Hoping For Brief Cases
March 18, 2021
The Good News
- Anyone in Oklahoma can now get the Covid-19 vaccine, thanks to several Native tribes (CNN)
- Virginia becomes 4th state to ban cosmetic animal testing (ABC)
“As it turns out, public defenders are less Superman and more Sisyphus, and there’s no small number of lawyers who wind up crushed under the weight of the infinite caseloads and the crappy hours and the shitty pay.” — Jodi Picoult
NJ Lawyers Hoping For Brief Cases
(Carol M. Highsmith via Getty Images)
Just one of many hallmarks of the former administration was its rapid-fire confirmation of nominees for federal judgeships, all selected for their rock-solid conservative credentials. Senate leader Mitch McConnell orchestrated the most effective process ever seen to swiftly install President Trump’s choices to lifetime appointments on federal benches. At least seven had previous jobs either in the campaign or the administration, and all but eight had ties to the ultra-conservative Federalist Society.
Of Trump’s 234 new federal judges — including three on the Supreme Court and 174 on district courts — 74% are men and 84% are white. Nearly a third of all judges now on highly influential federal appeals courts were put there by Trump.
So with this astonishing record, it’s curious that not a single judge was named in New Jersey, consistently ranked as one of the busiest courts in the country. Of the state’s 17 federal judgeships, six have stayed vacant. Each of the 11 remaining judges has a pending caseload in the thousands — well over three times the national average. What’s going on?
Politics is partly to blame. The state has two Democratic senators, one of whom, Cory Booker, was himself a presidential candidate. But Trump made appointments in other states with two Democratic senators, including New York, Illinois, and California, so there must be other reasons for the prolonged and mystifying impasse.
The pandemic added to the emergency, as did another tragedy last July. A misogynistic lawyer angered by case delays shot the 20-year-old son of Judge Ester Salas to death in the family’s home. The judge’s husband was also seriously injured, delaying her return to the bench until March 2.
Noncriminal cases — civil rights, employment discrimination, Social Security appeals, coronavirus-related prison-release requests — are more bogged down than criminal ones governed by ‘speedy trial’ rules. And because New Jersey is home to many pharmaceutical giants, courts handle extremely complex cases like drug patent lawsuits and multidistrict litigation — cases from across the country with similar fact issues that are consolidated and transferred to one jurisdiction, as happened with thousands of Johnson & Johnson baby powder cases.
New Jersey’s federal court crisis is so serious that the state has turned to judges in neighboring Pennsylvania for help managing the backlog. Judges near retirement are staying on, and those already retired have come back. One is 86; another who turned 90 in December said retirement wasn’t an option. Craig Carpenito was New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor until January when he returned to private practice. “These judges are working around the clock and that’s just not sustainable. You’re walking out late at night and their cars are still there. They’re there on weekends,” he said. “How long can they really survive this way?” (NYT, $; ACSLaw)
Mawage, That Bwessed Awangement
(AFP via Getty Images)
- On Wednesday, a district court in Japan agreed with arguments made by three same-sex couples who sued the government over its failure to recognize their unions. The couples contended that lack of recognition unfairly cut them off from services and benefits accorded married couples, thereby violating the constitutional guarantee of equality and prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex.
- The court declined to award the couples damages, however. The decision does not change the law; Parliament must pass legislation to do that. The Japanese public remains divided in its attitudes on same-sex unions, and so far lawmakers have repeatedly declined to introduce such a bill.
- Still, the landmark ruling that failure to recognize such unions is unconstitutional could be an important step toward legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the country. (NYT, $)
Priests In Protest
- The Vatican’s pronouncement Monday, that priests cannot bless same-sex unions and that such blessings are not valid, disappointed gay Catholics who had hoped their Church was becoming more welcoming under Pope Francis.
- Elton John, music legend and prominent figure in the LGBTQ community, slammed the Church for its “hypocrisy,” citing reports that the Vatican had profited from investing millions to fund his well-received biopic “Rocketman.” John has been married to his husband, David Furnish, since 2014.
