Q-Notes, April 30, by Q-Notes Staff
http://www.q-notes.com/2008/04/30/obama-change-comes-from-the-bottom-up/
Obama “has been the only presidential candidate to speak directly to the American people about the need for progress towards LGBT equality. He has done so even when he knows he will not get a round of applause, and when he knows it will be awkward or uncomfortable. This demonstrates the kind of leadership and courage that we need in a President.”
Daily Journal, April 30, by Fiona Smith
http://www.dailyjournal.com
“I think it will show up the potential and limitations of the Endangered Species Act as a tool of environmental policy making,” Frank said. “The ESA is more of a sledgehammer than a surgical instrument,” and it is “not the ideal means of addressing the extremely broad causes and effects of climate change.”
San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, by Tyche Hendricks
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/29/BAE710D82V.DTL&type=printable
Workers who don’t speak or read English are often at greater risk because they don’t understand safety instructions, Blanco said. And for some immigrants, the need for the job is so great that they’re less willing to walk away from a risky situation, she said…. “Two things could make a huge difference. First, job training and postings have to be bilingual. And since it’s easy to see the industries where the deaths are focused, it should be possible to have targeted accident education and enforcement.”
Associated Press, April 26, by Jason Dearen
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/france-sends-detectives-for-inquiry-into/n20080426210509990002
“There are a lot of questions that haven’t been answered that could be by looking at his e-mails, or what was he searching for on Google before he died?” she said. “There are all of these kinds of questions, and it’s unfortunate, but as time goes on they are more difficult to answer.”
www.hapihour.org, April 25, by Keith Kamisugi
http://www.hapihour.org/?p=181
“Dale’s tireless commitment to civil rights has been an inspiration to his fellow lawyers and to the many disenfranchised groups he has so brilliantly represented,” said Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley, Jr. “His lifelong work as a champion of social justice fighting various forms of discrimination represents the very best of his profession, and is a shining example to everyone at Berkeley Law.”
Reuters, April 25, by Anupreeta Das
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080425/tc_nm/google_yahoo_dc_1
“The general rule would be that if the arrangement substantially limits competition in some aspect of their business, that would be problematic,” said Aaron Edlin…. “Collaboration that comes short of merger is much more apt to pass muster before antitrust authorities,” he said.
The Recorder, April 24, by Petra Pasternak
http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1208947728506
“Though our first-time pass rates remain markedly higher than the overall pass rate for ABA-accredited law schools, we do not regard the 2007 results as acceptable,” Edley wrote in a memo to third-year students and LL.M.s on April 17. “We do not yet know whether those results reflect statistical variation or real changes in preparedness among our graduates.”
Howard Shelanksi noted that 82 percent is not bad compared with the overall pass rates for the California bar. But that’s little comfort to Boalt students, he added. “We want to push back up to our historic levels of bar-pass.”
“The bar is the mother of all closed-book in-class exams,” Bundy said. “I think the hiring of Kristen [Holmquist] provides a chance for us to look at the way these issues play out through the curriculum.”
New York Times, April 20, by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20wwln-freakonomics-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
“I was a graduate student at Stanford,” he says, “and I drove maybe 2,000 miles a year. But I paid roughly the same $1,000 as if I’d driven 10 times as much, which was a huge portion of my budget.”
Associated Press, April 16, by Mark Sherman
http://www.mercurynews.com//ci_8944471?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
Ty Alper, a death penalty opponent and associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, said he expects challenges to lethal injections will continue in several states.
Columbus Dispatch, April 17, by Alan Johnson
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/04/17/LETHAL.ART_ART_04-17-08_A1_7V9V10B.html?sid=101
“States and the federal government have cloaked their lethal-injection procedures in secrecy,” said Ty Alper…. “But the discovery process has revealed alarming problems with the administration of lethal injection in many states, and nothing in today’s decision prevents the lower courts in those states from addressing those problems under the Eighth Amendment.”
Sacramento Bee, April 17, by Denny Walsh
http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/868661.html
“What’s now holding up executions in California is that case,” Alper said. “We won’t know what the state’s procedure might be until that case plays out.”
KPFA, April 20, by Mitch Jeserich
http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=25900
“The controlling opinion in the ruling said that where there is a failure of the first drug … there is a constitutionally unacceptable risk that the second two drugs in the procedure will cause excruciating pain and suffering. Now a majority of the court found that the Kentucky plaintiffs … didn’t make their case that that risk was there. But the opinion certainly left the door open for death row inmates in other states to bring forth the kind of evidence that the court suggested would amount to a constitutional violation.”
