#Supreme Court Misconduct

[ivygorgon]

AN OPEN LETTER to THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Co-sponsor The Judicial Ethics Enforcement Act of 2024!

59 so far! Help us get to 100 signers!

A group of House Democrats, led by Reps. Melanie Stansbury, Ilhan Omar and Jamie Raskin, have introduced legislation that would strengthen oversight of the Supreme Court. I’m writing in support of it.

The Judicial Ethics Enforcement Act of 2024 would authorize the creation of an office of the inspector general to investigate allegations of misconduct in the judicial branch. The inspector general would also investigate alleged violations of the Supreme Court code of ethics, issued in November; conduct and supervise audits; and recommend changes in laws or regulations governing the judiciary. The inspector general would be required to inform the attorney general when they believe there has been a violation of federal criminal law.

Congress must pass this bill. Confidence in the Supreme Court is at an all-time low, and there’s good reason for that. Several of its justices are deeply compromised and everyone can see it.

Please co-sponsor The Judicial Ethics Enforcement Act of 2024 right away, so the provisions in it can begin to restore Americans’ faith in our highest court. Thanks.

▶ Created on April 19 by Jess Craven

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[alwaysbewoke]

the fix is in!!

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Facing a probe into alleged misconduct, Justice Russell Brown has decided to retire early from the Supreme Court of Canada, effective immediately. With his decision to leave Canada's top court, a review into a judicial complaint levelled against him has halted, though work is already starting to find his replacement. "Unfortunately, as a result of a complaint made against me in connection with an event in late January in Arizona, I have not participated in the Court’s work for over four months… The process has also imposed a significant strain on my family and me," Brown said in a statement issued Monday. In usurping the Canadian Judicial Council's ability to proceed with its hearings regarding the allegations against him, Brown said that while he was confident that ultimately the matter would have been dismissed, "the continuing delay is in nobody’s interests." [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[luulapants]

Real talk, expanding the Supreme Court is a bandaid solution, which may be necessary but may also lead to serious future consequences for our judicial branch at large. Here are some steps that would actually work to repair the harm done to SCOTUS:

At least one of the liberal judges must begin writing dissents not based on the content of specific cases but based on the illegitimacy of the court. The dissent must state that this court is corrupt, financially and politically, and that none of its judgments should stand as valid case law. This opens the door for #5.

Impeach Justice Thomas for financial crimes. There is abundant evidence of these.

Impeach Justice Roberts for financial crimes. There is abundant evidence of these.

Open investigations into ALL Supreme Court judges (not just the conservative ones - the liberal judges signed that abominable "we are in charge of our own ethics" decision, too) to seek evidence of financial or political misconduct. Proceed accordingly.

Open a Greylord-style Special Commission to determine the chronological extent of the current systemic corruption of SCOTUS. We do not need direct evidence of quid pro quo bribery in specific cases to justify overturning them. The presence of financial misconduct related to even one case means the absence of a bribe in another could have contributed to its findings. Overturn every single case tried under systemic corruption.

This would create a massive, tangled knot of case law, precedent, and judgments, all of which would need to be walked back, possibly decades. It would be a nightmare. It would be necessary. The Cook County courts tackled the same beast during Greylord. There is historical precedent, and the alternative is to continue building our legal system on corrupt case law.

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #29

July 26-August 2 2024

President Biden announced his plan to reform the Supreme Court and make sure no President is above the law. The conservative majority on the court ruled that Trump has "absolute immunity" from any prosecution for "official acts" while he was President. In response President Biden is calling for a constitutional amendment to make it clear that Presidents aren't above the law and don't have immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. In response to a wide ranging corruption scandal involving Justice Clarence Thomas, President Biden called on Congress to pass a legally binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court. The code would force Justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political actions, and force them to recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have conflicts of interest. President Biden also endorsed the idea of term limits for the Justices.

The Biden Administration sent out an email to everyone who has a federal student loan informing them of upcoming debt relief. The debt relief plan will bring the total number of a borrowers who've gotten relief from the Biden-Harris Administration to 30 million. The plan is due to be finalized this fall, and the Department of Education wanted to alert people early to allow them to be ready to quickly take advantage of it when it was in place and get relief as soon as possible.

