demand for new products. Businesses began to fail as construction work and factory orders plunged.
Massive layoffs occurred, resulting in US unemployment rates of over 25% by 1933. Banks which had financed this debt began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to withdraw their deposits en mass, triggering multiple bank runs. Government guarantees and Federal Reserve banking regulations to prevent such panics were ineffective or not used. Bank failures led to the loss of billions of dollars in assets. Outstanding debts became heavier, because prices and incomes fell by 20–50% but the debts remained at the same dollar amount. After the panic of 1929, and during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 US banks failed. (In all, 9,000 banks failed during the 1930s). By 1933, depositors had lost $140 billion in deposits.
Monetarists, including Milton Friedman and current Federal Reserve System chairman Ben Bernanke, argue that the Great Depression was caused by monetary contraction, the consequence of poor policymaking by the American Federal Reserve System and continuous crisis in the banking system. In this view, the Federal Reserve, by not acting, allowed the money supply as measured by the M2 to shrink by one-third from 1929 to 1933. Friedman argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would have been just another recession. The problem was that some large, public bank failures, particularly that of the Bank of the United States, produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and that the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks fell. He claimed that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of the banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did. With significantly less money to go around, businessmen could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch.
One reason why the Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was regulation. At that time the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by laws which required partial gold backing of that credit. By the late 1920s the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. Since a “promise of gold” is not as good as “gold in the hand”, during the bank panics a portion of those demand notes were redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by a greater reduction in credit. Several years into the Great Depression, the private ownership of gold was declared illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold.
Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.
That is what happened to us in the twenties. We sustained high levels of employment in that period with the aid of an exceptional expansion of debt outside of the banking system. This debt was provided by the large growth of business savings as well as savings by individuals, particularly in the upper-income groups where taxes were relatively low. Private debt outside of the banking system increased about fifty per cent. This debt, which was at high interest rates, largely took the form of mortgage debt on housing, office, and hotel structures, consumer installment debt, brokers’ loans, and foreign debt. The stimulation to spending by debt-creation of this sort was short-lived and could not be counted on to sustain high levels of employment for long periods of time. Had there been a better distribution of the current income from the national product — in other words, had there been less savings by business and the higher-income groups and more income in the lower groups — we should have had far greater stability in our economy.
Had the six billion dollars, for instance, that were loaned by corporations and wealthy individuals for stock-market speculation been distributed to the public as lower prices or higher wages and with less profits to the corporations and the well-to-do, it would have prevented or greatly moderated the economic collapse that began at the end of 1929.
The time came when there were no more poker chips to be loaned on credit. Debtors thereupon were forced to curtail their consumption in an effort to create a margin that could be applied to the reduction of outstanding debts. This naturally reduced the demand for goods of all kinds and brought on what seemed to be overproduction, but was in reality underconsumption when judged in terms of the real world instead of the money world. This, in turn, brought about a fall in prices and employment.
Unemployment further decreased the consumption of goods, which further increased unemployment, thus closing the circle in a continuing decline of prices. Earnings began to disappear, requiring economies of all kinds in the wages, salaries, and time of those employed.
And thus again the vicious circle of deflation was closed until one third of the entire working population was unemployed, with our national income reduced by fifty per cent, and with the aggregate debt burden greater than ever before, not in dollars, but measured by current values and income that represented the ability to pay. Fixed charges, such as taxes, railroad and other utility rates, insurance and interest charges, clung close to the 1929 level and required such a portion of the national income to meet them that the amount left for consumption of goods was not sufficient to support the population.
reject a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry.
Attempts are being discussed to attempt another vote likely to come early next week.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court could decide Monday whether it will hear Baltimore County’s appeal of a lower court ruling that the county violated the federal Natural Gas Act by banning the construction of liquefied natural gas terminals in coastal areas. AES Corp., which seeks to build an LNG terminal at Sparrows Point, has challenged the legality of the county’s prohibition.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett of Maryland had upheld the county’s ban. But the 4th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, saying the federal law pre-empts the county’s prohibition and gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exclusive authority over the placement of LNG terminals.
The high court will hold a conference today at which the justices will consider whether to accept for argument appeals submitted to them this summer, including Baltimore County’s.
The Court’s docket for the October 2008 term is far from complete, but already a number of highly anticipated cases are set to be argued and decided.
The cases deal with a number of topics of interest to practicing attorneys, including federal pre-emption, employment law, criminal procedure, sentencing and punitive damages.
This term, the Court is set to determine whether plaintiffs have a right to sue pharmaceutical and tobacco companies over the safety of their products.
