Judicial Ethics

I feel like it's not very often when a judge gets into ethical trouble for social reasons.  Generally, by the time a person has made it to being a judge, especially a federal judge (who must be nominated and vetted by the two other branches of the federal government), that person has learned the general rules of what to do and what not to do.  George C. Paine, a bankruptcy judge in Nashville, Tennessee, has just been reprimanded by the Sixth Circuit for being a member of a country club that does not have any full women or black members who have voting rights.  In fact, women are offered the chance to be a "lady member" for a lower price, but that lower membership carries no voting rights.  A woman raised this issue of Judicial Ethics, and the Sixth Circuit responded.  Now, in Nashville, various members of the bar who have judicial aspirations are dropping their membership to this exclusive club to ensure that they are not branded as racist or misogynistic.  The club refuses to comment, but someone with sufficient power (yes, because that's not vague) has told a judge that the club will be changing and that it has a very promising black candidate.  We're in 2011, and we're still dealing with letting blacks and women into a club . . . perhaps by next year, the Belle Meade Country Club will decide to jump about fifty years and join us in the twenty-first century.

To read more, see http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111221/NEWS03/312210083/Judges-question-Belle-Meade-Country-Club-membership-after-colleague-s-reprimand?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE

Death penalty decreasing

Just a couple of links from this past week that discuss how the death penalty is being used less frequently in the US and how one law professor believes that the death penalty is coming to an end:

http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/us-death-sentences-and-executions-are-decreasing

http://news.blogs.wlu.edu/2011/12/18/decrease-in-u-s-executions-points-to-eventual-abolishment-says-wl-law-professor/

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it just seems like a bad policy to go around lawfully taking people's lives when evidence has repeatedly shown that we incarcerate and execute innocent citizens.  

A new picture of our author, Ella

Just to be fair, I had to post a new picture of Ella the dog:

This is how she analyzes students' papers and legal cases.  She is a dogged editor.  hahahaha!

Henry Hong, the North American black dog

Late September 2011, a black dog wandered after Ella and me on our walk.  Because I'm a sucker for animals in need, he is now a part of our family.  Meet Henry Hong.

 That is him wearing a blanket as a shawl.

This is what he does to help me work from home.  

Good paragraph from The Cellist of Sarajevo

While in New York this past weekend, I read the book The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.  The novel follows four characters throughout the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990's.  It is certainly not uplifting, but Galloway did an amazing job of relating their stories and telling them from a noticeably-Eastern European point of view.  The book begins with this great paragraph, and it actually repeats the paragraph several times:

It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort.  A target expanded in size, brought into focus by time and velocity.  There was a moment before impact that was the last instant of things as they were.  Then the visible world exploded.


I think this paragraph is so moving because it really captures the essence of "before" a particular (and, in this case, devastating) experience and "after" it.  In the novel, Galloway is talking about the bombing of the Sarajevo Opera Hall.  While I've never experienced the bombing of something precious to me, I know that when certain events are scheduled to happen or just spontaneously happen, that I will be or have become different from that point forward.  For scheduled events, they have been mundane things like my birthday or stressful events like the results of the bar exam.  Spontaneous events included 9/11 and hearing that my mom had advanced cancer.  Meeting between something scheduled and something spontaneous, I remember driving to Ohio in October 2009 and thinking to myself, "I am going to watch my mom die.  When I am on these roads again, my mom will be dead.  I will have crossed over."  I think that idea of identifying the moments of when life was "normal" and when it has become "something else" is a perfectly Newtonian human response -- I want to stay in motion the way I was in motion, or I want to stay at rest the way I was at rest.  Then, because of the change, we must grieve.  In Galloway's book, the characters spend their time grieving for the way life used to be -- when it was recognizable -- and they seek whatever comforts can give them even a moment's peace remembering that previous life.  Perhaps that longing is part of our penitence for being human.  

Mississippi Abortion Amendment Fails

I wrote this entry awhile ago, but because I am technologically-challenged and could not figure out how to sign into my blog (because of the new formatting), I am only now posting it.

