Litigation

Politicking Permitted in MN Judicial Elections

Posted on October 05, 2010
In Minnesota, only a handful of judicial candidates are aggressively taking advantage of new freedoms to solicit campaign donations, seek endorsements and state their views. The more open politicking was made possible when a federal appeals court in July struck down Minnesota rules that barred judicial candidates from endorsing candidates for elective office and from [...

New ?Eyes on Justice? Released

Posted on October 05, 2010
The newest edition of Eyes on Justice, Justice at Stake’s newsletter, is now available online here. The newsletter covers an array of topics including retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s recent remarks to a Washington, D...

Group Launches IA Voter Education Effort

Posted on October 05, 2010
A group defending Iowa’s court system is kicking off a campaign to educate voters about retention elections and how to be informed about the 74 judges and justices up for re-election votes in November. In one of the hottest retention elections in recent history, three state Supreme Court justices are facing opposition from social conservatives [...

Federal Judge Charged in Drug Case

Posted on October 05, 2010
Here’s an unusual headline: “Federal judge charged with buying drugs from stripper.” According to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, senior U.S. District Judge Jack T. Camp Jr., 67, was charged with purchasing cocaine and other illegal drugs while involved in a sexual relationship with an exotic dancer...

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Pastor: Churches to Join IA Ouster Effort

Posted on October 04, 2010
The Rev. Cary Gordon, a pastor with Cornerstone World Outreach, has called for churches to help press for the ouster of three Iowa Supreme Court justices in retention elections this fall, and he said 100 churches have signed on. At the same a Washington-based group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, asked the [...

Outside Interest Group Spending Keeps Skyrocketing

Posted on October 04, 2010
Each week, it seems, there’s a new report about exploding spending in the mid-term elections by outside groups, and it’s more surprising than the last. The latest comes from the Washington Post in an article headlined, “Interest group spending for midterm up fivefold from 2006; many sources secret...

Column: Why Soaring Judicial Election Costs Merit Concern

Posted on October 04, 2010
Why should Americans care about the skyrocketing costs of judicial elections around the country? In a National Journal column that draws heavily on a forum that Justice at Stake recently co-hosted, Eliza Newlin Carney  contends these factors justify mounting concern: “One, the millions flowing into judicial elections are even more secretive and less regulated than [...

Appeals Court Upholds AK Merit Selection

Posted on October 04, 2010
Alaska’s merit-based system for choosing state Supreme Court justices and Superior Court judges does not violate the U.S. Constitution, a federal appeals court panel ruled. In September 2009, a federal district judge threw out a lawsuit challenging the state’s merit selection system, after several individual plaintiffs represented by Indiana-based lawyer James Bopp had contended it [...

Divided, More Diverse Supreme Court Opens Term

Posted on October 04, 2010
The Supreme Court, with three female justices sitting simultaneously for the first time in history, opened its new term today amid widespread commentary about what the new court, and the new term, will bring. A Washington Post article noted the “unprecedented diversity” of the court but also said it harbors “the potential for a split [...

Kagan Formally Takes Oath for Bench

Posted on October 01, 2010
President Obama and three former Supreme Court justices watched as Justice Elena Kagan was administered the oath of office in a public swearing-in ceremony Friday. Retired Justice John Paul Stevens, who Justice Kagan succeeded, and retired Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and David H...

Election 2010: Focus on Iowa

Posted on October 01, 2010
Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Marsha Ternus says she and two fellow justices who are the target of an ouster campaign in fall retention (up-or-down) elections don’t plan a counter-campaign against those who would unseat them. The three justices are the subjects of a campaign to deny them reelection following an Iowa Supreme Court decision [...

MO Chief Justice: Big Judicial Spending a ?Scandal?

Posted on October 01, 2010
“Big money in judicial elections is a scandal,” Missouri Chief Justice William Ray Price Jr. said in introducing changes to make the state’s merit selection method of choosing judges more transparent. The changes also are aimed at keeping high spending elections for appellate and urban circuit court seats out of Missouri, he said, according to [...

High Court Asked to Weigh Limits on Judicial Speech

Posted on October 01, 2010
Limits on campaign speech for judicial candidates in Indiana and Wisconsin are the subject of an appeal request to the U.S. Supreme Court made by Indiana-based lawyer James Bopp. Bopp, acting on behalf of some state judges, judicial candidates and an anti-abortion group, has petitioned the high court to review decisions in Seventh U...

Obama Asks Senate to Avert Judicial ?Crisis?

Posted on October 01, 2010
President Obama has used some of his most forceful language yet in protesting a slow pace in the Senate for confirming his judicial nominees. The Senate Republican minority, he wrote in a letter obtained by the New York Times, “has even been blocking non-controversial nominees ? a dramatic shift from past practice that could cause [...

Thursday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on September 30, 2010
In other dispatches about fair and impartial courts: Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, introduced a bill to let retired Supreme Court justices return to the high court to hear cases when sitting justices have recused themselves, according to a Wall Street Journal article and a NPR report...