In Wyeth v. Levine, 06-1249, the Court will revisit the issue of whether the Food and Drug Administration’s authority precludes state tort actions — a decision that will determine if tort claims against drug companies seeking billions of dollars in damages in can proceed in state court.
The plaintiff in the case, Diana Levine, lost an arm to gangrene after an injection of the nausea drug Phenergan. She claims that method of using the drug wasn’t reasonably safe under state law. The drug company contends that the claims are pre-empted by the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Oral arguments are schedule for Nov. 3.
Cecelia Prewett, a spokeswoman for the trial lawyers’ group American Association for Justice, said the state law claims should be allowed.
“Congress has been clear that it never intended to pre-empt state law regarding either drugs or devices,” Prewett said.
But Randall Lutter, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for policy, recently told members of Congress that limits on state-law tort claims are necessary in order to ensure patient safety.
He said that the agency undergoes a careful risk-benefit analysis for its approved drugs, and can help create a single standard for drug makers. If states intervene, companies will be less likely to market potentially life-saving drugs for fear of being sued.
The case comes after last term’s decision in Riegel v. Medtronic, 128 S.Ct. 999, which held that federal law pre-empted state claims alleging tortious use of medical devices. Signaling the importance the plaintiffs’ bar has placed on the Levine case, attorneys from the legal advocacy group Public Citizen — which handled the Medtronic case before the high Court — were replaced in April by veteran Supreme Court litigator David Frederick. Frederick’s fees are being paid by the AAJ.
The first day of oral arguments, Oct. 6, will feature another highly anticipated pre-emption case: Altria Group v. Good, No. 07-562. In that case, the Court will consider whether plaintiffs — specifically a class of Maine smokers — can bring state law consumer protection claims against Philip Morris’s parent company.
The plaintiffs allege the defendant deceptively marketed “light” and “lowered tar nicotine” cigarettes they claim are just as unhealthy. The defendant argues these claims are pre-empted by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965.
In another case arising from tobacco litigation, Philip Morris USA v. Williams, No. 07-1216, the Court will consider whether a punitive damages award that is nearly 100 times higher than the compensatory damages award may be justified by the reprehensibility of a defendant’s conduct, despite the constitutional requirement that punitive damages be reasonably related to the plaintiff’s harm.
After two terms in which the Court issued a number of pivotal employment law decisions, the justices are poised to tackle more this term.
In Crawford v. Nashville and Davidson County, No. 06-1595, the Court will consider whether the anti-retaliation language in Title VII protects workers from dismissal for voluntarily providing information about alleged discrimination as part of an internal company investigation.
Last term the Court handed down rulings expanding the scope of retaliation claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and §1981.
Attorneys general in 19 states and Puerto Rico filed amicus briefs in the Crawford case, urging the Court to allow such retaliation claims.
The move was praised by Marsha Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center.
But some business and employer groups have urged the Court that a ruling in favor of such retaliation claims would hamstring employers’ efforts to investigate sexual harassment by putting them at a higher risk of lawsuits.
Francisco M. Negrón, Jr., general counsel for the National School Boards Association, said such a ruling is unnecessary and would have a serious effect on school districts, which collectively make up the country’s largest employer.
In another employment case, AT&T v. Hulteen, No. 07-543, the Court will consider whether pregnancy leave taken before the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 must be taken into account in the calculation of pension and other employment benefits.
In Huber v. Wal-Mart Stores, No. 07-480, the Court will determine whether the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to reassign a disabled employee to a vacant, equivalent position for which he or she is qualified, or whether it merely allows the employee to apply and compete with other applicants for the vacant spot.
It will be a busy term for criminal cases as well, with the Court set to take on a host of Fourth Amendment search and seizure cases.
In one case — Pearson v. Callahan, No. 07-751 — the Court took to the unusual step of asking the parties to argue whether past precedent should be overturned.
That case raises the question of whether police officers may enter a home without a warrant immediately after an undercover informant buys drugs inside, and whether qualified immunity protects officers from civil rights claims arising from such searches.
In addition, the Court asked the parties to argue whether it should overrule the 2001 decision in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, and thus create a new test for determining when qualified immunity may be asserted.
The Court will also take on a number of Fourth Amendment cases involving automobiles.
In Arizona v. Gant, No. 07-542, the Court will consider whether the Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement officers to demonstrate a threat to their safety or a need to preserve evidence related to the crime before conducting a warrantless search of a car after the occupants have been detained and removed from the vehicle.
In Arizona v. Johnson, No. 07-1122, the justices will decide whether an officer conducting a pat-down after a stop for a minor traffic violation can search a passenger he believes to be armed and dangerous, even if he has no basis for believing the passenger is committing, or has committed, a criminal offense.
