Uncategorized

 By Marjorie Cohn A Southern jury of six women – none of them black – found 28-year-old George Zimmerman’s shooting of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to be justifiable homicide because he acted in self-defense. The jurors were prohibited from considering race. They were instructed only on the parts…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law Professor Alafair S. Burke has looked at the Trayvon Martin decision from the point of view of a “non” jury instruction http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3596685. I am looking at this from the point of view of international law and…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law One topic that has emerged since the Trayvon Martin decision is the concept of implicit bias.  The limited research I have done indicates that “implicit bias”  can be defined as follows: Implicit Bias = Implicit Social Cognitions =…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law Since the Trayvon Martin decision, there has been ferment on many levels and across the spectrum.  There are those who considered the system failed Trayvon Martin (Charles Blow, The Whole System Failed Trayvon Martin – (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/opinion/the-whole-system-failed.html?ref=charlesmblow&_r=0)…

Renew Every Year to Ensure SALT's Work Continues, or Choose Auto Renew Option

Membership, Now with Automatic Renewal

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law “Although the meaning of reasonable doubt sounds precise, deciding whether such doubt exists is not reducible to a mathematical equation..” Professor Darren Hutchinson,  Race, Justice and Trayvon Martin, http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/15/race-justice-and-trayvon-martin/ At the time I read Professor…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Mr. Comey said that the government’s statute on the issue [waterboarding]at the time was vague, complicating the ability of government lawyers…

By Marjorie Cohn It is a bedrock principle of our system of justice that everyone who is charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. That includes “high-value detainees” awaiting trial in Guantánamo’s military commissions. Yet pre-trial hearings held June 17-21 in the cases of…

By Vinay Harpalani (via ACS Blog) More than nine months after it heard oral arguments, the U.S. Supreme Court finally rendered its opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas. [1] In a surprising 7-1 ruling, with only Justice Ginsburg dissenting, the Court vacated the Fifth Circuit ruling and remanded…

Here is Professor Meera Deo’s article abstract on the Grutter Decision, informing the climate of affirmative action. Many may find this useful after the Fisher v. Texas decision. For full article: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=201910 In Grutter v. Bollinger, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law Today there is a report that the CIA has come back to the Senate Intelligence Committee with a harsh critique of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6000 page STILL CLASSIFIED report from last December.  The Senate Intelligence…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law Watching the riveting cross-examination of Rachel Jeantel – Trayvon Martin’s friend – about the last phone conversation between Trayvon Martin and her before he was killed, it occurred to me that the NSA must have the…

By David Udell Citing the  “justice gap” that leaves more than 2.3 million low-income New Yorkers each year to navigate the civil justice system on their own, the New York City Bar Association recommends that nonlawyers be allowed to practice, with limitations, as “Courtroom Aides” and “Legal Technicians.”  The…

By Marjorie Cohn The issue of terrorism has been front and center in the national discourse since 9/11. Guantánamo has become a symbol of US hypocrisy on human rights. Lawyers handling the criminal case of Guantánamo prisoner Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri argued several pre-trial motions last week. But just as they raised some fascinating legal issues, the hearings revealed the basic unfairness of the military commissions for adjudicating criminal cases. People can be put to death after a trial that affords a reduced level of due process. Defense motions raised issues of whether the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause applies in military commissions; whether a military commission can legally try defendants for the crimes of conspiracy and terrorism; whether the government has been eavesdropping on confidential attorney-client communications; whether the accused can be excluded from pre-trial sessions in which classified information is discussed; whether the defense is entitled to parity with the prosecution in subpoenaing witnesses; and how much discovery the prosecution must turn over to the defense. Judge James Pohl took the motions under advisement. That means he postponed ruling on them until later. In 2006, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court struck down the military commissions President Bush established in 2001 because their procedures did not comply with the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Geneva Conventions. The Court ruled that members of al-Qaeda are entitled to the protections of Geneva's Common Article 3, which includes being protected from the "passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples." The Hamdan Court also said the commissions must follow procedural rules that basically parallel courts-martial proceedings under the UCMJ. Yet the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (MCA) [sec. 948b] says the UCMJ "does not, by its terms, apply to trial by military commissions except as specifically provided in this chapter." It declares that this chapter is "based upon the procedures for trial by general courts-martial under [the UCMJ], " but it also provides that "[j]udicial construction and application of [the UCMJ], while instructive, is therefore not of its own force binding on military commissions." It remains to be seen whether the new, improved military commissions will pass constitutional muster if and when they get to the Supreme Court.

by Tanya Hernandez As a lawyer who examines the development of civil rights throughout Latin America it is quite remarkable to observe the explosion in the adoption of affirmative action policies in the Global South just as the United States Supreme Court is considering further limitations or extermination of…

 by Marjorie Cohn For nearly three weeks, thousands of protestors have gathered peacefully at Occupy Gezi in Taksim Square in Istanbul. Turkish police have unleashed a brutal crackdown, resulting in three confirmed deaths and nearly 5,000 injured. According to Turkish lawyer Kerem Gulay, a Fulbright Scholar…

by Marjorie Cohn Just as Bradley Manning’s court-martial was getting underway, another brave whistleblower dropped a bombshell into the media: The Obama administration is collecting data on every telephone call we make. Nearly 64 years to the day after George Orwell published his prescient book 1984, we have learned…

I have not yet read Tamanaha’s piece so I can’t comment on that. However, I do feel that I can respond to the above question about what us liberal professors should do about the rising cost of legal education. I believe that there are two things that we should be…

 by David Udell A working group appointed by the NJ Supreme Court released on May 16, 2013 a report and recommendations dated April 30,2013 in which it urges adoption of a 50 hour law-related pro bono service requirement as a condition of admission to the NJ Bar.  The…