Washington Post, April 23, Darryl Fears
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/22/AR2008042202728_pf.html
Ty Alper said the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Kentucky case means nothing has changed: State officials will try to carry out executions and opponents will question their procedures. “It’s going to be like it was before,” Alper said. “In some states, prison officials are going to be pushing for round-the-clock injections—there are 40 or 50 in Texas. The open question will be whether those states can reach the standard that the court has set for lethal injection.”
Chicago Tribune, April 16, by James Oliphant
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-death-penaltyapr17,0,23259,print.story
“The door is not closed,” said Elisabeth Semel … who helped bring the challenge to Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures. Semel said the court’s opinion made it clear that states can be forced to institute alternative lethal injection procedures if it can be proved they can alleviate a substantial risk of pain.
Chicago Tribune, April 16, by James Oliphant
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-death-penaltyapr17,0,23259,print.story
“The door is not closed,” said Elisabeth Semel … who helped bring the challenge to Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures. Semel said the court’s opinion made it clear that states can be forced to institute alternative lethal injection procedures if it can be proved they can alleviate a substantial risk of pain.
The Press-Enterprise, April 16, by Janet Zimmerman and Richard K. De Atley
http://www.pe.com/rss/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_death17.3b4796e.html
“Some proponents of the death penalty would see this as a victory. But in terms of challenges to lethal injection, I think the ball is still very much in play,” said Elisabeth Semel…. The fact that even the justices who voted in the majority had different reasoning for doing so shows that “it’s not black and white,” she said.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 16, by Jennifer A. Dlouhy
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/359334_scotus17.html
Elisabeth Semel … said “The court’s ruling today approves Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures based upon the evidence presented.” Nevertheless, Semel said, the ruling “calls into serious question the procedures in a number of other states.”
KCBS/AP, April 16, by Doug Sovern
http://www.kcbs.com/pages/2016425.php
“I don’t know who is whispering in his (govenor’s) ear, but I think he needs a new lawyer,” said Semel.
NBC11/AP, April 16
http://www.nbc11.com/news/15904785/detail.html
“The court has addressed the constitutional standard and now we move forward from here,” said Elisabeth Semel…. “Where I believe we move is into legal challenges that will persist in California and go on across the country.”
Californian, April 17, Associated Press and Sunita Vijayan
http://www.thecalifornian.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008804170302
Semel said there are “unnecessary risks” to using a three-drug formula when there other, safer alternatives, including barbiturates used by veterinarians in euthanizing animals. “It said that you have to prove there’s substantial risk that a person executed suffers substantial pain,” Semel said. “How do you prove it?”
New York Times, April 17, by Adam Liptak
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/washington/17lethal.html?sq=Berkeley&st=nyt&adxnnl=1&scp=2&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1208450898-UmmoW1vCXmmGDW7iz7DT5A
Professor Semel said the fractured decision, the relatively sparse information available about practices in Kentucky and the new standard announced by the court would produce fertile ground for additional litigation, particularly in states where flaws in the administration of lethal injections were documented.
“If it looks like California or it looks like Missouri or it looks like Tennessee,” she said, “then it’s not a substantially similar protocol to the one in Kentucky.”
San Francisco Daily Journal, April 17, by Brent Kendall
http://www.dailyjournal.com/law/index.cfm
Semel said the evidentiary record in Kentucky, which has executed just one inmate using lethal injection, was sparse, while cases in California, Missouri and Tennessee were much better developed, with evidence showing botched executions, poorly mixed lethal injection drugs and badly trained execution personnel. “The outcomes in those jurisdictions could be quite different,” Semel said.
San Jose Mercury News, April 17, by Howard Mintz
http://www.mercurynews.com//ci_8955620?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
“The court’s ruling today approves Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures based upon the evidence presented, but calls into serious question the procedures in a number of other states,” said Elisabeth Semel…. “Things are still very much in flux.”
USA Today, April 17, by Joan Biskupic
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2008-04-16-Lethalinside_N.htm
“We cannot hold our breath for this court to stay executions again, certainly not in the wake of this case,” says Elisabeth Semel…. “But if we can gain traction in other states and develop records about how executions are actually carried out, it is likely we could meet the court’s test” for when an execution method is unconstitutional.
Washington Post, April 17, by Robert Barnes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041601419_pf.html
Elisabeth Semel … said that in Tennessee, where executions were halted by a federal judge, evidence of alternative methods already exists. The headline on a statement from the clinic showed how death penalty opponents view the decision: “Nationwide Lethal Injection Challenges to Move Forward.”