I, for one, am breathing a huge sigh of relief that the voters of Mississippi rejected Proposition 26 yesterday.  Proposition 26 sought to end all abortions and cloning by redefining the start of life.  (See Justice Potter Stewart’s remarks during the Roe v. Wade oral arguments).  Specifically, it said:

Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Mississippi: SECTION 1. Article III of the constitution of the state of Mississippi is hereby amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION TO READ: Section 33. Person defined. As used in this Article III of the state constitution, "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof." This initiative shall not require any additional revenue for implementation.

As pointed out by blogger Burns Strider, several influential policy-shaping groups that would normally represent opposing viewpoints came together on this issue and advocated against it.  See  Burns Strider, 6 Reasons Mississippians Said No to “Personhood” Amendment, The Huffington Post, generally available at www.thehuffingtonpost.com, accessed Nov. 9, 2011.  Strider points to the joining of (1) physicians and medical groups, (2) clergy (including the Catholic Bishop), (3) The Governor, who said he would vote for it but acknowledged having multiple concerns about the issue [sounds like lip service to me], (4) the Mississippi NAACP, and (5) Mississippians for Health Families [Strider said this was the faction that organized the opponents and drove the grassroots movement].  As I’ve pointed out in previous blogs, when normally-opposing factions are able to join forces for a particular (and often very narrowly-tailored) purpose, surprising policy outcomes develop.  For example, think of how the global community (which wasn’t exactly known for its racial tolerance) joined with Martin Luther King, Jr’s movement once he wrote Letter from a Birmingham Jail to put pressure on the US government about its blatant injustices.  [As a head’s up, this joining of normally polarized forces is currently happening in Pennsylvania and New York where the environmentalists and the more conservative hunters are joining to oppose hydraulic fracturing, i.e. “fracking, which they believe is poisoning the local water and subsequently killing deer, among other effects.  For an article explain fracking in Pennsylvania and New York and the ensuing public policy debates, see Elizabeth Kolbert, Burning Love, The New Yorker, Dec. 5, 2011.]  Thus, it is not surprising that when these groups, which appealed to different parts of the Mississippi citizenry, combined around one issue they succeeded.  Obviously what is astounding is that such groups were able to join together in what has become a polarized political atmosphere, especially around the issue of abortion. 

                  From a legal standpoint, there are several disconcerting issues with the proposed amendment.  First, it is to be an amendment in the constitution – constitutions define how a government works and how the body of people exists, both in relation to other bodies of people and internally, how the people within the body relate to one another.  To change a constitution and “define life,” as this proposed amendment does is to interject politics and religious belief into what is supposed to be a time-less, and therefore apolitical, document.  Second, the proposal has been notoriously criticized for not providing an exception for the mother’s life.  Rather, it seeks to eliminate abortion by making it a felony, in all cases.  Thus, the Justice Connors’s concern in Planned Parenthood v. Casey about the potential dangers women faced when pregnant and in abusive relationships would no longer be protected.  Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 887-94 (1992).  Expanding that critique, opponents were certainly correct when the law did not allow for exceptions in the case of rape or incest.  The proponents responded that abortion is never permissible, regardless of the circumstances.  This, in effect, forces the independent mother to continue being a victim of the crime and abuse already levied against her. 

                  Overall, it is promising that the voters of Mississippi, a relatively conservative state, recognized the need to keep abortion politics out of the state’s constitution.

Equal Justice Works

This past weekend I went to the Equal Justice Works Conference in Washington D.C.  Let me first say that I have not been to D.C. since the mid-1990s.  Much has changed, as you might imagine.  Of course, much is also still the same -- the judicial, the legislature, and the executive branches are all still there.  Related to all things law, the Equal Justice Works Conference is about helping law students find public interest jobs, and those jobs ranged from working with the EPA in Boston to working with the Alaska public defender to representing children at risk in Houston.  I was so proud of the students who have made the choice to forgo the lucrative law firm job and pursue a job where they serve others.  I am sick at the amount of money that some lawyers get paid for their minimal amount of work, and I am displeased with the focus of private law firms as the shining star of employment for post-graduation.  I was so pleased to see these students actively trying to find jobs that protect the environment, children, and abused peoples.  We definitely need more lawyers like them to help protect those in need and those often forgotten or abused by the system.

For more information on Equal Justice Works, see http://www.equaljusticeworks.org/.