President Biden announced that the federal government would step in and protect the pension of 600,000 Teamsters. Under the American Rescue Plan, passed by President Biden and the Democrats with no Republican votes, the government was empowered to bail out Union retirement funds which in recent years have faced devastating cut of up to 75% in some cases, leaving retired union workers in desperate situations. The Teamster union is just the latest in a number of such pension protections the President has done in office.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris oversaw the dramatic release of American hostages from Russia. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan held since 2018, Russian-American reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Alsu Kurmasheva convicted of criticizing the Russian Military, were all released from captivity and returned to the US at around midnight August 2nd. They were greeted on the tarmac by the President and Vice-President and their waiting families. The deal also secured the release of German medical worker Rico Krieger sentenced to death in Belarus, Russian-British opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, and 11 Russians convicted of opposing the war against Ukraine or being involved in Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption organization. Early drafts of the hostage deal were meant to include Navalny before his death in Russian custody early this year.

A new Biden Administration rule banning discrimination against LGBT students takes effect, but faces major Republican resistance. The new rule declares that Title IX protects Queer students from discrimination in public schools and any college that takes federal funds. The new rule also expands protections for victims of sexual misconduct and pregnant or parenting students. However Republican resistance means the rule can't take effect nation wide. Lawsuits from Republican controlled states, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, means the new protections won't come into effect those states till the case is ruled on likely in a Supreme Court ruling. The Biden administration crafted these Title IX rules to reflect the Supreme Court's 2020 Bostock case.

The Biden administration awarded $2 billion to black and minority farmers who were the victims of historic discrimination. Historically black farmers have been denied important loans from the USDA, or given smaller amounts than white farmers. This massive investment will grant 23,000 minority farmers between $10,000 and $500,000 each and a further 20,000 people who wanted to start farms by were improperly denied the loans they needed between $3,500-$6,000 to get started. Most payments went to farmers in Mississippi and Alabama.

The Biden Administration took an important step to stop the criminalization of poverty by changing child safety guidelines so that poverty alone isn't grounds for taking a child into foster care. Studies show that children able to stay with parents or other family have much better outcomes then those separated. Many states have already removed poverty from their guidelines when it comes to removing children from the home, and the HHS guidelines push the remaining states to do the same.

Vice-President Harris announced the Biden Administration's agreement to a plan by North Carolina to forgive the state's medical debt. The plan by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper would forgive the medical debt of 2 million people in the state. North Carolina has the 3rd highest rate of medical debt in the nation. Vice-President Harris applauded the plan, pointing out that the Biden Administration has forgiven $650 million dollars worth of medical debt so far with plans to forgive up to $7 billion by 2026. The Vice-President unveiled plans to exclude medical debt from credit scores and issued a call for states and local governments to forgive debt, like North Carolina is, last month.

The Department of Transportation put forward a new rule to bank junk fees for family air travel. The new rule forces airlines to seat parents next to their children, with no extra cost. Currently parents are forced to pay extra to assure they are seated next to their children, no matter what age, if they don't they run the risk of being separated on a long flight. Airlines would be required to seat children age 13 and under with their parent or accompanying adult at no extra charge.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it is giving $3.5 billion to combat homelessness. This represents the single largest one year investment in fighting homelessness in HUD's history. The money will be distributed by grants to local organizations and programs. HUD has a special focus on survivors of domestic violence, youth homeless, and people experiencing the unique challenges of homelessness in rural areas.

The Treasury Department announced that Pennsylvania and New Mexico would be joining the IRS' direct file program for 2025. The program was tested as a pilot in a number of states in 2024, saving 140,000 tax payers $5.6 million in filing charges and getting tax returns of $90 million. The program, paid for by President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, will be available to all 50 states, but Republicans strong object. Pennsylvania and New Mexico join Oregon and New Jersey in being new states to join.

Bonus: President Biden with the families of the released hostages calling their loved ones on the plane out of Russia

[contemplatingoutlander]

How to save the Supreme Court from Alito’s ethical malfeasance

The justice’s unconscionable violations of ethics demand the court be reformed.

Jennifer Rubin clearly explains why Alito went too far in allowing a symbol of the insurrection to fly over his home, and why the Roberts Court needs to stop slow-walking the presidential immunity decision if the Court is to regain any credibility. This is a gift🎁link so anyone can read the full article, even if they don't subscribe to The Washington Post.