In Herring v. U.S., No. 07-513, the Court will consider whether evidence must be suppressed when an officer obtained the evidence in an arrest and car search relying solely upon seemingly credible —but factually erroneous — information negligently provided by another law enforcement agent.
In a case that will address the scope of the Confrontation Clause, Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, No. 07-591, the Court will determine if lab reports prepared for trial by state forensic analysts constitute “testimonial” evidence.
The Court will also take up a number of sentencing issues this term, including whether the failure to report to prison is a “violent felony” qualifying for an increased sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (Chambers v. U.S., No. 06-11206) and whether facts necessary for imposing consecutive sentences must be found by a jury or admitted by the defendant (Oregon v. Ice, No. 07-901).
Daily Record reporters Steve Lash and Danielle Ulman contributed to this story. Kimberly Atkins writes for Lawyers USA, a sister publication of The Daily Record.
Are you familiar with the legal term EJUSDEM GENERIS…this may be useful someday.
There are hundreds of legal terms defined and discussed in LawReaders DOCTRINES & RULES LawReader subscribers can find this resource on the left hand column of the home page.
Every vehicle when on a highway shall be so equipped as to make a minimum of noise, smoke or other nuisance, to protect the rights of other traffic, and to promote the public safety. Application of the rule of ejusdem generis meant that “other nuisance” “should be interpreted as including only those nuisances of a similar kind as noise and smoke.” Garcia, 185 S.W.3d at 664. On that basis, the court concluded that the term “other nuisance” did not encompass a cracked windshield.
The federal government would provide as much as $700 billion in a far-reaching plan to rescue the nation’s troubled financial system, according to a bill posted online by Democratic lawmakers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she hopes the House will take up the bill on Monday.
Police charge flatulent DUI suspect for Battery for passing gas and fanning it towards a policeman.
We don’t make this stuff up…..
CHARLESTON, West Virginia -(AP) – A West Virginia man accused of passing gas and fanning it toward a police officer no longer faces a battery charge.
The Kanawha County prosecutor’s office requested that the charge be dropped against 34-year-old Jose Cruz.
According to a criminal complaint, Cruz passed gas and made a fanning motion toward patrolman T.E. Parsons after being taken to the police station for a Breathalyzer test.
Cruz denies fanning the gas and says that his request to use a restroom when first arriving at the station was denied.
LawReader has just learned from a source very close to the Lunsford campaign that a poll will be published Sunday Sept. 29 showing a dead heat in the Kentucky senatorial election.
42 days until votes are counted in the race for United States Senator from Kentucky, incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell’s once double-digit lead is eroding, according to this SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WHAS-TV Louisville, WLEX-TV Lexington, and WCPO-TV Cincinnati. Today, it’s McConnell 49%, Lunsford 46%. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released six weeks ago, Lunsford is up 6 points, McConnell is down 3.
Interviews for this survey occurred at a time of economic turbulence. 6 in 10 voters tell SurveyUSA they are focused on the economy, ahead of all other issues. Among voters focused on the economy, McConnell went from a 6-point lead 6 weeks ago, to a 9-point deficit today, a 15-point swing to the Democrat. Lunsford, a Louisville businessman who ran in the Democratic primaries for Kentucky Governor in 2003 and 2007, also gained ground among women, where 6 weeks ago McConnell led by 11, but today the contest is tied. In Western KY, McConnell had led by 20 points, now leads by 11. In North Central KY, McConnell had led by 12, now leads by 2. In Eastern KY, McConnell had led by 26, now leads by 11. Among voters 50+, McConnell’s lead has been cut by two-thirds. Among wealthier voters, McConnell’s lead has been cut in half.
To put these numbers into context, it is critical to note that the identical survey that polled Kentucky voters on the US Senate race also asked about the Presidential contest. The same respondents rethinking McConnell are sticking with John McCain. McCain led by 18 points 6 weeks ago, leads by 19 points today. At a time when McConnell is struggling with women, McCain is gaining ground with women. Complete SurveyUSA results of McCain-Obama in Kentucky are here.
Filtering: SurveyUSA interviewed 900 Kentucky adults 09/21/08 through 09/22/08. Of the adults, 835 identified themselves as registered voters. Of them, 672 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the general election on 11/04/08.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is no stranger to criticism. He gives as good as he gets.
Wilkinson was interviewed by President Bush in 2005 for a Supreme Court vacancy. His article strongly suggests that the 5-4 decision in Heller v. District of Columbia would have come out differently if he had been chosen for the court. Bush’s appointees to the high court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, joined Scalia’s opinion.
The district’s elected government is trying to figure out how to maintain restrictions on gun possession in the wake of the court ruling that struck down its 32-year-old ban on handguns. The D.C. council voted this month to let residents own most semiautomatic pistols and eliminate a requirement that guns be stored unloaded or secured with trigger locks.
