Federal Law & Legal System – Page 93 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Ratner: Even Osama Should Have Had Criminal Rights

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:May 17, 2011
Post category:Civil Rights Criminal Law & Process Human Rights President & Executive Branch Prisoner Rights Speakers at Marquette

Michael Ratner would have treated the pursuit of Osama bin Laden as a law enforcement matter, not as a matter of war. He would rather have seen bin Laden arrested, brought to trial, and given the rights of a criminal defendant than shot on the spot by Navy SEALS.

This almost certainly doesn’t put Ratner in the mainstream of American opinion, but it is consistent with what Ratner has advocated as president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based non-profit organization, and as an attorney who has played key roles in defending the legal rights of prisoners at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and in opposing interrogation techniques Ratner considers torture.

Ratner visited Eckstein Hall last week to speak to about 20 people at a lunch session of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, Milwaukee Lawyer Chapter.

Ratner realizes where the preponderance of American opinion lies on the killing on May 1 of bin Laden. “No one really cares whether he was lawfully killed or not,” he said. “People wanted him killed.”

Greenhouse Gases, and Other Hot Air

Post author:Gabe Johnson-Karp
Post published:May 12, 2011
Post category:Environmental Law U.S. Supreme Court

In American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court is faced with the next, inevitable step in a line of climate change litigation including, most notably, Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007. The case includes, as did Massachusetts, a jurisdictional question of whether the plaintiff states and land trusts have standing, either under Article III or under the “prudential” principles of standing. Perhaps of broader interest, however, is the substantive question facing the Court, which is whether, in light of the powers vested in the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act, a federal common law public nuisance claim is the proper course by which to seek redress for the rise in global temperatures to which the defendants are alleged to be substantial contributors.

The power companies’ and the government’s positions in this case are mostly aligned, in that both seek to have the complaint dismissed, although on slightly different jurisdictional grounds.

Springtime for Daubert: Insights From the EDWBA Panel

Post author:Daniel D. Blinka
Post published:April 20, 2011
Post category:Civil Procedure Eastern District of Wisconsin Evidence Federal Civil Litigation Wisconsin Civil Litigation

In late January the “tort reform” package imposed the staid Daubert rules on the Wisconsin Rules of Evidence. Now it’s spring, although the weather feels a lot like January, and we must get serious about what to do with this gift that the judiciary did not want. The new rules require that expert testimony be based on demonstrably reliable methods and principles. To be determined is whether Wisconsin will be a “strict” or a “lax” Daubert jurisdiction — whatever that is. It is worth noting that the first wave of Wisconsin Daubert cases, which will likely set the mold for what follows, are also those that least interested the tort reformers, namely, criminal cases and “chapter 980” sexually violent offender cases.

Right now, however, we are in a state of nature, legally speaking. Case law under the relevancy test, the current standard, is of little avail. And while the new rules are copied from the federal rules, state courts are not bound by federal precedent (yes, that includes Daubert itself!). Last week alone I spoke at two conferences, one a large, attentive gathering of state judges in Elkhart Lake and the other an even larger, equally engaged joint convocation of state prosecutors, public defenders, and private defense counsel here at Eckstein Hall. There is a clamor for answers and a discernable unease about what to do.