Among the Supreme Court’s abominations — shredding precedent to obliterate reproductive freedom, financial impropriety, partisanship — none compares to the upside-down flag, identified with violent insurrectionists, that flew over the home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Ethics experts and lawyers (including former judges) of all stripes expressed their outrage. “His statement — which says his wife displayed a symbol associated with a failed coup to subvert democracy because she was offended by an anti-Trump sign one of her neighbors displayed — is so incoherent it is insulting to our collective intelligence,” constitutional law professor Leah Litman emails me. “And a Justice who resides in a house that displays symbols glorifying a coup should not participate in cases that will determine whether people who participated in said coup will face any accountability.” [...] Alito (alongside Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife encouraged coup plotters) has heard multiple insurrection-related cases, including the pending immunity case that could absolve Trump of criminal liability. In letting his home stand in solidarity with constitutional arsonists, Alito made a mockery of his oath to “faithfully and impartially discharge” his duties under the Constitution. Any other judge (especially one implicated in financial misconduct) would be compelled to resign and/or face the threat of impeachment. So what about Alito? Immediate Triage Unlike its speedy disposition of the 14th Amendment case (24 days after argument) and of many lesser matters, the court put the immunity case in deep freeze, making it near-impossible to try the ex-president before the next election....The Alito debacle only deepens the impression that the court has its thumb on the scale — or the brake — for Trump. [...] As constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe warns in an email to me, if Roberts “wants the Court to retain any credibility at all,” he must compel the court to “bite the bullet and issue its decision, ....” Then, Tribe explains, “Judge [Tanya S.] Chutkan either can hold whatever hearing the Court thinks necessary to decide exactly which charges against the former president may remain” or can begin the trial itself, which “should have been over by now.” Alito’s ethical self-immolation leaves Roberts no alternative if he wants to dispel the perception that two ethically compromised, partisan justices have thoroughly corrupted the court. (He also should implore Alito to recuse, but who believes that’ll happen?) [emphasis added]

[mariacallous]

Driven by hardline prosecutors and tough-on-crime governors, the number of executions jumped 64 percent in 2022 and increased again in 2023 to a total of 24, the highest in five years.

Perhaps the most crucial player in the death penalty’s resurrection, though, is the U.S. Supreme Court, whose historic role of maintaining guardrails has given way to removing roadblocks. Under the conservative supermajority put in place by President Donald Trump, the justices are far more likely to propel an execution forward than intercede to stop it, including in cases where guilt is in doubt or where the means of carrying it out could result in a grotesque spectacle of pain and suffering.

...

In 1976, the Supreme Court famously declared that “death is different,” and demanded an extra level of scrutiny because a mistake is irreversible. Historically, in particularly troubling instances involving state misconduct or abysmal defense lawyering, the Court sometimes intervened at the eleventh hour — from 2013 to 2023, it stayed an execution just 11 times and vacated stays of execution 18 times, according to Bloomberg Law.

Since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her replacement with Amy Coney Barrett in 2020, the Court has stopped an execution only twice and reversed a lower court to permit an execution nine times. In 2023, 26 condemned prisoners asked the Court to hear their cases; 25 were rejected. The message is clear: Prosecutors eager to seek and swiftly impose death sentences can reliably do so without judicial interference.

...

In Bucklew v. Precythe, a majority of the court opined that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment “does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death — something that, of course, isn’t guaranteed to many people, including most victims of capital crimes.” In the court’s reasoning, the excruciating pain the defendant might suffer during execution paled in comparison with the terror and mayhem he inflicted during his crimes.

In that same opinion, the Court indicated an impatience with pausing executions while it considered whether to hear the underlying claims from appellate attorneys. Justice Neil Gorsuch warned his colleagues to be skeptical when reading eleventh hour death row appeals: “Last minute stays should be the extreme exception, not the norm.”

It has been. Consider the 13 federal prisoners who were sent to the death chamber in the final months of Trump’s presidency. In a series of terse orders, issued without briefing, argument or public airing of the legal issues, the court blessed the rushed, furious pace. Using this opaque process, which legal scholars call the “shadow docket,” the justices erased lower-court injunctions against executions in seven cases and turned away last-minute requests for stays in the other six. During the 16 years in which Barack Obama and George W. Bush occupied the White House, the Court had invoked the shadow docket to rule for the government a total of four times and “never in a death penalty case,” according to Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. In Trump’s single term in office, the number jumped to 28, including non-capital cases.

More recently, the Court has rejected cases that advocates say are riddled with error or rest on shaky evidence.

...

