How Appealing



Sunday, May 8, 2005

“He’s ‘the worst of the worst’; Michael Ross is now scheduled to be executed on Friday in Connecticut”: This article appears today in The Providence Journal.

Posted at 11:52 PM by Howard Bashman



So super-secret that it took me nearly a month to hear the news: The Charlotte Observer last month published an article headlined “Judge will hear wiretap requests; Howard is 1st from N.C. on secret court” that begins, “A federal judge in Greenville, N.C., has been named to the secret federal court that authorizes wiretaps and search warrants used to nab spies and terrorists. U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard, 65, will be the first North Carolinian on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”

Posted at 11:42 PM by Howard Bashman



“Lloyd Cutler 1917-2005; Consummate Lawyer Played Array of Roles”: This obituary will appear on the front page of Monday’s edition of The Washington Post.

Posted at 11:35 PM by Howard Bashman



“Judges Duane Benton and Coleen McMahon participate in a symposium on judicial decision making at the University of Missouri Law School highlighting Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun’s papers released last year”: You can watch the video of yesterday’s broadcast of C-SPAN‘s fine program “America & the Courts” by clicking here (RealPlayer required).

And you can view at this link the brochure from the program, which occurred in late February 2005.

Posted at 11:00 PM by Howard Bashman



“Times Panel Proposes Steps to Build Credibility”: Monday’s edition of The New York Times will contain an article that begins, “In order to build readers’ confidence, an internal committee at The New York Times has recommended taking a variety of steps, including having senior editors write more regularly about the workings of the paper, tracking errors in a systematic way and responding more assertively to the paper’s critics.”

Posted at 10:50 PM by Howard Bashman



In Monday’s edition of The New York Times: An article will report that “Case of Cuban Exile Could Test the U.S. Definition of Terrorist.”

In other news, “Broadcasters May Seek Congress’s Help in HDTV Anti-Piracy Effort.”

And in media news, an article headlined “Cable Shows Are Stealing Male Viewers From Broadcast TV” begins, “‘Harvey Birdman’ is the sort of name you might hear David Letterman repeating as a non sequitur several times during ‘The Late Show’ on CBS. In fact, Mr. Birdman is of increasing relevance to Mr. Letterman and his NBC counterpart, Jay Leno. He is the protagonist of ‘Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law,’ a campy animated program about a superhero-turned-not-very-bright-lawyer.”

Posted at 10:22 PM by Howard Bashman



“In High Court petition, Pollard alleges torture, demands Prisoner of Zion status”: Haaretz provides an article that begins, “In a petition to the High Court of Justice, Jonathan Pollard, serving a life sentence for spying for Israel, demanded yesterday that Israel recognize him as a Prisoner of Zion, stating that his U.S. jailers cruelly tortured him with sleep deprivation, electric shocks and blasts of freezing cold water.”

And The Jerusalem Post reports that “Pollard wants Prisoner of Zion status.”

Posted at 8:48 PM by Howard Bashman



In today’s edition of The Sacramento Bee: The newspaper contains an editorial entitled “Independent judiciary? Take it to the bank.”

And Ginger Rutland has a very interesting op-ed entitled “Worrying about the right things” that begins, “I know Janice Rogers Brown, and she knows me, but we’re not friends. The associate justice of the California Supreme Court has never been to my house, and I’ve never been to hers. Ours is a wary relationship, one that befits a journalist of generally liberal leanings and a public official with a hard-right reputation fiercely targeted by the left.”

Posted at 12:40 PM by Howard Bashman



“Military recruiter ban to cost colleges? Bay Area activists at forefront on issue of army personnel at campus job fairs.” This article appears today in The Oakland Tribune.

Posted at 12:30 PM by Howard Bashman



“Defense request in Diaz trial criticized; Prosecutors say asking judge to step down from case a delay tactic”: The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi today contains an article that begins, “Federal prosecutors in a bribery case involving Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz said Saturday that a defense request for the judge to step aside is a last-ditch effort to delay the trial from starting this week.”

Posted at 12:28 PM by Howard Bashman



“Legal reasoning is not akin to moral judgment”: Yesterday’s edition of The Mobile Register contained an editorial that begins, “A frequent error made by numerous news organizations in the reporting on the judicial nomination of Bill Pryor is an example of the larger problem, among journalists and much of the public alike, of misconstruing court opinions as if they were statements of morality rather than mere interpretations of the law.”

Posted at 12:24 PM by Howard Bashman



“U.S. sees local porn decision as a ‘slippery slope’; But legal scholars divide on connection to sodomy decision”: Michael McGough has this article today in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Posted at 12:23 PM by Howard Bashman



“Picking judges a disorderly affair; Partisan groups raise stakes with brinkmanship”: Charlie Savage has this article today in The Boston Globe.

The Los Angeles Times today contains a news analysis headlined “Why Senate Is Taking Filibusters to the Mat.”

In The Philadelphia Inquirer, political analyst Dick Polman has an article headlined “Fight over judges has its roots in FDR’s New Deal.”

In The Washington Post, columnist David S. Broder has an op-ed entitled “Senate Democrats Should Make a Deal.”

In The Salt Lake Tribune, U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) has an op-ed entitled “Utahns deserve the full truth about filibusters.” The op-ed responds to an article that newspaper published last Sunday under the headline “Is Hatch’s court fury hypocrisy? Clinton years: When he was Judiciary Committee chairman, many of his nominees never received an up-or-down vote.”

In The Maine Sunday Telegram, Bart Jansen has an essay entitled “More at stake than just judges.”

And in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Bradley R. Gitz has an op-ed entitled “More on judicial activism.”

Posted at 9:00 AM by Howard Bashman