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In 2005 the Supreme Court banned the death penalty for youthful offenders under the age of 18. Today the court was asked to establish a similar bar to sentencing non-homicide juvenile offenders to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Pictured is attorney Bryan Stevenson arguing in the second of the two Florida cases, Sullivan v. Florida.
Dahlia Lithwick has story here.
Thirty-nine names were on the docket for yesterday's status hearing in the DC Taxicab Commission bribery case. One or two may have been home with the flu, but it was still quite a crowd.
Short WaPo story here.
Shanika Robinson, shown above with her brother Leon, agreed to marry Shahabuddin Rana in exchange for monthly payments of $500. The immigration scam turned deadly when Rana's brother, after learning that Robinson was having sexual affairs with other men, refused to continue paying.
On August 18 Shahabuddin was found dead in the DC pizzeria that he owned with his brother. Shanika, her brother and another man are accused of beating Shahbuddin to death and attempting to set the body on fire.
Yesterday's preliminary hearing will resume on Friday.
WaPo story here.
Ten years ago Congress passed a law banning video and other depictions of animal cruelty, but the Supreme Court is likely to decide that the law is too broad and vague.
Justice Alito was the only Justice who seemed inclined to support the law. In response to a lawyer's argument that historically depictions of animal cruelty have been under the umbrella of the First Amendment, he suggested that technology may have removed some of that protection.
Justice Alito: Well, isn't that due to changes in technology? Before people could watch videos at home, this sort of thing would be very difficult.
Attorney Patricia Millett: This covers photographs, . . . . I'm not sure it wouldn't cover sketch artists or a hieroglyphic, for all I know.
Justice Alito: And is there - - - in the real world is there a market for sketches of dog fights?
WaPo story here.
Sentenced to life without parole for the 1997 killing of a DC police officer, Donovan Strickland claims that he was promised a reduced sentence in exchange for his guilty plea. Under Maryland law, convicts have a right to ask a judge to reduce their sentence and in 2005 the trial judge in this case, Richard H. Sothoron Jr, presided over a hearing to reconsider the sentence. The courtroom was packed with police officers, including the Chief and his command staff, opposing any reduction in Strickland's sentence.
At the hearing Strickland's trial attorney, Michael Blumenthal, said that Judge Sothoron
had promised to reduce the sentence to life and suspend all but 50 years. The matter was turned over to the Chief Administrative Judge who assigned the case to Circuit Court Judge Michael P. Whalen. After working it's way through the appeals courts a sentencing reconsideration hearing was finally held in Judge Whalen's courtroom yesterday.
Strickland's attorney again testified to the "wink and a nod" promise made by the judge. Again the courtroom was packed with DC police officers including Chief Cathy Lanier, pictured above center foreground.
Donovan Strickland, took the stand to say that his understanding when he agreed to the plea was that with good behavior his sentenced would later be reduced and he could be eligible for parole in 25-30 years.
Judge Sothoron testified "There was nothing discussed beforehand that is not reflected in the record," and "the record speaks for itself". Although he did admit that he was "inclined to favor a reconsideration of the sentence," at the time a plea deal was accepted.
The hearing was continued until next Thursday, but before recessing for the day the Judge heard statements from
Donovan Strickland's brother,
and from Oliver Smith, the father of slain officer Oliver Smith Jr.
In an unusual September sitting, historic in several ways, the nation's first woman Solicitor General made her first oral argument before the first Supreme Court to include a Latina, presumably wise.
The court seemed poised to undo, at least partially, a hundred-year-old ban on corporate campaign financing, as Solicitor General Kagan all but to acknowledged : "If you are asking me, Mr. Chief Justice, as to whether the government has a preference as to the way in which it loses if it has to lose, the answer is 'yes'."
Also in the picture are, left to right, First Amendment champion Floyd Abrams, unidentified attorney, former Bush Administration Solicitor General Ted Olsen and, on the far right, former Clinton Solicitor General Seth Waxman. (note: Justices Alito and Ginsburg are not pictured, but were seated on the far left.)
Dahlia Lithwick has written about it here.
The sketch shows Justice Sotomayor being sworn in at today's investiture ceremony. Attorney General Eric Holder and Solicitor General Elena Kagan are seated at the table. To the right is President Obama, and Vice-President Biden (I didn't quite capture a good likeness of Biden). In the left foreground is the chair used by Chief Justice John Marshall in the early 19th century, and where Sotomayor was seated as the Clerk read her commission.
James von Brunn, the 89 year old white supremacist who shot and killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in June finally appeared in court today. Despite having been reportedly shot in the face von Brunn seemed alert and was able to speak clearly.
He objected to the public defender's request for a mental competency exam saying: "your constitution guarantees me a speedy and fair trial".
Washington Post story here.
The jury in the trial of former Congressman William Jefferson, infamous for the $90,000 in marked bills found in his freezer, returned a verdict late yesterday, the fifth day of their deliberations. Although Jefferson was found guilty on 11 of 16 counts the jury acquitted on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (note that as of this posting Wikipedia is wrong on FCPA conviction) charge that related to the "cold cash" intended as a bribe to the Nigerian Vice-President.