Wilkinson said elected officials are in a better position to determine gun laws than the courts. He compared the gun case to Roe v. Wade, the abortion rights decision that conservatives consider among the court’s worst.
The guns case was easily the most significant opinion Scalia has written in his 22 years on the court. Yet Wilkinson faults the justice for falling victim to the same criticism Scalia leveled in a scathing dissent in the court’s 1992 decision that reaffirmed the right to an abortion.
“I cannot help but recall Justice Scalia’s lament … that ‘by foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish,’” Wilkinson said, quoting from Scalia’s dissent.
“Yet, sixteen years later, the court now takes an issue about which the nation is deeply divided and narrows democratic outlets, overlooks regional differences, and imposes a rigid national rule,” he said.
He called on the justices to practice “judicial modesty” and resist the temptation to put a glaze of history on decisions that reflect their personal values and policy preferences. “It would go some distance toward depoliticizing the Supreme Court,” said Posner, a prolific writer who frequently comments on key issues.
Scalia has said on many occasions that ideology does not enter into his decisions. Instead, he is a proponent of determining what the words of the Constitution meant when they were written, a concept called originalism.
Just this past week, speaking at the University of Montana, Scalia repeated his claim that the court is divided between justices who believe in originalism and those such as Justice Stephen Breyer, who believe that judges sometimes must be guided by more than the language of laws, if the words are ambiguous or embody a value that must be applied to specific circumstances.
In the guns case, however, Justice John Paul Stevens performed his own analysis of the original meaning of the Second Amendment and dissented, suggesting that divining the meaning of the amendment when it was written is a close call.
officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.
homes increased by 31.2 per cent.
particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.
percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.
Skip to next paragraph For almost 20 years, eight of the nine justices on the Supreme Court have assigned their law clerks to a shared legal labor pool that streamlines the work of reviewing incoming cases.
Newly analyzed data from federal court records show that workers bringing employment discrimination lawsuits increasingly fare poorly in the federal courts, according to a report to be published by the Harvard Law & Policy Review and released September 18, 2008, by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS).
The findings of the study will also be a subject of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the federal courts scheduled for next Tuesday, September 23, 2008. Cyrus Mehri, of the law firm Mehri & Skalet, will testify about the details of the study alongside Lilly Ledbetter, the plaintiff in the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, whose equal pay claim was turned aside by the high court.
As a result of the likelihood of unfavorable rulings in employment discrimination cases, more employees are declining to bring actions in federal court. Over seven years, 1999-2007, there has been a drop of 37 percent in the number of cases brought by plaintiffs.
Employment cases fare much worse than other types of cases that are filed. Between 1979 and 2006, the win rate for plaintiffs in job discrimination cases in the federal court system was 15 percent, in contrast to 51 percent for non-job related cases.
Employment discrimination plaintiffs are not likely to experience any greater success at the appeals court level. Data reveal that plaintiffs who lose at trial achieve reversals in less than nine percent of their cases. In contrast, defendants who lose at the trial court level are granted reversals in 41 percent of their cases.
A panel discussion following the release was moderated by Judge Nathaniel R. Jones, of Blank Rome LLP, and a former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and included Eric Dreiband, of Jones Day, and former General Counsel, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2003-05); Wade Henderson, the President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; Cyrus Mehri, a Founding Partner of Mehri & Skalet, PLLC; and Stewart J. Schwab, the Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law, Cornell University Law School.
The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy is a progressive legal organizations, comprised of lawyers, judges, students and policy makers committed to promoting the vitality of the Constitution and the fundamental values it expresses. The views of the authors are their own and should not be attributed to ACS.
If I were the king of the world, I’d tell you what I’d do.
I’ve been watching the economic meltdown and the guy who keeps echoing my thoughts is Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning.
That is not normal. Bunning and I don’t agree on most issues. I met Bunning in my childhood. We were on opposite sides of the political spectrum then and nothing has changed in the past 30 years.
Expect Bunning has a handle on the economy. A handle that no one else in Washington seems to have.
Bunning opposed Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He also opposed Alan Greenspan, at a time when the media savvy Greenspan (Greenspan is married to Andrea Mitchell at NBC News) was given God like status from the main stream media.
God’s gone down a peg lately but it took some guts to oppose Greenspan at the time. Bunning did. For that Bunning named one of the “10 worst Senators” by Time Magazine.
Bunning was rapped for messing with a well connected guy. I wonder if Time wants to have a recount. They could let all the Senators who cooed about Greenspan explain their votes.
If they were re taking that vote today, Jim would have some allies.
As it was, he as a lone voice. Like he has been on many things.
