Young lawyers chosen to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court justices are the most brilliant law school graduates of their generation. Some go on to serve as justices themselves – Roberts, Rehnquist, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Kagan, White, Breyer, Stevens. One remarkable fact about President Trump’s attempt to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power for the
The constitutional promise that the U.S. Supreme Court is about to reinterpret and restrict in its abortion decision is the deepest well of individual freedom, autonomy and privacy in the Constitution. It doesn’t just protect women. It protects everyone. For that reason, the leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito raises questions about whether that
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson never could have expected to be asked that simple question – ‘what a woman is’’ – by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) Jackson’s response was by turns puzzled, nervously amused and then lawyerly in saying no. She said she couldn’t define the word without knowing the legal context. The brief confrontation was
Six months after St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones’ administration promised to reconsider its defense of legal doctrines that protect abusive police, it is continuing to defend them, prompting charges of “betrayal” from civil rights lawyers. In campaigning for office, Jones spoke frequently about the need for greater police accountability, citing the deaths of George Floyd
Police officers almost always avoid legal liability for abusing citizens because of the doctrine of qualified immunity. The doctrine has its roots in ugly chapters of American history — from enforcement of racial segregation at a lunch counter in Mississippi; to the National Guard killings of students at Kent State; to President Nixon’s firing of
