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OBABL Links & Resources
Supreme Court
May
1
Justice David H. Souter: I’m Out!
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Justice Souter is ready to get back to his books and his beloved New Hampshire. He has reportedly informed the White House that he will retire. At the time of his appointment by Bush 41, he was viewed as a “home run for conservatives” by the likes of John E. Sununu, who apparently was not much of a scout. Viewing the old photos of Souter, we’re surprised we’d never noticed the Justice’s penchant for pinstripes. WaPo
Souter was considered by some to be the most likely, because of his well-known disdain for the ways of Washington. The speculation has been fueled in recent weeks because Souter had not hired clerks for the court’s next term. That was tempered by the fact that Souter traditionally is the last justice to hire for the coming term.
When the court is not in session, Souter is back home in Weare, a small town west of Concord where he has a modest 200-year-old farmhouse on eight acres.
A friend who ran into him last summer in Concord said he was surprised by just how strongly Souter spoke about wanting to leave Washington. “He said, ‘If Obama wins, I’ll be the first one to retire,’ ” said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Souter had not yet announced a retirement.
Apr
21
Supreme Court Tackles Race
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…Yet, somehow it ends up being all about President, Barack Obama. From BlackLegalIssues:
The new president is partly a reflection of the legacy of voting rights laws that help to ensure participation by minorities in the electoral process. And yet, his victory is fueling arguments before the Supreme Court that some voting rights protections aren’t necessary anymore.
His “historic election … stands as a remarkable testament to the tremendous progress this country has made in terms of racial equality and voting,” says the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation.
The foundation has signed one of six “friend of the court” briefs siding with a Texas utility district’s challenge to Congress’ 2006 renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The landmark law sought to end discrimination at the polls, in part by giving the U.S. Justice Department the power to oversee election laws in parts of the country with a history of bias.
Civil rights advocates, among the groups signing 18 such briefs on the other side, are battling any potential decrease in enforcement of federal civil rights laws, from those that protect voting rights to those that shield minorities from even indirect discrimination in the workplace.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” says John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, arguing the 2008 election that vaulted Obama to the presidency also included situations in which some black voters faced intimidation at the polls.
The Supreme Court has been deeply split over how to respond to racial disputes. Since the addition of Roberts in 2005 and Justice Samuel Alito in 2006, it has grown more resistant to policies intended to benefit minorities as a group.
Roberts wrote in a 2007 decision throwing out school integration plans in Seattle and the Louisville area that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” The plans considered race in students’ school assignments for district diversity.
A year earlier, in a voting-rights case, Roberts referred to “a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a 1988 appointee of Ronald Reagan, has become the swing vote in this area. Kennedy generally opposes government policies that take account of an individual’s race, either in the workplace or in schools. He has tried to chart a middle course. In 2007, he voted with the four more conservative justices to strike down school integration plans but objected to “an all-too-unyielding insistence that race cannot be a factor” in achieving diversity.
Mar
24
Jack L. White, Supreme Court Clerk
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An OBABL tipster has pointed out that we neglected to report that Jack L. White, a card carrying member of the NAACP, is a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Mr. White graduated from West Point in 1995 and Pepperdine University School of Law in 2003. Before working at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, he clerked for the jurist during his tenure as a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. White testified about this experience before the Senate Judiciary Committee:
Mr. Chairman, Senator Leahy and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Jack White. I am an Associate in the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. I am here today in support of the confirmation of Judge Alito, to be the next Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. I served as a law clerk for Judge Alito on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 2003 to 2004.
To provide context for my comments, I would like to share some personal information about myself. I am the son of African-American parents who were born in the segregated south. Their respect for the recognition of civil liberties that have enabled them to succeed and raise principled children has inculcated the same respect in me. This respect has led me to become a member of the NAACP and the ACLU. The same respect for our freedoms encouraged me to serve our country on Active Duty as an officer in the United States Army, and I continue to serve as a Captain in the United States Army Reserve. I have also served as a minister in Savannah, Georgia.