Death penalty cases are notoriously rife with racism, questions of innocence, mental health of the accused and whether they received competent legal counsel. Sometimes the facts are too dire for courts to ignore, and even some pro-death penalty politicians are unwilling to take actions in flagrant violation of established norms. The total number of executions over the past decade is still a fraction of its peak in the 1990s.

And yet, the death penalty machine continues to crank on. These days, the battles over who lives and who dies are increasingly local — waged courtroom by courtroom because the Supreme Court has largely abdicated its decades long role as the final arbiter.

“It is becoming more and more clear that the Court is reluctant to interfere in state court cases even to enforce its own precedent,” said Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “They are saying, ‘This is not our problem to deal with.’”

An ‘Execute-Them-At-Any-Cost Mentality’: The Supreme Court’s New, Bloodthirsty Era

[robertreich]

How to Fix a Broken Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is off the rails — and it’s only going to get worse unless we fight to reform it.

Trust levels and job approval ratings for the Court have hit historic lows due in large part to a growing number of ethics scandals.

Here are THREE key reforms Congress should enact to restore legitimacy to our nation’s highest court:

1) Establish a code of ethics

Every other federal judge has to sign on to a code of ethics — except for Supreme Court justices.

This makes no sense. Judges on the highest Court should be held to the highest ethical standards.

Congress should impose a code of ethics on Supreme Court justices. At the very least, any ethical code should ban justices from receiving personal gifts from political donors and anyone with business before the Court, clarify when justices with conflicts of interest should remove themselves from cases, prohibit justices from trading individual stocks, and establish a formal process for investigating misconduct.

2) Enact term limits

Article III of the Constitution says judges may “hold their office during good behavior,” but it does not explicitly give Supreme Court Justices lifetime tenure on the highest court — even though that’s become the norm.  

Term limits would prevent unelected justices from accumulating too much power over the course of their tenure — and would help defuse what has become an increasingly divisive confirmation process.

Congress should limit Supreme Court terms to 18-years, after which justices move to lower courts.

3) Expand the Court

The Constitution does not limit the Supreme Court to nine justices. In fact, Congress has changed the size of the Court seven times. It should do so again in order to remedy the extreme imbalance of today’s Supreme Court.    

Now some may decry this as “radical court packing.” That’s pure rubbish. The real court-packing occurred when Senate Republicans refused to even consider a Democratic nominee to the Supreme Court on the fake pretext that it was too close to the 2016 election, but then confirmed a Republican nominee just days before the 2020 election.

Rather than allow Republicans to continue exploiting the system, expanding the Supreme Court would actually UN-pack the court. This isn’t radical. It’s essential.

Now, I won’t sugar-coat this. Making these reforms happen won’t be easy. We’re up against big monied interests who will fight to keep their control of our nation’s most important Court.

But these key reforms have significant support from the American people, who have lost trust in the court.

The Supreme Court derives its strength not from the use of force or political power, but from the trust of the people. With neither the sword nor the purse, trust is all it has.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Reich's Substack:

Friends, For years, conservatives have railed against what they call the “administrative state” and denounced regulations. But let’s be clear. When they speak of the “administrative state,” they’re talking about agencies tasked with protecting the public from corporations that seek profits at the expense of the health, safety, and pocketbooks of average Americans. Regulations are the means by which agencies translate broad legal mandates into practical guardrails. Substitute the word “protection” for “regulation” and you get a more accurate picture of who has benefited — consumers, workers, and average people needing clean air and clean water. Substitute “corporate legal movement” for the “conservative legal movement” and you see who’s really mobilizing, and for what purpose.

**

[...] Last week, the Supreme Court made it much harder for the FTC, the Labor Department, and dozens of other agencies — ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Food and Drug Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and National Highway and Safety Administration — to protect Americans from corporate misconduct.

On Thursday, the six Republican-appointed justices eliminated the ability of these agencies to enforce their rules through in-house tribunals, rather than go through the far more costly and laborious process of suing corporations in federal courts before juries. On Friday, the justices overturned a 40-year-old precedent requiring courts to defer to the expertise of these agencies in interpreting the law, thereby opening the agencies to countless corporate lawsuits alleging that Congress did not authorize the agencies to go after specific corporate wrongdoing. In recent years, the court’s majority has also made it easier for corporations to sue agencies and get public protections overturned. The so-called “major questions doctrine” holds that judges should nullify regulations that have a significant impact on corporate profits if Congress was not sufficiently clear in authorizing them.