Really fantastic quote

So, I've taken some time off from blogging. Given that almost no one reads my blog, I felt okay with this hiatus. I am going to try to be better, though, about staying on top of things and posting good legal tidbits. I'm also going to be expanding into writing tidbits because I'm now teaching Legal Writing at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Yes, that is what I've been doing. Essentially this means that I've been trying to figure out how to teach my students better than how I was taught and to meet them at their level. It's a learning process for us all.

One of the assignments I have my students do is read periodicals for good writing style. Initially, they liked it, and it has since become a burdensome task, which I have now changed to be less-frequent and more pointed such as "focus on topic sentences and determinative facts." This morning I read them a passage from Clea Koff's book The Bone Woman, which is about Koff's time as a young forensic anthropologist digging up mass graves in Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. I thought I'd share this passage with you because it is so fantastic and moving. This particular passage is about her time in Croatia:

"To destroy a house is symbolic, especially in places like Croatia and Bosnia, where many people build their houses themselves, enlisting the aid of relatives or neighbors with skills in bricklaying or concrete and returning the favors later. The houses are usually built over a period of years, one complete floor at a time, while the family saves the money to built the next floor. Most neighborhoods have a fair number of houses with completed first and second floors, but maybe only the outer walls and roof of the third. To destroy what people have spend decades building, maybe even a lifetime, with the help of neighbors, and then to leave the neighbor's house standing, is a particular type of cruelty. The moment of destruction is intended to demoralize the owners and their families by sending a clear message: we undo your house, we erase your mark on the land. Don't come back, because you haven't enough lifetime left to start again.

Ahhhh . . . so powerful

The Secret Life of William Rehnquist

Last year, I received the March 2010 ABA Journal, and I carefully set it aside to read the Herman Obermayer's article on William Rehnquist. Over a year later, I have now read the seven page article. The article was taken from Obermayer's book on Rehnquist, and so it reads a little choppily, but it conveys good things to know about our former Chief Justice.

The most interesting, from a legal scholar standpoint, is that Rehnquist "respected tradition and order --- intellectual and social, as well as political and economic. He believed that the proven and established should not be rejected until there are substantial reasons to believe that the new is superior." Knowing this about him, it would be interesting to review his opinions to see where he favored the status quo rather than adopting the suggested new interpretation or application.

Other tidbits included his punctual nature, his intentional addiction to cigarettes, his frugality and insistence on living within his means, and his concern for the Supreme Court, as a revered institution. If you get a chance, I'd recommend reading Obermayer's article for a quick read of Rehnquist anecdotes . . . it transforms Rehnquist from a well-respected jurist to a thoughtful guy who got his jollies by betting on political races.

Worthy Mentions from My Wedding

As a completely random post, I wanted to share the names of some people who did an amazing job to help me with my wedding.

My wedding planner -- Megan Godbey

* She is not an official wedding planner, but I would recommend her to ANYONE for any sort of party planning. She was amazing!

My dress-maker extraordinaire -- Tammy Hansen

* Tammy is a long-time family friend, and she helped me figure out what I liked and what I didn't like from various wedding dresses, and then she crafted into existence what I dreamed. She is a god-send, and I am very blessed to have this woman in my life and loving me. See her website at http://homespun-creations.vpweb.com/

My church -- Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN

~ Its simplistic beauty made it so special. See its website http://www.secondpresbyterian.net/. It is SUCH an inspirational place for growing in faith and love.

My minister -- Rev. Annie McClure

- Her cup runneth over . . .

My photographer -- Leslie Rodriguez

* She is Annie's daughter, and she is an amazing photographer, musician, dog-owners, person, etc. See her website at http://capturedbyleslie.com/. If you go to her blog (http://capturedbyleslie.com/blog/), you'll see an entry on Sam's and my wedding along with some of the pictures from it.

My caterer -- Robert Spinelli at Perl Catering

*This man rose to the challenge when I told him I needed to create a meal for 50 people that blended Estonian and Taiwanese foods along with being Jewish-friendly and not having anything fried. He spent months researching and developing a perfect menu, and he delivered an impeccable meal. See his website at http://www.perlcatering.com/.

My reception venue -- The Ambrose House

* The Ambrose House is owned and operated by Elizabeth Gilbreath, who is a real delight to work with. She was so easy-going and relaxed, and the house is absolutely gorgeous. See her website at http://www.eventsnashville.net/ambrose/index.php.

