Archives for March 2012

By Yevgeny Shrago

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule today that would effectively end the construction of coal-fired power plants in the United States.  The rule, known as a new sources performance standard, will limit the carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt of electricity produced to 1000 pounds of carbon dioxide, nearly half the the coal plant average of 1,768, rendering it basically impossible to build a coal power plant without extremely advanced (and probably federally subsidized) scrubbing technology.  Nuclear power, natural gas and renewables easily fall below these limits.  Although some pundits are skeptical, if the screaming from industry is any indication, this rule will have some teeth, though it will have no effect on current plants or those slated to be finished this year.  There are at least three things relating to Congressional obstruction to take away from such an aggressive rule.
[Read more…] about The Wages of Obstruction

By Peter Dunne

What is the optimal means of achieving social change? Are the courts the most appropriate vehicle for implementing progress? Does impact litigation really short-circuit the democratic process?

An interesting comparison can be made in the ways which the United States and the United Kingdom both repealed their abortion and sodomy prohibitions. In the United States, progress was achieved through the federal judiciary, with the nation’s Supreme Court issuing landmark decisions in Roe v Wade and Lawrence v Texas. In Britain on the other hand, abortion and the decriminalization of homosexuality came through Parliament, and following a number of highly publicized public reports, most particularly the Wolfenden Report.
[Read more…] about UK Equal Marriage Consultation

By Sushila Rao

In what Egyptian activists condemn as the latest in a series of acquittals and lenient sentences for policemen accused of the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising, a court in Egypt has handed down suspended one-year sentences to 11 policemen accused of killing 22 protesters and wounding 44 others on 28 January 2011—the deadliest day of the uprising, also called the ‘Friday of Rage.’  The suspended sentences mean the 11 convicted policemen will not have to undergo any prison time at all.
[Read more…] about Egyptian Policemen who Killed 22 People Given Suspended Sentences

By Najah Farley

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of the United States issued two rulings that give criminal defendants “a constitutional right to a competent lawyer’s advice when deciding to accept a plea bargain.” Justice Kennedy, noting that over 90% of all criminal cases, both state and federal, end in plea bargains, Justice Kennedy stated that the negotiation of the plea bargain “is almost always the critical point for the defendant.”

This decision is clearly a huge decision for the criminal defense bar. It will potentially affect both current and future cases, because of the probable effect on habeas claims. For those convicted without having had adequate legal assistance during the plea bargaining process, there could be post-conviction relief.
[Read more…] about SCOTUS Weighs in on Plea Bargaining – But do the Decisions “Crash the Justice System”?

By David Yin

In last week’s post, I wrote about how “perfect plaintiffs” can be outcome-determinative to the resolution of a case, or the crafting of a rule. Today we return to Dale Carpenter’s book Flagrant Conduct on Lawrence v. Texas,and the importance of a “perfect prosecution.”

In some cases where plaintiffs seek to challenge unjust laws, the challenge might be that those very laws are rarely enforced against private activity. Yet the fact that sodomy laws were rarely enforced did not diminish their invidious and destructive character. As Prof. Carpenter explains:

Homosexuals, unprotected from job discrimination in Texas and most other states in the 1990s, could be fired simply for being gay. Divorced gay parents could lose custody or face onerous restrictions on visitation with their children on the ground that they were presumptively criminal. Legislators used the existence of the sodomy law as a reason not to grant any civil rights protections to homosexuals…. Being branded a criminal class was also an invitation to discrimination and even violence….
[Read more…] about “Flagrant Conduct” and the Perfect Prosecution Part 2

By Mark Wilson

What has Justice John Paul Stevens been up to in retirement? An interview on The Colbert Report, for one. And finding time to write reviews for The New York Review of Books, for another.

Last year, the recently-retired Justice penned a review of Professor William Stuntz’s book, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice. Earlier this month, Justice Stevens returned to reviewing books on criminal justice with The Rape Case: A Young Lawyer’s Struggle for Justice in the 1950s.
[Read more…] about An Emphasis on Process Over Substance: Another Reason to Abolish the Death Penalty