This weekend 16 law students will participate in the Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition preliminary rounds. Two rounds will be held this Saturday at 10 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Students will argue on-brief and off-brief. On Sunday the round begins at 10 a.m. A coin toss will determine what side students will argue. Law students are invited to attend any round of competition.
Best of luck to the competitors!
Today’s post is the first in an occasional series entitled “Law Gone Wrong.” The editors of the Faculty Blog invited Law School faculty to share their thoughts on misguided statutes, disastrous judicial decisions, and other examples where the law has gone wrong (and needs to be nudged back on course). First up is Professor David Papke.
As currently written, WIS. STAT. 48.92 – Effect of Adoption is a bad statute with unintended results. The statute says that, with the exception of stepparent adoptions, an adoption ends all legal relationships between the adopted child and that child’s biological parents. Put in blunter words, the rights of all biological parents are terminated when an adoption is finalized. This statute no doubt grows out a determination to normalize the lives of adopted children. They are to have only one set of parents and to know just who those parents are. On a deeper level, the statute reflects the possessive imperatives so central in the dominant American world view and extends it to adoptive children.
The great problem with the statute involves same-sex couples with children.
Four thoughts in the aftermath of the debate Monday evening at Eckstein Hall between incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser and his challenger in the April 5 election, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg:
First: As a news reporter, I’ve never covered a race for a Supreme Court seat. I was struck by how awkward the debate is, compared to the plain old partisan races I’ve covered fairly often. It’s similar to confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court justices: Basically, if you have something substantial to say, you can’t and shouldn’t say it. You can’t say what you would do with any potential upcoming issues. Frequently, you can’t (or won’t) comment on past actions, although Prosser did talk about some past cases and said he was glad to run on his record. So you end up standing there, saying repeatedly that you are independent and nonpartisan and will judge each case fairly and with an open mind. Which both Kloppenburg and Prosser did. But it is very clear that Prosser is being backed by conservatives and Republican-oriented groups and Kloppenburg is being backed by liberals and Democratic-leaning groups. Do all these people and groups know something the candidates don’t know? Are they wrong? Or is this a curious exercise in avoiding talking about the issues, even though everyone seems to know what you’d say if you did?
Two: I’ve been at some testy and tense debates and joint appearances by candidates in various races, but this one was way up the list, if it wasn’t the champion on my personal list.