My musicians -- Melissa du Puy and Bob Grant

* Melissa is a converse-wearing musical genius, and she is my favorite musician at church. I could literally listen to her play acoustic stringed instruments (she has many, and I don't know their names) all day long. Her website is http://www.myspace.com/melissadupuy. Bob Grant is the lucky man who got to play with Melissa during the reception. I don't know his website, but he is very, very talented, and I would recommend him to anyone.

My rehearsal dinner venue -- Coco's Italian Market

* My guests were over-joyed at the delicious spread prepared here for them. We rented out the entire dining room, and we feasted on bruschetta, fresh salad, shrimp scampi, penne with homemade meatballs, a chicken and pasta dish, and tiramisu. It was delicious. Their website is http://www.italianmarket.biz/

Berlusconi's Bunga Bungas Go Busta Busta

June 6, 2011's New Yorker had a crazy article by Ariel Levy about Silvio Berlusconi (the Italian prime minister) and his Bunga Bungas (orgies) and other issues with women. Levy tied Berlusconi's behavior and treatment of women to how women are currently being treated in Italy, and I have to say that the misogynistic treatment is disappointing, however, I am going to highlight something of a completely different nature. Soak in this fabulous description of Berlusconi:

When I finally met Berlusconi --- "Mr. Winner, Mr. Machismo," as Flavia Perina described him -- I was shocked. He is tiny, no more than five feet four inches tall. He wears white eyeliner on his lower lids to make his eyes pop in photographs, and he uses heavy foundation on his face, which renders him the same orangey-brown color as the case of "Jersey Shore." His hair is thinning --- "because I had too many girlfriends," he once said, before he got implants -- and dyed a vivid burnt sienna. Despite these efforts, he is not a young seventy-four; Berlusconi, in the words of his best friend, is a bit dilapidated.

Ahhh . . . I love the image. Hats off to you, Ariel Levy, hats off to you.

The Effects of Death

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I recently got married to a remarkable man. We have dated for about two-and-a-half years, and during those years, the ride of life has been nothing but tumultuous. Part of what makes my husband so amazing is his steadfastness as life kept bucking me off its back. Just one of the difficult situations I lived with included my mom's diagnosis with stage IV endometrial cancer, the nine months of complications after the diagnosis, and her eventual death. My life had been changed, and I am forever deeper as a person because of what I experienced with her and with my father.

After my mom's death, I read numerous books on grieving, and I learned about the genre of death stories. I began to read them with my whole body, often sobbing deeply with empathy, sympathy, and grief of my own. At the age of 27, I understood what they were about. I understood the depths of the emotions and phrases used to describe the indescribable. The June 13 & 20, 2011, edition of The New Yorker includes an article by Aleksandar Hemon titled "The Aquarium" that describes the diagnosis, the the attempted treatment, and the eventual death of his ten-month-old daughter, Isabel. It is a moving account of what his family experienced, and I highly recommend the article for its story. In this posting, though, I want to highlight Hemon's really top-notch writing style with the phrases that so aptly described his points:

- ". . . [we] wept through the moment that divided our life into before and after. Before was now and forever foreclosed, while after was spreading out, like an exploding twinkle star, into a dark universe of pain."

- "We were far away from the world of farmers' markets and blueberries, where children were born and lived, and where grandmothers put granddaughters to sleep. I had never felt as close to another human being as I did that night to my wife."

- "But I'd been cursed with a compulsively catastrophic imagination, and had often involuntarily imagined the worst."

- "She has to construct imaginary narratives in order to try out the words that she suddenly possesses."

- "The words demanded the story."

- "The comfort of routines belonged to the world outside."

- "But we were far more comfortable with the people who were wise enough not to venture into verbal support . . ."

- "If there was a communication problem, it was that there were too many words, and they were far too heavy and too specific to be inflicted on others. . . . We instinctively protected our friends from the knowledge we possessed; we let them think that words had failed, because we knew that they didn't want us to learn the vocabulary we used daily. We were sure that they didn't want to know what we knew; we didn't want to know it, either."

- "There was no one else on the inside with us . . ."

- "The walls of the aquarium we were hanging in were made of other people's words."

- "I'd needed more lived. I, too, had needed another set of parents, and someone other than myself to throw my metaphysical tantrums."

- "And now my memory collapses."