O?Connor Warns of Peril Posed by Campaign Cash

Posted on September 30, 2010
Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor warned today that the greatest threat to judicial independence in the nation is the “flood” of campaign cash flowing into courtrooms, and she also said that eroding faith in the judiciary is far-reaching...

Wednesday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on September 29, 2010
In other dispatches about fair and impartial courts: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has sold stock he held in Pfizer Inc., which will allow him to participate in two upcoming cases that involve the drug maker, according to a Wall Street Journal article...

New Lawsuits Challenge Campaign Finance Laws

Posted on September 29, 2010
A conservative group, the National Organization for Marriage, is on the march with new  lawsuits challenging campaign finance disclosure requirements and restrictions on political advertising. As part of its effort to prevent legalization of same-sex marriage in Rhode Island, the group, represented by Indiana-based lawyer James Bopp, has filed a lawsuit there, according to a [...

Vacant Judgeships ?Hazardous to our Health?

Posted on September 29, 2010
It’s tough to get Americans focused on the nation’s judicial vacancy rate of almost one out of eight judgeships when people have to worry about the economy and global terrorism. But the vacant judgeships remain an important issue nonetheless, say Dahlia Lithwick and Carl Tobias in a Slate commentary...

Lawsuit Filed Over NH Budget Cuts

Posted on September 29, 2010
Seeking to restore to New Hampshire’s courts $4 million that was cut in a biennial budget, a group of lawyers has filed suit against the state. Former state Supreme Court Justice Chuck Douglas leads the attorney group. It contends that the funds, once restored, would do away with cutbacks to civil jury trials, court clerk [...

Election 2010: Focus on Illinois

Posted on September 29, 2010
Voters never have bounced an incumbent Illinois Supreme Court justice in a retention (up-or-down) election. Could Election 2010 change that? An Associated Press article raises that possibility. It reports that “politics is beginning to spill into simple judicial races that never used to be contested,” and the retention election facing Justice Thomas Kilbride is an [...

?Fair Courts in Cross-Fire,? Times Editorial Warns

Posted on September 29, 2010
Not only has soaring special interest spending on judicial elections threatened public confidence in fair and impartial courts, but a worrisome new trend looms on the horizon. A New York Times editorial sounds an urgent alarm over “perhaps the most troubling new development” in state judicial elections...

Tea Party Group Seeks Ouster of Two FL Justices

Posted on September 28, 2010
A campaign linked to the tea party has announced a drive in Florida to deny re-election to two state Supreme Court justices in retention elections this year, in response to a controversial court ruling. It appeared to be the latest in a series of higher-profile retention (up-or-down) retention elections that have emerged across the country, [...

Tuesday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on September 28, 2010
In other news about fair and impartial courts, or developments that could affect their impartiality: In the wake of Citizens United and the increased political spending it has unleashed, an editorial in USA Today was headlined, “Our view on campaign finance: Who’s buying this election? Who knows?” Partly as a result of Citizens United, new [...

Holder: Time to Address ?Crisis in our Courts?

Posted on September 28, 2010
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has delivered an urgent appeal from the Obama administration for the U.S. Senate to end a “crisis in our courts” created by judicial vacancies and vote to confirm nominees who have gained majority support...

WV Justice Does Turnabout, Recuses Self

Posted on September 28, 2010
After his legal reasoning was questioned in the blogosphere, a West Virginia Supreme Court justice did a turnabout and announced he was disqualifying himself from a case that involves the state limit on punitive damages. Justice Menis Ketchum said in a memorandum he saw no legal basis for his disqualification, but it appeared that “the [...

Pastor Files Complaint Against IA Judge

Posted on September 27, 2010
A Polk County, Iowa judge is the target of a complaint by a Sioux City cleric, accusing the jurist of voter intimidation. It?s part of the fallout from an ouster drive to remove three state Supreme Court justices in November retention elections. The Rev...

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

Posted on September 27, 2010
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares for a new term,  these developments were on the horizon: Justice Elena Kagan, 50, will have a formal investiture ceremony Friday, and attendance is by invitation only, SCOTUSblog reported. “Free speech stands front and center” in the new term, “in a pair of cases testing the First Amendment’s reach [...

Colorado Ouster Group is ?Political,? Judge Rules

Posted on September 27, 2010
Clear the Bench Colorado, a group pressing for the ouster of three state Supreme Court justices in retention elections, is a political committee and must comply with new donation limits, a judge has ruled. The group will face contribution limits of $525 and will have to disclose more frequently its campaign donors, according to an [...

Ouster Effort to ?Intimidate Our Courts? Denounced

Posted on September 27, 2010
An effort in Iowa and several other states to remove high court justices in retention elections, in response to controversial rulings, is drawing heightened national attention. In Iowa,  social conservatives are leading a drive to oust three justices over a unanimous state Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage...

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