My first opportunity to meet Judge Alito introduced me to his diligence and sense of duty. The remainder of my interactions with him have verified my initial impressions. I met Judge Alito in his chambers a few weeks after the September 11, 2001 tragedy. As the Adjutant and a Company Commander in a Reserve Reception Battalion in Pasadena, California, I had difficulty getting authorization to travel to New Jersey for a job interview. Notwithstanding Judge Alito’s assurances that I did not need to travel to meet him face to face, as an ambitious law student, I was determined to do so. When I arrived in Newark, New Jersey, at the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse where Judge Alito’s chambers are located, he and the security guards were the only people there. It was a holiday, no clerks were working, no other employees in the building were working, but Judge Alito was steadily preparing for an upcoming sitting. Yet, he took the time to tell me how he prepared for oral arguments and what he required of his law clerks in contributing to the decision-making process. Then, he took the time to tour his chambers and the courthouse with me.
Mar
13
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas stopped by Howard University to give the James M. Nabrit Jr. Lecture Series. While his 1994 visit to the campus was accompanied by protests and jeers, this time around the Justice Thomas received a rousing ovation. Why the change of heart? The students were probably encouraged to treat their esteemed guest like they would a visitor in their own homes. While Justice Thomas isn’t known for picking HU grads as clerks, in these tough economic times, it’s important for students to keep the door open and hope alive. Justice Thomas helped the mood by sticking to controversial inspirational anecdotes about his bootstraps ascent to the bench.
From TheLegalTimes:
Thomas’ talk focused primarily on his 2007 book, “My Grandfather’s Son,” which details events from Thomas’ hardscrabble childhood through his confirmation to the high court.
Writing the book was painful, Thomas said, because in contrast to deciding a case that “has nothing to do with you, you have to actually relive the experience, and in reliving the experience you re-feel the experience. And that is not so easy.” Writing his memoirs took more than five years, he said.
The book starts with a simple sentence that, Thomas said, sets the tone and marks a beginning: “I was nine years old when I met my father.” But the rest of the story, he said, is about how he kept that fact from being the end of his life story.
Jan
21
An Inauguration Courtoon
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Inauguration Courtoon
This witty “courtoon” was provided to us by David Mills. Check out his daily legal cartoons at Courtoons.
Nov
8
Our SCOTUS Law Clerks
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SCOTUS library reading room.
Currently, there is only one black clerk at the United States Supreme Court, affectionately referred to as SCOTUS. Damian Williams is the son of proud Jamaican parents. He’s clerking for Justice Paul Stevens during the 2008-2009 session. At Harvard he was Phi Beta Kappa. After that he studied at Cambridge University before settling in at YLS. He warmed up for SCOTUS with Judge Merrick Garland on the US Court of Appeals District of Columbia. Socially conscientious, Williams sits on the board of Boys Speak Out, Inc. and has worked with the Council of African American Affairs, a program affiliated with the Ron Brown Scholar Program. More on Williams here.
Even when you’ve got one of the most coveted jobs in the legal profession, a black woman cannot avoid comments about her hair. We came across Leila Thompson’s name while reading the list of recent SCOTUS clerks on ATL. We knew she was one of us when they made reference to her “fun hair.” What IS “fun hair” exactly? We’re not sure if this is counterbalancing or making matters worse but according to one ATL commenter #8: ”leila thompson is fine!!! she has to be one of the most beautiful clerks to bless the scotus.” So to that we channel Rupaul and say, WORK! Of course, her beauty could have proven problematic since she was clerking for Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas was no doubt taken with Thompson’s bootstrap story.
We couldn’t find much info on Micah Smith who is biracial (African American and Japanese). We had to rely on Wikipedia for some of our information. She was hired by my favorite justice, David Souter. She attended HLS and clerked for Judge Jose Alberto Caranes, the first Puerto Rican appointed to a federal judgeship in the continental United States. Her linkedIn page still lists her current employer as SCOTUS, so perhaps she’s extended her appointment. Or maybe she’s chillin’ in the Caribbean before snapping up the $200,000 bonus firms pay former SCOTUS clerks.