- "How do you step out of a moment like that?"

- "Carrying, like refugees, our large plastic bags full of things, we walked to the garage across the street, got into our car, and drove on the meaningless streets to my sister-in-law's apartment."

- " . . . [we] were left with oceans of love we could no longer dispense . . . ."

- "Her indelible absence is now an organ in our bodies, whose sole function is a continuous secretion of sorrow."

- "Mingus is still going steadily about his alternative-existence business."

I particularly love the line about his memory collapsing --- it is so true. My memory indeed collapsed, but with lots of love and self-acceptance, it has struggled back to standing, just as I have. I cherish this article, and I hope the Hemon family can find peace.

Bullying

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year or so, you've recognized the burgeoning problem of bullying, whether it be in middle school, high school, college, or beyond. It seems that with the internet, students are now without a safe haven, and the taunting has gone from being isolated to home room or study hall to being broadcast to the entire student body and the world through Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, among other mediums that I have no idea exist. Appropriately, scholars and law-makers have begun acting to prevent bullying and provide protection and recovery, in a sense, for the bullied.

In the Spring 2011 Vanderbilt Magazine, Sociologist Andre Christie-Mizell was highlighted for his work on the connection between parental neglect and bullying behavior by children. According to Christie-Mizell, "Our behavior is driven by our perception of our world, so if children feel they are not getting enough time and attention from parents, then those feelings have to go somewhere and it appears in interaction with their peers." Even more specifically, it seemed that children who felt that they did not have sufficient time with their fathers (again, this is the perception of the child) then had increased bullying behavior.

Given the chronic absence of fathers in many childrens' lives these days, if this research is correct, then it is no wonder that bullying has increased. Overall, the marriage rate has decreased and many women are bearing and raising children on their own. This has moved from being an inner-city, poverty-related situation to a situation that has become culturally-acceptable even in the suburban, middle-class neighborhoods.

Looking to a solution, Christie-Mizell suggested setting up a regular time for parental/father-child interaction, and doing so with purposeful intention. He described creating an environment where "children know they can expect this time" and depend on it.

Recognizing the current bullying problems American society is facing, the legal system has responded by creating statutes to define and provide remedies for bullying. In Ohio, bullying has been statutorily defined as "any intentional written, verbal, or physical act that a student has exhibited toward another particular student more than once and the behavior both: (a) causes mental or physical harm to the other student; (b) is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive that it creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for the other student." The law applies to all public schools, and it requires all principals to respond and investigate incidents. According to the March/April 2011 Ohio Lawyer Magazine, parents should know their school's policies, their state's laws, and ensure that the school is following the laws. As for online bullying, the Ohio Department of Education Anti-Harassment, Anti-Intimidation, or Anti-Bullying Model Policy states that "harassment, intimidation, or bullying also means electronically transmitted acts also mans electronically transmitted acts, i.e., Internet, cell phone, personal digital assistance (PDA) or wireless hand-held device that a student has exhibited toward another particular student more than once . . ."

These new laws show a definite step in the right direction to begin addressing bullying. As someone who was bullied throughout middle and high school (and even in front of the study hall teacher every morning), it would have been nice to have some way to gain protection. My parents tried talking with the teachers and the principles, but nothing was done. I definitely did not want to draw more attention to myself, but school became unbearable. I was fortunate to survive and flourish when I moved away to college, but not all students are so lucky. Now is the time for parents and communities to take a vested interest in their children to prevent bullying and to apply salves to the wounds inflicted on victims.

We've been taking care of business . . .

It has been a long time since we last posted. Essentially, life got hectic. I finished my book on TennCare while also traveling around the country interviewing with universities as they offered my fiance positions. At the same time, I was planning my wedding (I got married on May 28th!) to my wonderfully intelligent, caring, spiritual, and handsome husband. We took Ella to the beach, and the newest picture is her with sand on her nose from the beach.

When I get some time later today, I will be posting on several of the newest issues in my mind (of course, I'll be citing The New Yorker, the periodical that captivates me, along with other references). Until I get to those, enjoy another picture of ella the dog . . .

This is Ella on the boardwalk at the beach in Alabama. We took a week's trip down there before my husband had to return to Philadelphia. Poor Ella was sick almost the entire trip, but she did have a good couple of days playing in the waves.

