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Thread: United States Courts of Appeals

  1. #211
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Brasher is suppose to replace Carnes in June I believe. Carnes was a pretty big trumpet for Alabama's death penalty push when he was working for the state.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  2. #212
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Ex-clerk says deceased federal appeals judge was sexual harasser

    The woman said the judge repeatedly insulted her over her appearance, made vulgar comments, and disparaged other women who had leveled allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

    By JOSH GERSTEIN
    Politico

    A former law clerk for one of the nation's most-renowned appeals court judges accused him Thursday of a crude, prolonged campaign of sexual harassment.

    Attorney Olivia Warren said during a House hearing that, during a clerkship that began in 2017, 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt repeatedly insulted her over her appearance, made vulgar comments, and disparaged other women who had leveled allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

    Reinhardt, a Jimmy Carter appointee long viewed as the leading liberal stalwart in the nation's largest judicial circuit, died in 2018 at age 87.

    "Mainly, he suggested I was horrifically unattractive," Warren testified. "He questioned whether my husband could ... be real given how unlikely it seemed to him that any man could ever be attracted to me. He speculated to me that if my husband in fact existed he was doubtless a ‘wimp’ or gay."

    "On more than one occasion, the judge suggested with words and gestures that my husband did not likely have a penis, but that if he did, he certainly would not be able to sustain an erection while looking at me, making it clear that he did not believe my marriage had been consummated."

    Warren, a Harvard Law graduate who now works in death penalty defense in North Carolina, said Reinhardt's offensive behavior intensified as he grew "visibly enraged" by #metoo allegations against his friend and fellow 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski.

    "The allegations against Judge Kozinski lit a fire that consumed chambers," Warren told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property & the Internet. "The judge railed that he would never again hire female law clerks because ... women could not be trusted. He ruminated that judges were the real victims of these feminists."

    "He explained to me that I had never been sexually harassed because no man has ever been sexually attracted to me."

    Kozinski, a libertarian-leaning Ronald Reagan appointee, retired abruptly in 2017 after being hit with allegations from more than a dozen women--including former clerks--about actions that ranged from inappropriate touching to forcing them to watch pornography in his chambers. Kozinski apologized for making clerks "feel uncomfortable," but disputed some of their claims.

    Warren said that after the federal courts set up an office to deal with harassment claims in late 2018, she reached out to a staffer there to find out if she could be assured of confidentiality. Warren said she never reported the harassment because she was dissatisfied with the lack of "meaningful guidance."

    "I was devastated personally and I was angry. I felt like I had done everything I could to ask someone to tell me how I could report in the way that I felt safe .… Nobody could guarantee me that there was that option," she told lawmakers. "This system should make it easy for a law clerk in a moment of distress....This burden should not have been on me."

    Lawmakers from both parties expressed deep dismay about Warren's account and vowed to police the moves the judiciary has made to address the problem of harassment by judges.

    "It is deeply disturbing and shocking, the abuse that you were subjected to," Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) said.

    "No matter where you work, everyone should feel comfortable in the workplace," said Rep. Martha Roby of Alabama, the panel's ranking Republican. "We must ensure that these changes are working as intended.... I want to make sure that we get this right and that the judiciary gets it right."

    Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), the chairman of the subcommittee, expressed alarm upon hearing that some mentors at law schools had told female students not to apply for clerkships with some judges.

    "There's no way we would sit back and allow this phenomenon of women coming forward to report sexual harassment to end up reducing the number of women serving as law clerks. I want to assure you of that," Johnson said.

    Two witnesses warned lawmakers that law schools may have hushed up reports about harassing behavior by judges out of fear of disrupting the informal "pipeline" that elite universities use to feed promising law students into clerkships that can lead to key jobs and to large bonuses at big law firms.

    "Not only can law schools be part of the solution, but if they don’t reckon with this they can be part of the problem," said Dahlia Lithwick, a Slate editor and former 9th Circuit clerk who testified at the hearing.

    Johnson complained publicly that the courts had declined to send any witness to testify on the issue.

    "We invited a representative from the Judicial Conference to attend today's hearing and I'm disappointed that they chose not to be here," he said.

    The director of the U.S. Courts' administrative office, James Duff, said in a letter that he was declining to appear because he believed he would be questioned about an ongoing ethics proceeding against a 10th Circuit judge that he could not comment on.

    However, Duff's office said in a statement Thursday that they were startled by Warren's account and will continue with reforms to address the problem.

    "No Judiciary employee should suffer the kind of harassment described by former law clerk Olivia Warren today," the statement said. "We are deeply concerned about the new information we have learned through Ms. Warren’s statement to the House Judiciary Subcommittee this morning, and we take her statement very seriously. We are committed to addressing this new information and continuing to refine our processes and procedures for protecting our employees and addressing misconduct."

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...assment-114817

  3. #213
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Senior Judge Raymond Fisher of the 9th Circuit has died.

    https://www.law.com/therecorder/2020...er-dies-at-80/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  4. #214
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    Not a good year for the federal judiciary.

  5. #215
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Alfred's Avatar
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    DC appeals court judge to retire, handing Trump key vacancy

    Judge Thomas Griffith on Thursday announced plans to retire from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, handing President Trump his third vacancy on the influential bench.

    Griffith is set to retire in September, just two months ahead of the 2020 election, as politics intensify the focus on Trump's conservative makeover of the federal courts.

    The judge, a George W. Bush appointee and 15-year veteran of the D.C. Circuit, made headlines last week when he ruled against House Democratic lawmakers who sought to enforce a subpoena against a former Trump aide.

    In a 2-1 opinion, Griffith ruled that courts were powerless to intervene in a House lawsuit to compel testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn over Trump's objections. If his ruling stands, it would establish a favorable precedent for future White House efforts to avoid congressional oversight.

    However, Griffith also cast a vote against Trump when the president asked the court to reconsider a ruling that paved the way for Democrats to obtain his financial records.

    The 65-year-old judge's pending departure will mark the third vacancy for Trump to fill on the D.C. Circuit, which is sometimes referred to as "the second most important court" after the U.S. Supreme Court — where a disproportionate number of D.C. Circuit judges eventually land.

    Trump's appointment of judges has been a selling point for him among conservatives as he has broken records by placing 51 judges on the country's 13 federal circuit courts, in addition to two Supreme Court picks. A pair Trump nominees — Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao — currently sit on the D.C. Circuit.

    https://thehill.com/regulation/court...mp-key-vacancy

  6. #216
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Alfred's Avatar
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    President Trump announced his intent to nominate C. Wilson to the vacancy on the Fifth, to which Ozerden had first been nominated.

  7. #217
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Yeah. He also tapped someone for the D.C. Circuit, a former Kavanaugh clerk.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  8. #218
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
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    As Mike said, too many Reagan skeletons are still in active service and should assume senior status.

  9. #219
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    A Reagan judge on the First Circuit really comes to mind. I forget his name but he's 86. Like retire what the hell are you doing dude? Although his duty station is Puerto Rico so he probably hates Trump and doesn't want trump to appoint his successor.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  10. #220
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
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    I worry that Judge Torruella is going to overturn Tsarnaev’s death sentence.

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