The Washington, D.C., Issue of the Marquette Lawyer Magazine 

2020 Summer Cover

Amid all the global disruptions that started in March, Marquette Law School moved forward effectively in teaching students to be lawyers and in offering, as best we could, the public engagement we are known for. One important aspect of the latter is the release of the new issue of the Marquette Lawyer magazine, produced with a few internal procedural adjustments, but no change in schedule or in our commitment to provide high-quality reading to Marquette lawyers, all lawyers in Wisconsin, and many interested others.

Washington, D.C., is the focus of the new issue. The Washington that’s in

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When Must a Catholic Judge Recuse from Cases Involving His Diocese?

[The following is a guest post from Daniel Suhr ’08, a prior guest alumni contributor to the Blog.]

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Archdiocese of Washington v. Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority.  According to the order in the case, Justice Kavanaugh took no part.  In his statement respecting the denial of certiorari, Justice Gorsuch wrote, “Because the full Court is unable to hear this case, it makes a poor candidate for our review. But for that complication, however, our intervention and a reversal would be warranted….”  Justice Kavanaugh was a member of the D.C. Circuit panel that first heard oral argument in the case when he was Judge Kavanaugh, and thus could not hear the case again on appeal. See 28 U.S. Code § 47 (he subsequently withdrew from the panel).

Some have suggested that Kavanaugh was recused (either at the DC Circuit or SCOTUS) because he was an active member of a parish in the Archdiocese of Washington. This is not the standard for recusal for any judge on cases involving institutions of his or her faith.

Courts consistently hold that judges do not have to recuse when their denomination has taken a public stand on an issue before the judge.

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Trump’s Willingness to Destroy Culture

the Pink Mosque in Shiraz
Nasir al-Mulk Mosque (the Pink Mosque) in Shiraz

In the midst of our recent, deadly skirmishes with Iran, President Trump at one point threatened to bomb 52 sites that were “important to Iran and the Iranian culture.”  Commentators quickly pointed out that doing so would violate the UNESCO World Heritage Convention as well as the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.  (For just a sampling of those responses, see here, here, here, here, and here.)  For my own part, I was struck by the President’s understanding of “culture” and his willingness to destroy it.

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