[...] In 1971, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, then a modest business group in Washington, D.C., asked Lewis Powell, then an attorney in Richmond, Virginia, to recommend actions corporations should take in response to the rising tide of public protections (that is, regulations). Powell’s memo — distributed widely to Chamber members — said corporations were “under broad attack” from consumer, labor, and environmental groups. In reality, these groups were doing nothing more than enforcing the implicit social contract that had emerged at the end of World War II, ensuring that corporations be responsive to all their stakeholders — not just shareholders but also their workers, consumers, and the environment.

[...] The so-called “conservative legal movement” of young lawyers who came of age working for Ronald Reagan — including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — were in reality part of this corporate legal movement. And they still are. Trump’s three appointments to the Supreme Court emerged from the same corporate legal movement. The next victory of the corporate legal movement will occur if and when the Supreme Court accepts a broad interpretation of the so-called “non-delegation doctrine.” Under this theory of the Constitution, the courts should not uphold any regulation in which Congress has delegated its lawmaking authority to agencies charged with protecting the public. If accepted by the court, this would mark the end of all regulations — that is, all public protections not expressly contained in statutes — and the final triumph of Lewis Powell’s vision.

Robert Reich wrote an interesting Substack piece on the history of the right-wing war on regulatory power that began with the infamous Powell Memo by Lewis Powell, and culminated with the recent Loper Bright Enterprises, Jarkesy, and Trump rulings.

[palmtreepalmtree]

This is honestly still so shocking to me. As a California lawyer, I feel like it's difficult to understate the impact of John Eastman's fall.

Before Trump, John Eastman was a fixture of the California legal community. He was the Dean of Chapman University's law school for years. He was regularly interviewed in local media to get the conservative legal viewpoint, and even though I almost always disagreed with his positions, his reasoning was usually cogent and thoughtful. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for fuck's sake (this is not a thing that stupid, sloppy, or thoughtless people can achieve or do--you can have bad and seriously wrong opinions, sure, but you can't be thoughtless).

I swear though, it sometimes feels like the entire conservative base has been captured by some kind of mania. He continues to insist that his prosecution is politically motivated. Even as his own witnesses collapsed on the lies he continues to peddle:

Testifying in Eastman’s defense was Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who has stated the election was stolen. But at the trial, Gableman admitted that his own 14-month inquiry into the election failed to prove that fraud cost Trump the election.

Another Eastman witness, John Yoo, a longtime friend and a Berkeley Law professor, testified that Joe Biden had won the White House “fair and square” and that Pence had “unassailable grounds” in refusing to reject electoral votes.

I mean, I guess at this point he just has to go all in on the lie. He allegedly says that his legal fees are going to cost him between $3 to $3.5 million and he's raised something like $500k for his legal defense.

But this doesn't sound like someone who is lying. It sounds like someone in a fucking cult:

[Eastman] said the bar trial was “extraordinary and unprecedented” but gave him a chance to present wider evidence of election fraud than had been previously aired. “It was eye-opening for a lot of people about the amount of illegality that we exposed during that trial,” Eastman said.

My dude, the Judge issued a 128 page ruling that found you guilty of 10 out of 11 counts of misconduct. Exactly what did you expose except your own ass?

Eastman portrays himself as a battling patriot who has been subjected to “false narratives and calumnies.” He said he is the victim of “lawfare,” an attempt to silence unpopular views with legal machinery.

“We are in a rather significant fight, and for whatever reason, I am the lead point of the spear in that fight, and I am taking it on, as I think my duty as a citizen requires,” he said. “We’ll do what it takes.”

My god, someone needs to fucking deprogram this guy.

Anyhow, this continues to be insane to me.

[f1ghtsoftly]

All The Women’s News You Missed This Week:

9/30/24-10/7/24

want this sent to your email? Subscribe here

Transgender and Gender Critical News: 

Major cases before the Supreme Court deal with transgender rights, guns, nuclear waste and vapes

Death threats assail Brazil’s trailblazing trans candidates as they campaign

Reproductive Rights: 

US Supreme Court rebuffs Biden administration on emergency abortions in Texas

Women in War, Israel/Occupied Palestine: 

A picture of her grief gripped the world. A year on, Gaza woman haunted by memories

Far from Gaza, a Thai mother grieves for her missing son

Policewoman killed and 10 injured in shooting in Israel 

Girl who lost eye in Israeli raid that killed father carries ‘pain mountains can't bear’

