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 Since leaving the State House corner office, Deval Patrick has largely evaded the limelight of national politics. But the former Massachusetts governor and civil rights lawyer is making his position known on Donald Trump’s divisive pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama. 
 
 In a letter Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick recalled a 1985 voting rights case (recently highlighted by the Washington Post) in which he defended three Alabama residents against what he called “an act of extraordinary quasi-judicial activisim” by Sessions, then the U.S. attorney for the state’s southern district. 
 
 Patrick’s team eventually won the case, but, in his letter Tuesday, Patrick called it “a cautionary tale.” 
 
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 “I believe it demonstrates what can happen when prosecutorial discretion is unchecked, when regard for facts is secondary to political objectives,” he wrote, later adding, “In a republic based on law, this is not the kind of risk any of us should accept in our attorney general.” 
 
 Patrick was not the only one to protest Sessions’s fraught record dealing with race. 
 
 His letter came the same day as the NAACP staged a sit-in at the Alabaman’s office in Mobile, and as more than 1,100 law school professors from across the country wrote a public letter opposing the Sessions nomination. In 1986, the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee rejected Sessions’s nomination to be a federal judge over his history of comments on race. 
 
 “Donald Trump was not my candidate, but he is my president-elect,” Patrick wrote Tuesday, adding that he would not blindly oppose everything Trump does and believes that presidents are entitled to a cabinet of his choosing “within bounds of basic preparedness and qualifications.” 
 
 But Sessions’s nomination was a line too far in a time when the country needs healing, Patrick said. 
 
 “At a time when our Nation is so divided, when so many feel so deeply that their lived experience is unjust, Mr. Sessions is the wrong person to place in charge of our justice system,” he wrote. 
 
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 You can read Patrick’s letter in-full here, as published by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. ||||| University of MinnesotaArchive-It Partner Since: Jun, 2006Organization Type: Colleges & UniversitiesOrganization URL: http://www.lib.umn.edu Founded in 1851, the University of Minnesota is both the state land-grant university, with a strong tradition of education and public service, and the state's primary research university, with faculty of national and international reputation. It is one of the most comprehensive public universities in the United States and ranks among the most prestigious. University publications, faculty papers, and records of academic and administrative offices are held centrally by the University Archives and their digital counterparts are accessible through the University Digital Conservancy, both units of the University Libraries. ||||| Sen. Jeff Sessions looks on as Donald Trump speaks during a national security meeting with advisers at Trump Tower on Oct. 7, 2016, in New York. (Photo: Evan Vucci, AP) 
 
 WASHINGTON — More than 1,100 law professors are urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to serve as attorney general in President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration. 
 
 The group, which represents 170 law schools in 48 states, expressed its opposition Tuesday in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, asserting that the Republican senator would "not fairly enforce our nation's laws and promote justice and equality in the United States.'' 
 
 Professors, who included Harvard Law School's Laurence Tribe and University of California-Irvine's Erwin Chemerinsky, referenced the Senate's 1986 rejection of Sessions' nomination for a federal judgeship, due in part to Sessions' past, racially charged statements. 
 
 "Nothing in Sen. Sessions' public life since 1986 has convinced us that he is a different man than the 39-year-old attorney who was deemed to racially insensitive to be a federal district court judge,'' the professors' petition states. 
 
 During the contentious Senate hearing in 1986, Sessions was grilled about a number of remarks, including one in which Sessions referred to the Ku Klux Klan as "okay until I found out they smoked pot.'' Sessions also was criticized then for his role in a failed Alabama voter fraud prosecution. Sessions' opponents have alleged that as U.S. attorney in Mobile, the prosecutor launched the case against black voting rights activists as a way to intimidate minority voters. 
 
 "Some of us have concerns about his misguided prosecution of three civil rights activists for voter fraud in Alabama in 1985 and his consistent promotion of the myth of voter-impersonation fraud,'' the professors said. 
 
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 The statement comes a week before Sessions is scheduled to appear before the Judiciary Committee for confirmation hearings. 
 
 Sessions' spokeswoman Sarah Flores called the criticism "business as usual for the same far-left academics who trot out letters opposing just about any conservative or Republican who’s nominated to a key position by a Republican president. 
 
 "Jeff Sessions enjoys wide support from law enforcement organizations to civil rights leaders to victims’ rights organizations and many others,'' Flores said. "He will be confirmed with both Democratic and Republican votes to be the next attorney general.'' 
 
 Last month, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the nation's largest group of top police leaders, the National Association of Police Organizations and a coalition of more than 100 former U.S. attorneys offered their endorsement of Sessions to serve as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. 
 
 University of California Berkeley law professor Ty Alper, one of the 1,140 law school faculty members to joint the petition, said Sessions' unstinting support of anti-immigration measures and his questioning of such things as the human contribution to climate change "have struck a nerve.'' 
 
 "We know that this is an uphill battle,'' Alper said. "But we hope that the volume of voices will give senators some pause.'' 
 
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– Some 100 law professors in support of Sen. Jeff Sessions' nomination for attorney general appear to be in the minority. More than 1,200 law professors have sent a letter to Congress in an attempt to convince the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject the nomination, noting Sessions "will not fairly enforce our nation's laws and promote justice and equality," per the Washington Post. The letter mentions his support for a border wall, attempt to prosecute black civil rights activists for voter fraud in 1985, and "repeated opposition to legislative efforts to promote the rights of women and members of the LGBTQ community" but focuses on the Senate's rejection of his nomination to a federal judgeship in 1986 after Sessions allegedly said the KKK was "okay until I found out they smoked pot," per USA Today. A rep for Sessions says such claims are "tired, recycled, hyperbolic" and "have been thoroughly rebuked and discredited." A former chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights adds Sessions is "a man of great character and integrity with a commitment to fairness and equal justice under the law." But "nothing in Senator Sessions' public life since 1986 has convinced us that he is a different man than the 39-year-old attorney who was deemed too racially insensitive to be a federal district court judge," states the letter, signed by professors from 176 law schools in 49 states. In a separate letter, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick—who represented the activists in the 1985 case—suggests Sessions' "regard for facts is secondary to political objectives," per Boston.com. (NAACP's president was just arrested at Sessions' office.)