He was in the minority when President Bush decided that the way to revive the economy was by wasting $300 billion dollar on “rebate” checks to taxpayers.
I’d like to ask the President, how did that work for you? Obviously not so well. $300 billion went straight down the drain.
That a lot of money where I come from.
FRANKFORT, Ky. – Gov. Steve Beshear today announced that Adam H. Edelen, his chief of staff, has been named one of the 2008 Ten Outstanding Young Americans by the United States Junior Chamber (Jaycees). The presentation of the 70th annual black-tie awards ceremony will be held Sept. 27, 2008, in San Diego.
Many notables have been honored as Outstanding Young Americans in the past including Presidents John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton, and Vice Presidents Al Gore, Dan Quayle and Richard Cheney. Also honored were Howard Hughes, Orson Wells, Elvis Presley, Nelson Rockefeller, Ted Kennedy and Christopher Reed.
Edelen, 33, has served in many important leadership roles. From his previous government experiences as one of the youngest-ever aides to a governor and his tenure as the executive director of the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to his career as a business executive, a commitment to service is the defining characteristic of his career.
As a two-term gubernatorial appointee to the board of Kentucky Educational Television, Edelen was the driving force behind the “Be Well Kentucky” initiative—an acclaimed effort which addresses Kentucky’s public health crisis. While vice-president of the Lexington Chamber, Edelen was responsible for the nationally recognized New Century Lexington Reports on Community Livability, which used private sector inspired metrics as a model for measuring Lexington’s quality of life. Edelen, who also chaired the United Way of the Bluegrass Annual Campaign, currently serves as vice-chair of the Urban League and is a member of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.
Edelen has received many awards and recognitions. In 2002 he was a recipient of the Lexington Young Professionals Association “Rising Star” award. He was named a Young Leader by the American Swiss Foundation in 2007 and was the presented the 2008 Outstanding Young Kentuckian Award by the Kentucky Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Edelen and his wife Catherine live in Lexington with their twin sons.
The Ten Outstanding Young Americans program (TOYA) is one of the oldest and most prestigious recognition programs in America. Annually since 1938, The United States Jaycees has sought out the ten young men and women who best exemplify the finest attributes of America’s youthful achievers.
The TOYA selection process begins in the spring of each year. Following the submission deadline, all nominations are forwarded to a panel of screening judges who, working independently, select and rank their top twenty choices. The top twenty point getters become the finalists. The finalists’ nominations are forwarded to a panel of finalist judges who rank their top ten choices. The task of judging the nominations is arduous.
Each nominee’s accomplishments and contributions are also judged in relation to the Jaycee Creed: “…That earth’s great treasure lies in human personality, and that service to humanity is the best work of life.” Nominees also must meet certain qualifications: age (18-40, inclusive), American citizenship (or application therefore), and agree to attend the TOYA Awards Ceremony.
We have obtained a draft of the current version of the Wall Street Bailout Bill that is being considered by Congress.
This provision is generally what the Paulson bill proposed, although Mr. Paulson’s version would set the outside origination date at Sept. 17, 2008.
The definition of “troubled assets,” however, also includes “any other financial instrument, as the secretary determines necessary to promote financial market stability.” The Treasury secretary is required to consult with the chairman of the Federal Reserve in making this determination, but still, this is an incredibly broad grant of power.
It could allow this program to expand to credit card debt, student loan debt, market purchases of equity and even the debt of the big automakers.
Basically, the entire financial system.
Nowhere in the bill’s 44 pages is there any mention of what price will be paid for these assets. This is still the $700 billion dollar question, as what Treasury pays for these assets will determine the subsidy Wall Street obtains and how much the bailout ultimately costs.
Since both Democrats and Republicans appear to be punting on this, this is most likely what we are going to get. I find it incredible that the most important part of the process is basically being punted to Mr. Paulson. It may be the case that legislating a price mechanism is impossible, but I would be more comforted if at least the reasons for that were explained to the public, along with some outline of what Treasury will do.
In the bill from Senator Dodd, the Treasury secretary still has discretion to purchase and sell these assets at the prices he deems appropriate, with only a few new limitations.
The primary one is that the program must go through a new Office of Financial Stability, headed by an assistant secretary of the Treasury. In addition, the bill establishes an Emergency Oversight Board, comprising the chairs of the Fed, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as well as two nongovernmental members appointed by Congress.
The board is merely that, an oversight board, and does not have power to control the program. In addition, the fleshed-out bill requires monthly reporting to Congress. It is being reported that these provisions are in the current draft of the bill.
This would require that the government take warrants to purchase shares in any financial institution from which it purchases assets. If that provision is adopted, the United States would obtain a possible equity stake in broad swaths of the entire financial sector. It would also chill use of the bailout fund, because only the most desperate banks would resort to it.