UK-Israeli hostage has been forgotten, says mum

Women in the news: 

Harris talks abortion and more on ‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast as Democratic ticket steps up interviews

Supermodel Naomi Campbell admits failures at charity, denies misconduct, media reports say

San Francisco’s first Black female mayor is in a pricey battle for a second term

Mexico’s new president promises to resume fight against climate change

For migrant women who land in Colorado looking for jobs, a common answer emerges: No

In their 80s, these South Korean women learned reading and rap

Pope Francis urges unity as advocates for women’s ordination press cause at Vatican gathering

Male Violence: 

Judge denies Wisconsin attorney general’s request to review Milwaukee archdiocese records

Gang rapists sentenced to life in Tanzania prison 

Abbington has 'no regrets' about Strictly complaints 

India government says criminalising marital rape 'excessively harsh'

Arts and Culture: 

Movie Review: ‘The Substance’ is brilliantly disgusting and deranged 

Movie Review: Helen Mirren tells a story of evil and hope during WWII in ‘White Bird’

Movie Review: A transcendent Saoirse Ronan illuminates true-life addiction drama ‘The Outrun’

As always, this is global and domestic news from a US perspective covering feminist issues and women in the news more generally. As of right now, I do not cover Women’s Sports. Published each Monday afternoon.

[tzifron]

The force also used “lethal-force overwatch” — snipers armed with rifles — during the high-profile enforcement, according to officers with a specialized RCMP response team meant to resolve high-risk situations.

The revelations came as RCMP witnesses began testifying at a hearing on the Nov. 19, 2021, police response to Indigenous land defenders who had occupied two small structures along the Coastal GasLink pipeline route. The hearing follows Justice Michael Tammen’s verdict, Friday, that there is sufficient evidence to convict three people charged during the raid with criminal contempt of court.

Immediately following the decision, Tammen moved to consider an application to dismiss the charges based on police conduct during the arrests. The defendants say they experienced “widespread Charter violations stemming from police misconduct” and “disproportionate and excessive use of force,” according to a statement issued by members of the Gidimt’en Clan.

Among those arrested inside a “tiny house” located next to the pipeline route was Sleydo’, who also goes by Molly Wickham. A prominent figure in the Wet’suwet’en First Nation’s years-long opposition to the project, Sleydo’ was arrested along with Shaylynn Sampson, who is Gitxsan, and several others, including two journalists. One of the journalists, Amber Bracken, is now suing the RCMP over her arrest and detention.

[beardedmrbean]

An expelled Yale University student who was acquitted of sex assault charges in 2018 is now suing 15 women's advocacy groups and an attorney for defamation after being called a “rapist” in a court brief that they filed in a 2022 proceeding.

Saifullah Khan, a 31-year-old Afghanistan native, said the organizations, which include the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence and the National Women's Law Center, repeated his accuser's allegations as fact, such as writing, “When Jane Doe was in college, the Plaintiff raped her” and referring to Khan as “her rapist."

While that language was amended, Khan says his reputation was harmed and that he has suffered “economic and non-economic damages." His lawsuit, which seeks financial damages, said the original draft brief “remains published, indefinitely" on the Connecticut Judicial Branch website and was also published online by the women's advocacy groups and for donors.

“We would like for them to understand that there is harm to someone when you just label them,” said Alex Taubes, Khan's attorney. “No one could complain about it if he had been found guilty. But he wants to see that when you actually are found not guilty, is there any vindication? Is there any way to stand up for yourself at that point?”

Although Khan was acquitted of four sexual assault charges by a jury in May 2018, he was expelled from Yale in November 2018 following a university investigation and sexual assault disciplinary proceeding. He sued both Yale and his accuser, and that case is pending in federal court.

As part of that case, the Connecticut State Supreme Court was asked to weigh in on the question of whether the accuser should be immune from a civil suit for comments made during the university proceeding. Various women's rights groups argued that such immunity is crucial to prevent rape victims from being discouraged to come forward.

The court, however, ruled 7-0 last year that because Khan had fewer rights to defend himself in the university proceeding than he would in criminal court, his accuser could not benefit fully from immunity granted to witnesses in criminal proceedings. As in many U.S. universities, Yale’s procedures do not subject accusers to cross-examination and do not require witnesses to testify under oath.