This is Ella with a dead squirrel she found in the road and brought home for me to bury. She was exceptionally proud of her find, and I had to tell her that squirrels do not come in the house. This squirrel is buried out back by the raspberry bush. I have two more she brought home that are buried in shallow graves in the front flower bed under the honeysuckle. We prayed for all three squirrel souls and blessed them.

Highlighting a New Yorker Article: The Poverty Clinic by Paul Tough

As many of you know, I am an avid New Yorker reader. It's just so full of interesting articles that are well-written and such clever cartoons that receiving it is really a high point of my week. As I've been knee-deep in my own writing for my recently submitted scholarly paper (Uncovering the Common Grounds of TennCare Stakeholders: A Complete Timeline from 1935-2010 with the Stakeholders' Perspectives) that I haven't posted in awhile and that I have become consumed with health care policy. In the March 21, 2011, edition of The New Yorker, Paul Tough wrote about Dr. Nadine Burke and her Bayview health clinic in San Francisco. She is busy working on research proving a relationship between a stressful childhood and later physiological problems such as heart disease, cancer, asthma, diabetes, etc. One study has been done, and it showed a causal relationship between diseases with adult-onset with higher rates of childhood exposure to violence, sexual abuse, divorce, drug exposure, and neglect. However, that study was discounted by the medical community, as a whole, because of its retrospective nature. Thus, Dr. Burke along with other researchers and a group in New Zealand are completing prospective research on any possible causal relationship.

If such a relationship is proven, it raises the bar for society to protect its children. It would also begin to question, how much violence, abuse, neglect, etc., are we, as a society, willing to accept or live with, knowing that the effects go beyond perpetuating the cycle of poverty and imprisonment and extend to massive health care costs that were preventable. Balanced in with the desire to control future costs and preserve future health of our citizens is the constitutional right to parent and raise children. Would these potential outcomes further blur the line of what is acceptable and what is not? I can see a two-tier system developing to where those who are on government-funding now would be under higher scrutiny than those wealthy enough to provide for themselves and their families because the children of needy families will likely grow up to also be needy themselves. It would be like a justified big brother system: because I'm paying for you now, and I'm going to be paying for you in the future, you've got to really toe the proverbial line so I can minimize your costs to me in the future. I think there would need to be a strong stand to protect constitutional rights for those receiving aid while also trying to put the best interest of the child first.

I recommend all read Tough's article (and have a little chuckle about the cartoon on p.30).

Anti-Islamic Bill In Tennessee Legislature

In a continued fight of fearful, ignorant Bible-thumpers against the Islamic community of Middle Tennessee, members of the Tennessee General Assembly have now introduced a bill (SB 1028/HB 1353 -- you can follow it on the Gen. Assembly website http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=SB1028) that would make following the Islamic Shariah code a felony. Yes, that's right -- it would make following a religious code that provides moral guidance such as "do not steal" a felony punishable by 15 years in jail. This is outrageous. The supporters of the bill claim it is needed because of the danger the Islamic code poses to homeland security. At this time, other states have considered anti-Shariah bills, and there is a federal lawsuit in Oklahoma (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/oklahoma-sharia-law-struck-down-_n_780632.html) over the constitutionality of such a bill. Tennessee's proposed criminal penalties go the furthest.

To provide some background, Shariah has been interpreted and applied differently throughout the world. In some extreme cases, it is used to justify female genital mutilation and death by stoning. At the other end of the spectrum, it is a moral code that is abided by while the citizens also abide by the legal code of that country. For more information, see http://www.cfr.org/religion/islam-governing-under-sharia/p8034. The Imam of Middle Tennessee has stated that Islam teaches its followers to abide by the legal code of their residential country, while the Shariah provides moral values, so there would not be conflict between the two codes.

I am at a loss for words. The nonsense that went on and that still goes on to block the Islamic center in Murfreesboro was and remains preposterous. This bill takes the fear and hate of some of citizens to a whole new level. We live in a country where we have the freedom of religion and where people are innocent until proven guilty for a particular crime. At what point did the fear drip into souls and minds so that someone practicing a different religion automatically makes that person a criminal? I feel that the proposed law would be one step further to creating Islamic Jim Crow laws -- have we come full-circle to where we cannot trust those who are different from us because of paranoia that we try to control them and separate ourselves from them? Why is there this need to persecute those who are different? As President Obama touched on in his State of the Union address, the diversity of ideas (which comes from the diversity of the idea-makers) creates the ingenuity of America. That is what makes our country strong. I'm ashamed of State Senator Bill Ketron and State Representative Judd Matheny, and I hope their bill resoundingly fails.