There are reports that in the course of negotiations, this requirement has turned into a mere option for the Treasury secretary, which is probably the prudent decision. Mr. Paulson has been rather vehement on this issue anyway, demanding warrants from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and American International Group, so this may be the case where “trust me” has credibility.
The authority of the secretary to purchase troubled assets under this act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time, by aggregating the purchase prices of all troubled assets held and any expenditures made under section 10(a).
In addition, the 44-page draft bill also tries to further restrict the costs of the bailout by placing administrative costs under this limit. This bill will generate probably substantial revenue on Wall Street, as Treasury turns to financial firms to help run the program. It is unclear what the state of this provision is in the current version of the bill.
Any determination of the secretary with regard to any particular troubled asset pursuant to this act shall be final, and shall not be set aside unless such determination is found to be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or not in accordance with the law.
That is rather high standard to meet in any judicial challenge, but still, as David Zaring over at The Conglomerate predicts, “a judicial review donnybrook; Dodd looks for [Administrative Procedures Act] review instead of no review. Quite a radical difference, but courts did hear a lot of [Resolution Trust Corporation] appeals.” It is being reported that this provision is in the current draft of the bill.
The Dodd Bill includes relief for housing owners in Article 9. Remember that with the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the purchases under this bill, the government will own or guarantee a majority of the mortgages in the United States. For any loans that the government actually controls (a subset of the foregoing), under the Dodd bill the government can modify the loan to prevent foreclosure. There are also provisions allowing for modification of homeowner loans in bankruptcy, a hotly contested issue. Apparently, the bill currently has some form of the former provision and the latter is still being negotiated.
This is another remarkable provision. It basically puts the Treasury Department in the business of setting compensation and disclosure policies for much of financial America. Besides definitional issues — what exactly is meant by inaccurate? — this is the wrong place to be setting these standards, and the broad scope of this mandate could create some big problems. If this survives, I would expect the provision to be clarified and limited to claw-backs alone, which are more justifiable.
Things are still moving fast, so expect this to change somewhat. Still, while this bill would provide at least some oversight, the lack of clarity on pricing is a problem. Also, the stretched definition of “troubled assets” is going to result in bailout creep and provide this and any future administration ample room to move this program to other industries. Here come the automakers.
WASHINGTON,, Sept 24, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — A new poll released today by Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) shows widespread support for ending mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenses and that Americans will vote for candidates who feel the same way.
– Fully 78 percent of Americans (nearly eight in 10) agree that courts – not Congress – should determine an individual’s prison sentence.
– Six in 10 (59 percent) oppose mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders.
– A majority of Americans (57 percent) polled said they would likely vote for a candidate for Congress who would eliminate all mandatory minimums for nonviolent crimes.
During a time of financial crisis and uncertainty in the United States, reviewing current criminal justice policies and reforming mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders is an option that Democratic and Republican lawmakers are considering. Although neither is endorsing FAMM’s poll or report, Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) are both concerned about America’s prison and sentencing system.
“This poll suggests that a majority of Americans are open to re-examining this issue and moving to a court-driven sentencing model,” said Sparky Zivin, Research Director at StrategyOne.
The poll bolsters the findings of FAMM’s comprehensive new report, Correcting Course: Lessons from the 1970 Repeal of Mandatory Minimums, which describes how Congress repealed mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses in 1970 – and had no trouble getting reelected.
“Our report and poll show that lawmakers can vote to reform mandatory minimums for nonviolent offenses and live to tell the story. Republicans and Democrats alike don’t want these laws. They don’t work, they cost taxpayers a fortune, and people believe Courts can sentence better than Congress can. Another repeal of mandatory drug sentences isn’t just doable, it’s doable right now,” says Molly Gill, author of Correcting Course.
The report details how Congress created mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug offenders in 1951 and repealed them in 1970 because the laws failed to stop drug abuse, addiction and trafficking. It also finds that after 20 years of experience, current mandatory minimums have failed as badly as those enacted in the 1950s.
Correcting Course includes comprehensive strategies for how Congress can repeal these ineffective laws today and better reflect the popular attitude among Americans, as brought out in the findings of the poll.
“Mandatory minimums are among the worst criminal justice policies ever adopted in this country. They treat all offenders the same, when the most sacred principle of American sentencing law is that punishment should fit the individual and the crime. Repealing these laws isn’t impossible – it’s been done before. The next Congress should do it again,” says FAMM founder and president Julie Stewart.
To read the poll and report, visit www.famm.org.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Sept. 24, 2008) – Kentuckians who lost perishable groceries purchased with food stamp benefits after the recent wind storm have extra time to apply for replacement benefits.
