Congrats Eva!
Congrats to Eva Paterson, founder of Equal Justice Society, for receiving the ABA’s Thurgood Marshall Award! Equal Justice Society is a 2024 ChangeLawyers Legal Empowerment Fund grantee.
After 30 years in prison, Missouri man is finally free after conviction is overturned
More Of This
A Missouri man was freed in St. Louis on Tuesday after spending 34 years behind bars for a murder conviction that has now been overturned.
A judge ordered last week that the man, Christopher Dunn, 52, be released immediately, but the Missouri attorney general appealed the decision, delaying Mr. Dunn’s exit as a series of legal maneuvers played out.
Speaking on the steps of Carnahan Courthouse in St. Louis on Tuesday after being released, Mr. Dunn told reporters that it was “time to move forward.”
“For those who participated in my prosecution, I forgive you,” said Mr. Dunn, who had been serving a sentence of life without parole.
Read the rest on NY Times
The federal judiciary has a sexual harassment problem
Less Of This
The federal judiciary has a sexual harassment problem.
Yet the entire federal judiciary is exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the antidiscrimination law that protects employees in most other workplaces: More than 30,000 judiciary employees cannot sue their harassers and seek damages for harm to their careers, reputations, and future earning potential. And right now, life-tenured judges are above the laws they interpret and enforce.
Fortunately, there’s a fix.
Earlier this month, former Alaska federal Judge Joshua Kindred resignedin scandal after the 9th Circuit Judicial Council found egregious sexual harassment and appalling abuse occurred in his judicial chambers over a several-year period. Kindred sent hundreds of pages of inappropriate text messages to clerks, talked about his sex life in chambers, and engaged in a sexualized relationship with a clerk. At least one clerk quit rather than endure abuse.
Read the rest on Slate
For the first time, a SCOTUS Justice calls for an enforceable code of ethics
Speaking Of...
Justice Elena Kagan said Thursday that she would support the creation of a committee of judges to examine potential violations of the Supreme Court’s new ethics code, speaking out on a contentious subject as President Biden and others are increasingly calling for reform at the high court.
Kagan suggested that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. could appoint an outside panel of highly respected, experienced judges to review allegations of wrongdoing by the justices, some of whom have faced questions in recent years over unreported gifts of luxury travel, book deals and potential conflicts of interest in key cases.
Read the rest on Washington Post
Yes, we do have a real chance to reform the Supreme Court
Perspective
Ankush Khardori is a former federal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, where he specialized in financial fraud and white-collar crime. He has also worked in the private sector on complex commercial litigation and white-collar corporate defense.
The summer of reversals for President Joe Biden continued in dramatic form on Monday as he announced that he now supports sweeping Supreme Court reform. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Biden pushed 18-year term limits and a binding ethics code on Supreme Court justices — after a long career spent opposing such measures — as well as a constitutional amendment overturning the court’s recent decision granting presidents immunity from criminal prosecution.
Is it too little too late?
Read the rest on Politico