Times-Picayune story here.
Judge Ellen Huvelle yesterday ordered the government to release Mohammed Jawad, a young Guantanamo detainee whose confession under torture was thrown out by a military judge. Though unlikely, criminal charges could still be brought against Jawad, an action the judge discouraged. "I hope the government will succeed in getting him back to Afghanistan," Huvelle said.
In the sketch Jawad's attorney, Maj. David Frakt, is pictured at the podium. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ian Gershengorn is standing on the left.
NYT story here.
Monday was David Souter's last day as a Supreme Court Justice, and this is last sketch of the bench as composed since Justice Alito was seated.
Come Fall, in a bit of musical chairs, Justice Thomas will take the seat vacated by Souter, Ginsberg will take Thomas' seat, Breyer will take Ginsberg's, and Alito will move to where Breyer used to sit. The new, most junior Justice will take her seat at the far end on the Chief Justice's left.
Dana Milbank on Monday's session here.
Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers, charged with spying for Cuba over 30 years, were back in court Wednesday for a hearing before Judge Reggie Walton. They waived their right to a speedy trial, and said they wanted the same lawyers to represent each of them.
AP story here.
A briefcase ( pictured at left above ) that once contained $100,000., and that former New Orleans Congressman William Jefferson took from an FBI informant and placed in the trunk of his car, sat on a table in front of the podium as Assistant U.S.Attorney Mark Lytle told the jury they would hear "a startling and often disheartening account of public corruption at the highest levels of our government". The jury was shown photos of foil wrapped bricks of cash concealed in Pillsbury Pie Crust and Boca Burger boxes that were found in the Congressman's freezer.
In the defense's opening statement attorney Robert Trout told the jury that the ex-Congressman “did not take a bribe…did not solicit a bribe…is not guilty of any of these charges.”
Times-Picayune story here.
A retired State Department analyst and his wife were denied release at a detention hearing today following their arrest last week on charges related to serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government.
Assistant U.S.Attorney Michael Harvey, pictured above at the podium (and looking a lot like Steven Colbert), told Judge Facciola that Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn were planning to sail their 37-foot yacht to the Caribbean in November, possibly to Cuba.
"This escape plan, Your Honor, is no pipe dream," he said. Kendall Myers smiled.
Myers also taught at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and one of his former students has written about that here.
NYT article here.
Former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson stood before prospective jurors in an Alexandria, Virginia courtroom as his public corruption trial began today. He served nine terms in Congress, but is best known for the $90,000. in marked bills found in his freezer in May 2006.
Times-Picayune story here.
"Damned if you do, damned if you don't situation" is how Justice David Souter described the problem of race-conscious job promotion that avoids race discrimination.
The case, brought by white New Haven firefighters who were denied promotion when an examination was thrown out because no black firefighters scored high enough, raised claims of racial discrimination from both sides.
Dana Milbank writes about it here.
In a stunning about-face prosecutors in the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens found themselves subject to criminal contempt proceedings. As he dismissed the indictment against the former Alaska senator, an outraged Judge Emmett Sullivan appointed a non-government lawyer, Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler partner Henry Schuelke III, to prosecute the prosecutors.
Nightly News aired the story with sketches, but as usual some of the better drawings are never used. Here's one of Stevens' defense attorney Brendan Sullivan addressing the Judge at yesterday's hearing. Ted Stevens is lightly sketched in the left background.
WaPo story here.
Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo was in attendance today as the Supreme Court heard arguments in a long running asbestos settlement case. Johns-Manville, once the country's largest asbestos mining and manufacturing corporation, went bankrupt in 1986 as it faced a deluge of asbestos injury lawsuits. As part of it's reorganization plan the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust was created to shield Manville and it's insurers from future claims, but in 2001 the asbestos plaintiffs' bar asserted new grounds on which to sue Manville's insurer, Travellers Insurance. Mario Cuomo led the mediation which reached a settlement in which Travellers would pay $500 million into a new trust in exchange for an order from the bankruptcy court "clarifying" the 1986 injuction. But not so fast! A number of third parties have objected to the proposed settlement and so here we are.
I really just posted this for my mom. She's a Mario Cuomo fan.
Tony Mauro of Legal Times blogs about it here.
UPDATE: Tony Mauro later spoke with Mario Cuomo about his visit to the Court, and has a BLT post here.
Above is a sketch of Tuesday's arguments in a campaign finance (read McCain-Feingold) case about a blistering 90-minute political film, Hillary: The Movie.
The sketch shows former Solicitor General Ted Olson arguing on behalf of the movie's producers. Note that the foreground is filled with some of the Supreme Court press regulars; they are: in the first (foreground) row, left to right, Pete Williams, NBC, Marcia Coyle, National Law Journal, Tony Mauro, Legal Times, in the second row are Adam Liptak, New York Times, Nina Totenberg, NPR, Joan Biskupic, USA Today, and Robert Barnes, Washington Post.
Slate's Dahlia Lithwick, who is not pictured because she sits back in the alcove with us artists (the true ink-stained wretches), has the story here.