Clients in counties affected by the wind storm whose food was spoiled because of power outages have until Friday, Oct. 3, to apply for replacement benefits at their local Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) family support offices.
DCBS Commissioner Patricia R. Wilson said that the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees and funds the food stamp program, agreed to Kentucky’s request to extend the application period.
“With several hundreds of families still without power, we wanted to be sure every food stamp client who lost groceries and needs replacement benefits has the chance to apply,” she said.
Replacements are provided in the amount of the loss to the household, up to the household’s full monthly allotment. Customers must sign a statement that they lost food during a power outage and are requesting replacement funds. They also need some form of verification, such as a statement from a neighbor, verifying that they lost electricity. Elderly and handicapped clients may contact their food stamp workers by phone to have an affidavit sent to them to sign and return.
The requests will be processed as they are received. DCBS staff continues to receive a high volume of reimbursement requests and is processing the information as quickly as they are able.
More information about food stamp eligibility is online at http://chfs.ky.gov/dcbs/dfs/foodstampsebt.htm.
For more than four decades, the Supreme Court has been clear: the Constitution requires states to provide a lawyer to people facing criminal charges who are unable to afford their own counsel. Unfortunately, neither the Supreme Court, nor any other source, has detailed how communities should determine who can afford counsel and who cannot. As a result, eligibility is determined differently almost wherever one looks: some communities don’t have any official screening processes at all, while others apply widely varying criteria and procedures.
The result has been a policy disaster.
Without fair standards for assessing eligibility, some people who truly cannot afford counsel without undue hardship are turned away. This may be because a relative posted bond for them, or they have a house or a car that they could sell to pay for a lawyer. Yet these arbitrary assumptions about who can pay and who cannot are devastating to families and communities. Families that truly cannot afford to pay for counsel may have to go without food in order to pay legal fees. Wage-earners forced to sell the vehicle they use to commute to work, in order to pay for counsel, may lose their jobs. People who simply cannot come up with the necessary resources end up trying to represent themselves, often pleading guilty because they are not aware of their rights.
On the other hand, some individuals receive counsel who should not. In these times of fiscal austerity, every dollar spent representing someone who can afford to pay for counsel robs resource-poor indigent defense systems of money that could be better spent representing people who are truly in need. The result is that indigent defense systems already stretched to their breaking points—with enormous caseloads for each attorney, and no funding for essential functions such as investigators and experts—are stretched further. This, too, results in constitutional violations, as people entitled to adequate representation end up getting a lawyer who cannot provide them with a meaningful defense.
Finally, without clear guidelines for how to determine who should be appointed counsel, decisions whether to appoint counsel hang on the serendipity of where an individual lives, the personal characteristics of the decision-maker, institutional conflicts of interest, or any of the other improper factors that substitute for more reliable standards and procedures.
Second, communities should establish uniform screening criteria, in writing. Uniform, written requirements would greatly reduce the dramatically inconsistent treatment of individuals that we found in our investigation.
Third, communities should protect screening from conflicts of interest. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, and presiding judges all have interests—for example, in controlling their workloads by resolving cases—which conflict with their need to be objective when deciding who should receive free counsel. Decisions about eligibility should be made by those who are not involved with the merits of individuals’ cases.
Fourth, to evaluate genuine financial need, screening must compare the individual’s available income and resources to the actual price of retaining a private attorney. Non-liquid assets, income needed for living expenses, and income and assets of family and friends should not be considered available for purposes of this determination.
Fifth, people who receive public benefits, cannot post bond, reside in correctional or mental health facilities, or have incomes below a fixed multiple of the federal poverty guidelines should be presumed eligible for state-appointed counsel. Such presumptions are useful shortcuts that can save money by streamlining the screening process. Each should be subject to rebuttal upon evidence that a defendant can in fact afford a private attorney.
Finally, screening processes must provide procedural protections, including a guarantee of confidentiality, the right to appeal determinations of ineligibility, and a promise not to re-examine determinations of eligibility absent compelling reason. Existing systems give useful examples of these protections and offer helpful guidance for jurisdictions looking to improve their screening processes.
None of these recommendations would be expensive to implement. And, once in place, these recommended practices can save money, improve the quality of public defense services, and promote compliance with the Constitution. We invite policymakers and other public defense system stakeholders to take advantage of these practical recommendations to preserve taxpayer money and protect constitutional rights in an equitable and consistent way.
Justice Scott Named in Perry County lawsuit claiming Nepotism – Trial Court has no jurisdiction to rule on this claim. Code of Judicial Conduct permits a judge to make job reccomendations.
