Articles Posted in Legal News and Views

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Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman on October 13, 2010 announced the establishment of the New York State Permanent Sentencing Commission, charged with conducting a comprehensive and ongoing evaluation of sentencing laws and practices and recommending reforms to improve the quality and effectiveness of statewide sentencing policy. A very important aspect of this Commission is that has been designated as permanent. There have been previous commissions created to look into these matters in New York State but they were designated as temporary. Hopefully the permant designation of this Commission will increase its influnce and help ensure that it’s recommendations and ongoing guidance will have significant impact over many years.

For official Unified Court System Press Release announcing establishment of New York State Sentencing Commission visit:

http://www.nycourts.gov/press/pr2010_11.shtml:

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Real world examples needed.I

am posting the following request for real-world examples of issues and problems regarding ethics and social media that have occurred in our courts as a service to all of us who really need access to this information. Please contact Norman Meyer directly if you have any helpful information. Congratulations to Mr. Meyer for taking on this project.

David Badertscher

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Report predicts hiring boom for lawyers who think outside the box Hiring in the legal profession is expected to increase by about 13% between 2008 and 2018, roughly on par with the expected average increase for other jobs, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The outlook is a little better for nontraditional legal jobs, however: Lawyers who are willing to take a detour into administrative, managerial and business positions are likely to find jobs more easily, the report suggests. ABA Journal (10/12)

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.Following up on our postiing about U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Bryer, we wanted to share with you the following excerpts from news and commentary sent to us by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School

September 24, 2010.

1.. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee again voted to approve four of President Obama’s nominees for federal judgeships. Goodwin Liu, a Berkeley law professor for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Louis Butler Jr., a former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward Chen of California, and lawyer John McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island – all of whom had been previously approved by the Senate panel but never received a final vote on the Senate floor – were approved along party lines. The Blog of Legal Times says the vote indicates a partisan showdown in the weeks before the heated mid-term elections. Two opposing editorials illustrate how divisive the issue is: a New York Times editorial recently blasted “An Extreme Judicial Blockade” by Senate Republicans while a Washington Times editorial stated that a “GOP Senate [is] needed to block bad judges.”

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Approved by the ABA House of Delegates

Sept. 2010

At the 2010 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, the House of Delegates approved resolutions that the Criminal Justice Section initiated or co-sponsored regarding the following issues (click on the relevant REPORT # to view the full text of the resolution and the background report):

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Justice John Paul Stevens’ career offers many lessons for those interested in learning about the attributes of a good judge, maintains an editorial in the July-August issue of Judicature, the journal of the American Judicature Society. As the editorial explains, Justice Stevens is someone who sets high personal standards, demanding much of himself. He personifies traits such as candor, civility, integrity, courtesy, and responsibility. In short, he is the embodiment of what has come to be known as professionalism.

The editorial also notes that he is characterized by virtually everybody as open-minded, and a good listener, as genial and humorous, as warm and welcoming and kind, as gentle and possessing a generousness of spirit. He is a modest, humble, and unpretentious person,

notwithstanding all that he has accomplished in life, and a man possessing empathy for those who are less fortunate. Former clerks all portray him as a wonderful teacher and role model.

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Judge Wesley E. Brown, is a spry, active 103 year old Federal District Court judge in Kansas. He still hears a full complement of criminal cases, but warns lawyers preparing for lengthly court cases that “he may not live to see cases to completion….” adding “At this age I’m not even buying green bananas.”

For more, see the September 16 New York times article: At 103, a Judge Has One Caveat, No Lengthly Trials by A. G. Sulzberger
For more information about Judge Brown go to Wesley E. Brown Inn of Court. This source includes both biographical information and a videw, made when Judge Brown was just 22 years old!

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Click on link below for various information sources related to criminal jurisdiction collected through the Google News Alert Service, September 13, 2010.

RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE TIMOTHY COLE ADVISORY PANEL ON WRONGFUL …

By john Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair Current Eyewitness Identification Procedure Reinforce False Memories and Lead to Wrongful Convictions By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair There have been 258 DNA exonerations in this country over the last two decades, according to the New … Even conservative, law-and-order minded Texans have grown weary and disgusted with repeated, highly publicized cases of innocent people being wrongfully convicted and who have spent decades in prison. …

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