My Father’s Recommendations

When I was an undergrad in the UW Milwaukee film program my father recommended I see four movies. He hoped they would encourage me to pursue a career in law, which I was generally opposed to, not really knowing any lawyers well and aware that just about everyone hates lawyers. I think he wanted me to see that attorneys can, at times, play a role in society more useful than that of the punch line to a joke.

Similar to Hemingway’s list of books that he “would rather read again for the first time . . . than have an assured income of a million dollars a year,” these titles, for me, have served as guiding lights, models of what practicing the law can be:

1. Inherit the Wind (1960) – A Hollywood dramatization of the Scopes trial that occurred in Tennessee in 1925 over the teaching of evolution in schools, you have to stomach some quaint plot exposition to get to the engaging courtroom scenes. A favorite is the defense’s questioning of a young boy who had been exposed to the science teacher’s course. He asks the young man: “What Mr. Cares told you, did it hurt your baseball game any? Affect your pitching arm any?” This simple line of questioning goes a long way in conveying the frivolousness of the charge. The ending is satisfactorily honest, deviating from the Hollywood formula and staying true to the real case, in that the defense loses.

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Seventh Circuit Affirms Life Sentence Notwithstanding Supreme Court’s Recent Eighth Amendment Decisions

From the time of its decision in Harmelin v. Michigan (1991), affirming a mandatory sentence of life without parole for a drug trafficking offense, through its decision in Ewing v. California (2003), affirming a de facto life sentence for shoplifting, the Supreme Court showed little interest in using the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause as a basis to limit the length of prison sentences.  More recently, however, the Court has begun to extend the principles it developed to regulate capital sentencing into the noncapital realm.  First, in Graham v. Florida (2010), the Court banned life without parole for juveniles not convicted of homicide.  Then, in Miller v. Alabama (2012), the Court banned the use of mandatory “LWOP” sentences for all juveniles — even those convicted of homicide.

The Court’s trajectory seems to threaten Harmelin.  Even if the logic of Graham permits LWOP for drug trafficking, the logic of Miller arguably requires a consideration of mitigating circumstances before the sentence can be imposed — prohibits, in other words, LWOP as a statutory minimum for a drug offense.

While the Supreme Court might eventually reach this destination, the Seventh Circuit has decided not to try to get there first.  

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Inherently Subversive Pedagogy

In 2010 the Arizona legislature created a law designed to deter the teaching of a Mexican American Studies course in Tucson schools by cutting State funding to districts with courses that, among other things, “promote resentment toward a race or class of people.”  After a finding by the state court in 2011 and under the threat of a $15 million fine, the Tucson district was forced to stop utilizing a course that was available to all students, was effectively closing the achievement gap, and was successful in helping Latino students attend college.  One aspect of enforcement that the district decided on was banning the use of many books that were a part of the Mexican American Studies program from schools.

I was introduced to the Tucson curriculum issue in Professor Mazzie’s first semester Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing 1 class last fall.  Our assignment was to write a brief memo on whether the Tucson course was in violation of A.R.S. § 15-112.  The constitutionality of the Arizona law itself has since been called into question under the purview of a federally appointed special master who is overseeing the Tucson School District’s mandated desegregation.  It was satisfying to see, earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agree with my position in Professor Mazzie’s class that the curriculum was not necessarily a per se violation of A.R.S. § 15-112 anyway.

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