Google Art

This is not a law-related post, but it is about a really neat development. Google has applied its street-view cameras to major art museums all over the world. This means you can "walk" down the corridors of important museums and get close to extremely important pieces of art via your computer. AMAZING!!!

check out the story about it on the economist: http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/02/google_art_project

Highlight on Linda Greenhouse's Article -- Abortion and Racial Genocide

The abortion issue is coming into focus again after fading from the forefront for a couple of years. The current debate is over federal funding through Medicaid and Medicare and the new health care plan for terminating pregnancies. Since it is easier to incite riots based on falsehoods to polarize your opposition than to engage in a real discussion about issues with someone who you respect but who believes differently than you do, those against the funding have begun tying abortions to racial genocide. It is a classic ploy to shift the opposition into the devil position and muck the policy waters with irrelevant incendiary topics. I just read Linda Greenhouse's opinion article in the New York Times, and I think it is worth sharing -- take a gander and enjoy. Even if you don't agree with what she's saying, you should be able to acknowledge she's a fine writer.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/what-would-shirley-do/?ref=opinion

Backing Up 5 Yards and Punting

Tennessee, as other states, has been affected by the decision of the one US drug maker that makes sodium thiopental, the anesthetic used in executions, to stop making the drug. The State, facing upcoming executions, is considering using pentobarbital, an anesthetic used when euthanizing animals. Ohio has "committed" itself to the alternative, and other neighboring states are considering it. Tennessee would not need legislative approval to make the change, since the decision is regulatory in nature, and it would only need a change of policy within the Department of Corrections. As expected, inmates scheduled for execution have joined lawsuits challenging the use of the pentobarbital and any sodium thiopental obtained from overseas. We'll see how this plays out.

See http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110206/NEWS0201/102060376/1969/NEWS/Tennessee-has-few-options-execution-drugs?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Death penalty taken off the table

In a surprising turn of events in today's revenge-bent society, the family of three murder victims told the district attorney that they did not want to go through a capital case trial, and they wanted the defendants to be offered a plea deal. Two teenagers, William Angel and Matthew Wood, pled guilty this week to a triple murder (a mother and her two sons) in exchange for consecutive life sentences. They described in detail how they repeatedly stabbed and slit the throats of the victims while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The nine-year-old victim pled with them to stop because he was "just a little boy." After killing the victims, they stole video games and then set the house on fire. The defendants actually had to wear bullet-proof vests to come to court because of the danger they faced for these killings.

I am amazed at the restraint the victims' family has shown, and I am pleased to see that they did not ask for these young mens' lives. Enough tragedy has been created that no more is necessary.

See http://www.wsmv.com/news/26674716/detail.html for more information

ohio facing its prisoners' issues

Ohio has begun looking at alternatives to forcing convicted defendants to serving hard time in prison. Its prisons are overflowing, and the State has no idea how many parollees it has. As a result, legislators, executives, and judges have created a proposal for restructuring the correctional program --- meaning, actually providing more instructions and programs to CORRECT the behavior of the defendant, as opposed to housing them for years at a time. This is a good step in the right direction.

See http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/02/03/copy/treatment-not-prison-now-is-looking-good.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Calls for End of Death Penalty

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer has called for the Legislature to consider removing the death penalty from the laws on the books and for the Governor to commute all death sentences to life in prison. He cited that the punishment was not being used appropriately.

http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/article/20110119/NEWS01/101190301/1002/State-justice-calls-for-end-of-death-penalty

