Failures of Refugee Law and the Inhumane Prospect of Deporting Settled Liberians from the United States

This semester I am teaching a seminar entitled Comparative Refugee and Asylum Law, and last week, one of my students in that course, Vintee Sawnhey, sent me a link to a news article about the thousands of Liberians who fear deportation from the United States because the “deferred enforced departure” status that President Bush extended to them in September 2007 is scheduled to end on March 31, 2009.  

I should probably preface the rest of this long post by explaining that the article Vintee sent me was especially interesting to me because I worked with many Liberians during and just after law school, at Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, now called The Advocates for Human Rights.  Most of my work for that organization involved interviewing prospective asylum-seekers, to assess their credibility and the strength of their claims for asylum.  My work there happened from late 1996 through early 1999, and many of our clients were Liberians.  Minnesota has a relatively large population of Liberians.  (You may want to check out the Minnesota Star-Tribune’s really nice website about Liberians in Minnesota.)

Anyway, as Vintee pointed out, the situation of these Liberians is “pretty relevant to some of our current readings” in my asylum law seminar. Indeed, the situation of the Liberians facing possible deportation later this year illustrates two of the most important ideas in the course:  (1) the legal definition of “refugee” does not include people fleeing from generalized civil war conditions, and (2) offering “temporary” humanitarian protection in place of permanent refugee status to such individuals is problematic, because countries experiencing civil war do not become stable very quickly, and human beings build new lives in the meantime.

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Okay, Judge, You Hit Your Number or Die in This Room*

Much of the attention following yesterday’s decision in Siefert v. Alexander focuses upon the invalidation of prohibitions against judges or judicial candidates belonging to political parties and endorsing partisan candidates for office. That part of Judge Crabb’s decision seems to me, given the balance between regulatory interests and the protection of speech struck by the United States Supreme Court in Republican Party v. White, to be clearly correct.

And not, in my view, very momentous. Many judges have prejudicial partisan affiliations and, in highly salient elections, it is not hard for the public to discern whether a  candidate is a Republican or Democrat.  In fact, one could argue that allowing candidates to claim partisan affiliation is a relatively efficient way to provide pertinent information to voters in campaigns where discussion of the issues is difficult and often cramped by legal and customary restrictions.  It’s not that we expect judges to rule in whatever way their party wants (although, as Judge Crabb points out, the prior partisan affiliation of federal judges is strongly correlated with voting patterns), but that partisan affiliation may tell us something (admittedly broad and general) about a candidate’s judicial philosophy.

More significant, it seems to me, is that part of the decision striking down the Code of Judicial Conduct’s prohibition against the personal solicitation of funds by judges and judicial candidates.

Continue ReadingOkay, Judge, You Hit Your Number or Die in This Room*

Seventh Circuit Week in Review: Sentencing Thought Crimes

The Seventh Circuit had four new opinions in criminal cases last week.  Two dealt with sentencing, one with interrogation, and one with a search.  I’ll cover the cases in that order.

In United States v. England (No. 08-2440), the defendant was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.  While being held pending trial, England learned that his brother-in-law Robert was cooperating with the police.  In telephone conversations with his father (which were apparently recorded by the police), England expressed feelings of violent rage against the brother-in-law, saying at one point, “[G]o relay a message to Robert [that if he] shows up to court, when I walk outta prison in fifteen years, I’m ‘onna [expletive] murder his [expletive].” 

After being convicted of the original charge, plus three new obstruction-of-justice types of charges, England was sentenced to 262 months in prison.  An earlier appeal and remand for resentencing resulted in a new sentence of 210 months.  Curiously, along the way, the sentencing judge “found” that England would have committed the crime of attempted murder of Robert or one of the other witnesses had he not been in custody before trial.  Indeed, this finding seemed to play a determinative role in the selection of a sentence.  From the standpoint of substantive criminal law, this was a strange move.  As the sentencing judge acknowledged, England took no “substantial step” — in fact, no step of any kind — towards the accomplishment of the murder that he supposedly intended.  There is a sense, then, in which England was punished based on little more than evil thoughts.  And, as any first-year law student will tell you, it is black-letter criminal law that you cannot be punished for thoughts alone.

Continue ReadingSeventh Circuit Week in Review: Sentencing Thought Crimes