Joan Hollinger Reviews Prop 8 Legal Battle

Edge San Francisco, February 25, 2010 by Roger Brigham
http://www.edgesanfrancisco.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc3=&id=102800&pf=1

“We are just at the very beginning,” Hollinger said. “I remain very uncertain about what will happen at the appellate level. The country is not in a good mood. These issues are almost the last gasp of the ability of cultural minorities to strike back at other minorities by putting together a kind of majority that can operate on ignorance. But we shall see,” Hollinger added. “What we did see was some brilliant lawyering.”

Charles Weisselberg Questions Administration’s Stance on SCOTUS Miranda Case

The Huffington Post, February 25, 2010 by Charles Weisselberg
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-weisselberg/obamas-justice-department_b_476973.html

Why has the Obama Administration jumped in and stuck a fork in Miranda? Perhaps it is simply a misstep by a Solicitor General with no previous law enforcement experience. If, however, this really is the considered position of the Attorney General and the Justice Department, it tells us something more disturbing—that the Obama Administration does not want to afford suspects a fair chance to remain silent in police custody.

Christopher Edley Applauds Nomination of Goodwin Liu

-San Francisco Chronicle, February 24, 2010 by Bob Egelko
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/24/BAOQ1C6JC8.DTL

“Goodwin Liu is an outstanding teacher, a brilliant scholar and an exceptional public servant,” said the law school’s dean, Christopher Edley.

-San Jose Mercury News, February 24, 2010 by Josh Richman
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14462613

Boalt Hall Dean Christopher Edley called Liu “an outstanding teacher, a brilliant scholar, and an exceptional public servant” who is “widely admired for his intellect, fairness, and good judgment — this is a superb nomination.”

Goodwin Liu is Nominated to U.S. Court of Appeals

-Los Angeles Times, February 24, 2010 by Christi Parsons
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-obama-judges24-2010feb24,0,3858660.story

Liu is associate dean and a professor of law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, where he has been on the faculty since 2003. He was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University and earned a degree from Yale Law School before clerking for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2000.

-The Washington Post, February 25, 2010 by Michael D. Shear
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/24/AR2010022404495_pf.html

The selection of Goodwin Liu, who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit was announced as a group of liberal law professors urged Obama to be more aggressive in reshaping the judiciary by stepping up the pace of progressive nominations.

John Yoo and Christopher Edley React to DOJ Report on Legal Memos

San Francisco Chronicle, February 23, 2010 by Debra J. Saunders
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/23/EDVU1C5CBO.DTL&type=printable

“They never actually followed the standards they’re charged with keeping,” Yoo told me—which is odd, because holding lawyers to professional standards is “all this office does.”

UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley Jr., who … has resisted the calls for ideological cleansing of the law-school faculty in favor of academic freedom.…said in a statement last week, “I hope these new developments will end the arguments about faculty sanctions, but we should and will continue to argue about what is right or wrong, legal or illegal in combating terrorism. That’s why we are here.”

Stanley Lubman Looks at China’s Ongoing Hostility towards Dissent

The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2010 by Stanley Lubman
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/02/22/stanley-lubman-uncertainty-in-chinas-legal-development-part-i-intimidation-of-activists-and-lawyers/?KEYWORDS=Berkeley

Recent convictions of Chinese human rights activists and efforts by Chinese government agencies to restrict the activities of lawyers on behalf of clients who are considered politically disruptive demonstrate ongoing manipulation of legal institutions to suppress dissent and to buttress the authority of the Chinese Communist Party.

Ty Alper Releases New Study on Doctors’ Participation in State Executions

American Medical News, February 22, 2010 by Kevin B. O’Reilly
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/02/22/prsb0222.htm

“There is this perception that many people, including judges, have that because of the AMA ethical code, doctors can’t participate and won’t participate in executions when the reality—and we’ve learned this through the legal cases that have been brought—is that doctors do participate and are willing to participate,” said Ty Alper.

Robert MacCoun Finds News Outlets Favor Sensational Court Trials

Psychology Today, February 21, 2010 by John D. Mayer
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-personality-analyst/201002/libel-in-fact-magazine-instructions-the-jury

Professor MacCoun and others have examined the nature of media coverage of legal issues.  Although they did not study cases of libel in specific, in other areas of the law they found that media reports tend to emphasize trials that are sensational and give rise to controversial verdicts.

Amy Kapczynski and Talha Syed Think Advocates Can Learn from Human Rights Debate

Intellectual Property Watch, February 19, 2010 by Kaitlin Mara
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/02/19/conference-access-to-knowledge-human-rights-need-each-other/

It is necessary to examine what ‘human rights’ means, said Amy Kapczynski of University of California Berkeley Law School. There are at least three different ways to look at human rights: as an analytic or philosophical framework, as “t-shirt rights” or political claims that are more normative than legal, and as a set of legal structures and commitments, she said.

“Distributive justice is a much more promising approach” than rights, suggested Talha Syed, an assistant professor at the University of California Berkeley Law School, as rights are often associated with “absolutist claims of inviolable interest” which can be impractical.