Ohio Sup. Ct.: You Owe Too Much Money to Be a Lawyer

As a follow-up to an earlier post about the staggering debt most law students graduate with and the slim prospects of finding a job practicing law, I am now posting a link to an article about the Ohio Supreme Court's take on a practitioner-wannabe's debt load. Jonathan Griffin attended The Ohio State University School of Law, and he applied to take the Ohio bar. After learning that Mr. Griffin's debt load was $170,000, with the vast majority of it being school loans, the Ohio Supreme Court denied him the right to take the bar exam, citing that he did have adequate plans to pay for that debt. Mr. Griffin had been working in the public defender's office making $12/hour, and, if he passed the bar, he planned to work there as an attorney. Not good enough for the Supreme Court. According to the American Bar Association, the average law student carries a debt of $91,506 from attending a private law school and $59,324 from attending a public law school. Of course, most students will also have undergraduate loans looming as well. If the Ohio Supreme Court believes that working at the public defender's office won't be sufficient to pay down these loans to their liking, then perhaps there needs to be a change to increase the pay at the public defender's office or only let the rich go to law school. Refusing to let someone who wants to serve the public take the bar exam because of educational loans (i.e. because of an attempt to follow the American dream and better himself) is wrong, pure and simple.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/ohio-supreme-court-denies-law-license-law-grad/story?id=12632984&page=1

Justices Being Funny

Ryan Malphurs, PhD, just published his article analyzing the role and prevalence of humor at the US Supreme Court. See http://commlawreview.org/Archives/CLRv10i2/The%20Function%20of%20Laughter%20at%20the%20U.S.%20Supreme%20Court%20CLR%20v10i2.pdf

Of course, there's the usual academic discourse required for all such articles, but I highly recommend skimming it for the quirky references and jokes made by the justices. As he tagged and analyzed the transcripts, it became apparent that Justice Scalia is the one making the vast majority of the jokes. As evidenced by one of my previous posts, I don't really care for Scalia's biting nature, but I will admit that some of his lines are pretty funny. One of the funniest bits was the repeated mistake by several attorneys in several cases of calling Justice Souter "Justice Ginsberg." One is a man, and one is a woman! Ha! Apparently Justice Souter was very gracious in all of the incidents of mistaken identity and gender. It's nice to know that even the justices can appreciate the humor in mistakes.

Governor Bredesen's Pardons

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110112/NEWS03/101120364/1009/NEWS02/Bredesen+commutes+death+sentence++pardons+22

Before leaving the office of Governor, Phil Bredesen issued his list of pardons. Of most significance is Edward Harbison, who was on death row for beating a woman to death when he burglarized her home. Governor Bredesen felt that the crime did not "r[i]se to the level of a death penalty crime." Harbison will be serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

the truth about being a young attorney

I have to say that I'm getting pretty jaded about being a young attorney. I loved clerking for two years, and I had dreams that I would become a prosecutor. The economy struck, and I took time off from working while my mom died of cancer. Since then, I've worked at a law firm where I was perpetually cheated in my earnings, and I've worked for free for four months with the failed promise of funding. The more attorneys I meet, the less I respect the profession. Don't get me wrong -- I still love reading and studying the law, but the luster of practicing is getting duller and duller.

Here's a story about other people's struggles with being a young attorney: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=eta1

Solidarity in Tucson

As someone who met the state of Arizona and the city of Tucson for the first time this past weekend, I am pleased to see how the city has responded to this awful tragedy. I am pleased to see that the community continues pushing for peace, that it does not seek to avenge, that it seeks to cover those hurting and heal them, and that it has reacted out of love. It is never good to observe something like what happened. Such an action tears at the fabric of society and at the fabric of the souls of those involved. Those involved will never be the same as they were before. However, there is a chance that they will love stronger and stand firmer for peace. With today's announcement that the city has begun forming a band of "angels" to protect the mourners from the picketers claiming the shooting was God's will, I am encouraged about the prospect of love and peace winning all.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/11/arizona.funeral.westboro/index.html?hpt=T1

a snowy day in nashville for our author

I thought I'd post a picture of ella the dog playing in the snow. Nashville received a couple of inches of snow last night, and we took advantage of it this morning.

Congratulations to Justices Maureen O'Connor and Yvette McGee Brown!

Ohio's Supreme Court making strides --- Justice Maureen O'Connor was sworn in yesterday as Ohio's first female chief justice. This is wonderful news. Once Justice Yvette McGee Brown is sworn in today, the high court will consist of four women and three men. McGee Brown will be the court's first African-American female justice. Congratulations to Ohio for stepping outside of the white, male box.

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/01/08/copy/oconnor-takes-over-court.html?adsec=politics&sid=101