A fired AOC employee claims in a Perry County lawsuit that Justice Will T. Scott of Pikeville acted “unethically” in allegedly calling the AOC director, and recommending his son Andrew Scott for a job.
We don’t know if Justice Scott made such a recommendation, but even if he did, this does not provide a legal remedy for relief in a lawsuit. The trial court in which this claim was brought does not have the jurisdiction to sanction a Judge for “nepotism”. The sanctioning of judges for alleged “unethical” acts, is a job reserved exclusively for the Judicial Conduct Commission. The Perry Circuit Court has no jurisdiction to make any ruling on whether or not acts of a judge are in violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Under the facts of this lawsuit, Justice Scott is not alleged to have made any “unnecessary appointments. He did not exercise “the power of appointment”. All he is alleged to have done is to make a job reference.
The commentary to the Code of Judicial Conduct says a Judge may make job recommendations to others.
With regard to the nepotism charge, we note that there is an important distinction between the judge making a hiring decision regarding a job in which he has the power of appointment , and the judge giving a recommendation to an employer over which he has no administrative control.
The Code prevents a Judge who has the authority to make a hiring or appointment decision to practice nepotism. However that does not prevent a judge from making a job recommendation when someone else is doing the hiring.
We express no opinion about the claims of Ms. Combs in her lawsuit other than our observation that her assertion that Justice Scott acted “unethically” by making a job reference for his son (and we don’t know that he did) was “unethical”, is on its face unsupported by rule or law.
If the AOC director did receive a job reference from Justice Scott, he is clearly entitled to ignore it, and there is no administrative authority inherent in Justice Scott’s position on the Supreme Court that could interfere with the AOC Director’s decision.
We find no conduct alleged in the lawsuit that justifies the claim of unethical conduct by Justice Scott.
A fired court system employee, Ruth Ann Combs, has filed a lawsuit accusing Justice Will T. Scott of unethically intervening to get his oldest son a promotion.
The former Administrative Office of the Courts employee claims she was fired in January so that Andrew H. Scott could have her job.
The lawsuit claims that Will T. Scott spoke to AOC Director Jason Nemes to get Andrew Scott a promotion.
(1) A judge shall diligently discharge the judge’s administrative responsibilities without bias or prejudice and maintain professional competence in judicial administration, and should cooperate with other judges and court officials in the administration of court business.
(3) A judge with supervisory authority for the judicial performance of other judges shall take reasonable measures to assure the prompt disposition of matters before them and the proper performance of their other judicial responsibilities.
(4) A judge shall not make unnecessary appointments. A judge shall exercise the power of appointment impartially and on the basis of merit. A judge shall avoid nepotism and favoritism. A judge shall not approve compensation of appointees beyond the fair value of services rendered.
A. A judge shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
D. A judge shall not allow family, social, political or other relationships to impair the judge’s objectivity. A judge shall not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others; nor shall a judge convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge. A judge shall not testify voluntarily as a character witness.
Although a judge should be sensitive to possible abuse of the prestige of office, a judge may, based on the judge’s personal knowledge, serve as a reference or provide a letter of recommendation.
(5) (a) The Justices of the Supreme Court shall elect one of their number to serve as Chief Justice for a term of four years.
(b) The Chief Justice of the Commonwealth shall be the executive head of the Court of Justice and he shall appoint such administrative assistants as he deems necessary. He shall assign temporarily any justice or judge of the Commonwealth, active or retired, to sit in any court other than the Supreme Court when he deems such assignment necessary for the prompt disposition of causes. The Chief Justice shall submit the budget for the Court of Justice and perform all other necessary administrative functions relating to the court.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An unpleasant Election Day scenario: A heavy turnout and a close election lead to a flood of court challenges. Legal groups are offering local judges new online resources to prepare for such a deluge.
The ABA has created a state-by-state list of election laws, providing basic information about who may cast a ballot and when votes can be challenged. The National Center for State Courts, working with the College of William & Mary law school, has put together video lectures and a manual on election law with chapters devoted to tallying the ballots and recounts, as well as post-election challenges.
The number of election lawsuits has risen dramatically in recent election years, according to research by Richard Hasen, an election-law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. There were 361 cases in 2004, the last presidential election year, up from 197 in 2000 and 108 in 1996, Hasen found. The bulk of the challenges are filed in state court.
John Hardin Young, a Washington lawyer who represents Democrats in recounts, said training and expertise of elections officials varies across the thousands of voting jurisdictions in the United States.
“Things happen so quickly on Election Day that getting the facts and the law right to arrive at a reasoned, fair result is put to the test,” said Young, who worked on the ABA project.
The Justice Department also is planning to dispatch hundreds of federal monitors to make sure voters aren’t unfairly kept from the polls.
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