Messages seeking comment were left with National Alliance to End Sexual Violence and the National Women’s Law Center, as well as Jennifer Becker, the former legal director at the women’s advocacy group Legal Momentum who submitted the original application to file the amicus brief with Connecticut's highest court. In a response to an ethics complaint Khan filed against her, Becker wrote that when she drafted the brief “I wholly believed that my statements were fully supported by the record.”

Becker said she did “appreciate that the language drafted was overzealous and unnecessarily forceful.” But she noted in her statement how the brief was refiled, “shorn of all facts not supported by the record,” as ordered by the justices, and the court never admonished her for the language she used in the original one or made any finding that it was inappropriate.

“Additionally, any overzealousness on my part was ameliorated by the Court's order and there is no resulting harm to Mr. Kahn,” she wrote, noting the language he had complained about has been stripped.

Legal experts have said the Connecticut State Supreme Court's ruling last year could be a major precedent cited in other lawsuits by students accused of sexual misconduct in challenges to the fairness of their schools’ disciplinary proceedings.

[macleod]

The Biden administration issued new rules on Friday cementing protections for L.G.B.T.Q. students under federal law and reversing a number of Trump-era policies that dictated how schools should respond to cases of alleged sexual misconduct in K-12 schools and college campuses. The new rules, which take effect on Aug. 1, effectively broadened the scope of Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. They extend the law’s reach to prohibit discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and widen the range of sexual harassment complaints that schools will be responsible for investigating. [...] Through the new regulations, the administration moved to include students in its interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark 2020 Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination. The Trump administration held that transgender students were not protected under federal laws, including after the Bostock ruling.

Source: NY Times (April 19 2024)

[tomorrowusa]

A Trump-appointed federal judge just resigned in disgrace. Sadly, it's not one of his three SCOTUS appointments.

A Trump-appointed federal judge in Alaska abruptly and with no explanation resigned from his position last Wednesday.  Court documents made public Monday reveal that former U.S. District Judge Joshua Kindred’s resignation came after he was asked to voluntarily resign in response to a judicial investigation that found he had “an inappropriately sexualized relationship” with one of his law clerks during her clerkship and while she was an assistant district attorney and engaged in misconduct that was “pervasive and abusive.”

Basically, Joshua Kindred was acting like Trump. Of course he tried to lie his way out of his troubles.

Kindred also repeatedly lied about his misconduct during the investigation and “created a hostile work environment for his law clerks by engaging in unwanted, offensive, and abusive conduct, and treating the law clerks in a demonstrably egregious and hostile manner,” according to the 30-page court order — which was filed in May but was made public on July 8. The report reveals behind-the-scenes details of an out of control work environment created by Kindred, who was accused of repeatedly speaking with “no filter” about his sex life and receiving nude photos from a federal prosecutor whose office had frequent business before him. “We conclude that Judge Kindred’s misconduct was pervasive and abusive, constituted sexual harassment, and fostered a hostile work environment that took a personal and professional toll on multiple clerks,” the report read. At the center of the scathing report is an unnamed law clerk. The report details the allegations behind two inappropriate “sexual encounters” between the female clerk and the former judge, as well as the contents of 278 pages of text messages between the two over an 11-month period. 

A reminder that there are serious allegations of misconduct involving Republican members of the US Supreme Court which need to be investigated.

[follow-up-news]

The New York state Supreme Court on Tuesday disbarred former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani over his part in Donald Trump’s election interference efforts in 2020. The long-expected disbarment of Trump’s most high-profile lawyer, which is effective immediately, is a major blow to the former public official at a time he faces fallout for spreading lies about the 2020 election. In addition to losing his law license – which is likely to be recognized across the country – Giuliani is in bankruptcy after landing $150 million in debt for defaming two election workers, and faces several other lawsuits against him as well as criminal charges. “The seriousness of (Giuliani’s) misconduct cannot be overstated,” the court wrote. “(Giuliani) flagrantly misused his prominent position as the personal attorney for former President Trump and his campaign, through which (he) repeatedly and intentionally made false statements, some of which were perjurious, to the federal court, state lawmakers, the public, the (Attorney Grievance Committee), and this Court concerning the 2020 Presidential election, in which he baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country’s electoral process.” Giuliani, the court said, “not only deliberately violated some of the most fundamental tenets of the legal profession, but he also actively contributed to the national strife that has followed the 2020 Presidential election, for which he is entirely unrepentant.”