Jennifer Granholm noted in San Francisco Chronicle, June 25, 2014
Already, there’s buzz around University of California President Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona and Homeland Security secretary, and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, now teaching at UC Berkeley and a star endorser of the Ready for Hillary political action committee.
Stephen Smith Cody and Robin Mejia write for The Huffington Post, June 24, 2014
The Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law has just released “Bearing Witness at the International Criminal Court,” the first empirical study to document the perspectives of ICC witnesses, many of whom survived heinous violations of human rights. The study surveys more than 100 witnesses from the first two ICC cases, those against Congolese warlords Thomas Lubanga Dyilo and Germain Katanga.
James Tuthill quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, June 21, 2014
“You need (Amazon CEO Jeff) Bezos and (Google Executive Chairman Eric) Schmidt and (Google co-founder) Sergey Brin up in Washington. All the time. Visiting the halls of Congress. Testifying before committees. Speaking to the White House and talking to the FCC,” said James Tuthill, formerly Pacific Bell’s chief attorney for its matters before the FCC. “I don’t see that.” Tuthill says Silicon Valley’s lobbying efforts lack sophistication compared with the telecoms. “It surprises me, because their management, their resources are equal and they have the intelligence, but they don’t focus on it,” he said.
Kim Thuy Seelinger writes for The Huffington Post, June 17, 2014
Heartened to see the energetic dialogue and political participation you have facilitated, we offer some thoughts about the state of our knowledge regarding the patterns, causes and consequences of sexual violence in war. We do so to highlight the need for evidence-based policy and programming on such a complex issue as conflict-related sexual violence.
Megan McCracken interviewed on WABE-FM, All Things Considered, June 17, 2014
“The challenge does not address the conviction for the crime; it does not challenge the sentence of death. It challenges specifically the lethal injection procedures on the grounds that they present a substantial risk of pain and suffering. In Georgia, Mr. Wellons’ legal team is focusing on the lack of information—the secrecy surrounding the execution procedures—and saying that without this specific information about the drug that will be used, the court cannot meaningfully assess whether or not the execution procedures comply with the 8th Amendment.”
Franklin Zimring quoted in The New York Times, June 16, 2014
“The first thing that happens is a radical downsizing in the scale of the use of capital punishment,” said Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor and death penalty specialist, describing the typical process through which nations move toward ending the death penalty. Through most of the last century, “there was a strategic withdrawal from capital punishment as business-as-usual in European nations, long before abolitions started to spread.”
Jonathan Simon quoted in The Daily Californian, June 16, 2014
But opponents of long prison sentences — such as Jonathan Simon, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law — argue punishments of the length Jarvis received exact a psychological toll and violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. “A penalty that serves no penological purpose can only be degrading,” Simon said in an email.
Mary Ann Mason cited in The Boston Globe, June 13, 2014
Judicial interpretations in the last two decades have made it more difficult to win a tenure discrimination complaint, Mary Ann Mason wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2010. Mason, a professor at the University of California’s Berkeley School of Law who studies gender in academia, said a plaintiff has to prove not only that the reason given for tenure denial is untrue, but that the real reason is sex discrimination.
Molly Van Houweling quoted in Library Journal, June 12, 2014
“Fair use serves authors who want to be found, not forgotten. HathiTrust allows readers to find books that might otherwise be forgotten in its collections to either check it out from the library or purchase it,” Van Houweling told LJ. “Helping readers find relevant resources is a classic function of libraries, and shows what a friend to authors libraries are, not only in acquiring authors’ books, but also helping readers find them. For authors who want to find new readers, that’s a critical function.”
Kim Thuy Seelinger quoted in The Guardian, June 11, 2014
Seelinger hopes the summit’s pledges of support are realised and lead to concrete action. The international protocol is intended to be a “handbook” to improve the quality of evidence collected so that one day it could be admissible in court. It’s an “ambitious document,” she says, adding the challenge is how to make it truly useful on the ground.