Sykes, Sotomayor, and Women Judges

I had the opportunity last week to attend Women Judges’ Night, an event that the Association for Women Lawyers presents annually (indeed, this year’s dinner was the thirtieth such). The Hon. Diane S. Sykes, L’84, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, delivered what was billed as a keynote but was also in the nature of after-dinner remarks. The speech was a very good example of either form, for reasons related to its warmth, its willingness to take on a substantive and even somewhat contentious topic, and the speaker’s self-awareness and humor.

Judge Sykes began with a “confess[ion]”:

[T]the idea of a “Women Judges Night” has always made me vaguely uneasy. I’m uncomfortable with the implications and consequences of gender-identity politics—or any identity politics, for that matter. When we celebrate Women Judges Night every year, what is it precisely that we’re celebrating? If we’re celebrating the appointment or election of women judges just because they are women, then I think we are making a mistake about the qualities necessary in a good judge, which of course are not gender-specific. If we’re celebrating the appointment and election of women judges because they subscribe to a gender-based brand of judging, then we are making an even bigger mistake about the nature of the judicial role. I don’t think we’re celebrating either of these things, but I do think it’s important for us to be careful not to diminish the contributions of women judges by emphasizing their gender as if it had something to do with their qualifications for judicial office or has substantive significance in their work.

She would conclude with her own assessment of what the event celebrates, along the way touching upon matters from Madison to Washington, D.C.—from her former court, a majority of whose justices were in attendance (viz., Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, Justice Annette K. Ziegler, and Justice Patience D. Roggensack, the last of whom introduced Judge Sykes), to the United States Supreme Court and, in particular, last year’s confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. 

Continue ReadingSykes, Sotomayor, and Women Judges

A Chemistry Lesson from the Seventh Circuit

seventh-circuit51Under the federal sentencing guidelines, sentences in drug-trafficking cases turn largely on weight — that is, how much of each type of drug was sold by the defendant — which can cause all sorts of problems in sentencing long-time dealers who were not considerate enough to keep meticulous records of their sales for the police.  Witness the case of crack dealer Joshua Hines, who admitted acquiring 1.531 kilograms of powder cocaine.  The district judge assumed that Hines cooked this powder into an equivalent weight of crack for resale, which resulted in a sentence of 168 months in prison.  Given much harsher treatment of crack than powder, the guidelines would not have resulted in nearly so long a sentence on the basis of the 1.531 kg of powder alone.  So, is it fair to assume that a crack dealer who possessed a certain weight of powder also possessed the same weight of crack?

No, said the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Hines (No. 08-3255).  Writing for the court, Judge Posner offered a little chemistry lesson, explaining that the process of cooking powder into crack removes hydrochloride from the drug.  Under ideal conditions, cooking results in an eleven-percent weight loss.  But, given the potential for careless waste during cooking, it is not clear that even the eleven-percent loss should be assumed.  The court concluded, “[If] the government wants the sentencing judge to infer the weight of the crack from the weight of the powder from which the crack was manufactured, it has to present evidence, concerning the cooking process, that would enable a conversion ratio to be estimated” (3).  (Judging by the mess on my kitchen counter most mornings, I am guessing that the “conversion ratio” when my six-year-old cooks oatmeal into hot cereal is about 2:1.  Fortunately, and notwithstanding its cholesterol-lowering benefits, the street value of oatmeal remains a lot less than cocaine.)

Continue ReadingA Chemistry Lesson from the Seventh Circuit

Judge Posner’s Argument Concerning “A Failure of Capitalism”

88px-Richard_posner_harvardzSurely there are more pressing things to do at this hour than scan my Google Reader headlines (well, actually, I’ve become a Feedly user, but the Feedly feed comes from Reader, mostly).

Nonetheless,  I couldn’t pass up today’s essay by Seventh Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner, on Foreign Policy’s website.   Titled “The Real Danger of Debt,” the article is described as having been “adapted from” Judge Posner’s book, “A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ‘o8 and the Descent into Depression.”  In the article, Posner describes the “deeply wounded economy” of the United States, explaining that, essentially, “private savings are being borrowed by the government, combined with the government’s foreign borrowing, and then transferred to households to enable them to maintain their accustomed level of consumption. People are saving more, but government borrowing overwhelms their saving, with the result that aggregate saving — public plus private — is negative.”

He goes on to outline, in his usual clear, bracing style, the steps by which this state of affairs could lead to rising interest rates, instability in the value of the dollar, the loss of the dollar’s status as the chief  international reserve currency, increased savings rates, and decreased economic growth:

As real interest rates rise as a consequence of a growing public debt and declining demand for the U.S. dollar as an international reserve currency, U.S. savings rates will rise and, by reducing consumption expenditures, slow economic activity. Economic growth may also fall as more and more resources are poured into keeping alive elderly people, most of whom are not highly productive members of society from an economic standpoint. The United States may find itself in the same kind of downward economic spiral that developing countries often find themselves in.

This ominous prediction of where current trends may lead us is dramatic in itself  (although, sadly, much less dramatic than it would have seemed in 2007).  But rather than the worrisome warnings about a second economic depression, the passages that struck me most are the ones characterizing the current political situation in the United States.  

Continue ReadingJudge Posner’s Argument Concerning “A Failure of Capitalism”