- On Tuesday, a dissident band of Catholic priests leading a disobedience campaign against the Vatican vowed to continue blessing same-sex couples in defiance of church orders. The Parish Priests Initiative was originally founded in 2006 by nine Austrian priests and now claims to have around 350 members from the ranks of the official Church and more than 3,000 lay supporters. The group wants Church rules changed so that priests can marry and women can become priests. Members also break Church rules by giving communion to Protestants and divorced Catholics who remarry. (LA Times, Yahoo News)
Additional World News
- Cycle of retribution takes Bolivia’s ex-president from palace to prison cell (Guardian)
- Pentagon Pushes For Bigger Effort To Deter China’s Growing Military Might (NPR)
- Why can’t Britain handle the truth about Winston Churchill? (Guardian)
- U.S. Punishes 24 Chinese Officials on Eve of First Talks Under Biden (NYT, $)
- As Myanmar protesters torch Chinese factories, workers are caught in spiraling crisis (WaPo, $)
- Russia threatens to block Twitter in a month (AP)
- Libya arms embargo ‘totally ineffective’: UN (Al Jazeera)
- How to Clean Up Steel? Bacteria, Hydrogen and a Lot of Cash. (NYT, $)
Covid-19
- First batch of COVAX-supplied vaccines arrives for Palestinians (Al Jazeera)
- The world’s richest countries are hoarding vaccines. This is morally indefensible (Guardian)
- US woman gives birth to first known baby with Covid antibodies, doctors say (Guardian)
- Iran starts trial of new homegrown vaccine as campaign lags (AP)
- Mississippi Opens Covid Vaccine Eligibility to Everyone (NYT, $)
- EU sets out virus pass plan to allow free travel by summer (AP)
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Call A Spade A Spade
- A 21-year-old white man from Woodstock, Georgia was arrested Tuesday in connection with three separate shootings at Atlanta metro-area spas and massage parlors. Eight people were killed and several others injured. Six of the dead were Asian women.
- When apprehended, the gunman told police he had been driving to Florida to commit similar violence at a business connected to the “porn industry” there. He also told police he had a “sexual addiction” and had carried out the shootings at the massage parlors to eliminate his “temptation.”
- On Wednesday, the man was charged with eight counts of murder. Police said it was still too early in the investigation to classify the shooting spree as a hate crime, but experts say the markers of white supremacist and male supremacist terrorism are all there. Since March 2020, thousands of attacks against Asian Americans in numerous cities have been reported, and the violence appears to be on the rise. (NYT, $)
Just A Little Tampering On The Side
- A US intelligence report released Tuesday details how Russia helped Donald Trump tried to help Trump get re-elected in 2020 after getting him elected in 2016. The unclassified document is the most comprehensive look the intelligence community has provided regarding foreign efforts to meddle in the 2020 election.
- It says that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized “influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating socio-political divisions in the U.S.”
- While Trump and his supporters have offered a slew of evidence-free claims about election fraud by foreign countries like Venezuela. the intelligence community found the 2020 election to be free from any fraud, either at home or from abroad. Although Russia wanted Trump to win, their efforts were not on the same scale as in 2016.
- Instead, the report says: “A key element of Moscow’s strategy this election cycle was its use of proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives — including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden.” (NPR)
Additional USA News
- Red Meat. It’s What’s for Dinner in Colorado Politics. (Politico)
- Alcoholic Liver Disease Sharply Rising Among Young Women, US Doctors Say (NPR)
- Google revelations trigger swift bipartisan call for action (Politico). Readers everywhere Googling for more information.
- The government’s lawyers saw a Google monopoly coming. Their bosses refused to sue. (Politico)
- A Close-Up Picture of Partisan Segregation, Among 180 Million Voters (NYT, $)
- The Great Amazon Flip-a-Thon (NYT, $)
- Republicans on Biden’s Covid bill: We bungled this one (Politico)
- Biden backs changes to filibuster; GOP vows ‘scorched earth’ (AP)
- Families Face Steep Truancy Fines, Contentious Court Battles As Pandemic Creates School Attendance Barriers (The 74)
The Pups Are All Dressed Up
- When Darius Brown was eight, his sister Dazhai painstakingly taught him how to sew a bow tie. He wore the new Ninja Turtle-themed tie to school the next day, and when several friends wanted one, he returned to the sewing machine to make more.
- Two years later, in 2017, when Darius was ten, he learned that hundreds of dogs and cats were left homeless in Florida and Puerto Rico after the devastation of Hurricane Irma. Darius couldn’t have a pet in his apartment, but he knew the animals needed families to adopt them. And he realized something else: he could help them get more attention in crowded animal shelters if he made them look hilarious and adorable by wearing one of his bow ties.
- So when some of the rescue animals were brought up north, Darius dropped off about 25 pet-sized bow ties at an ASPCA animal shelter in New York City. It worked even better than he’d hoped.
- Shelter workers were surprised how much Darius’s bow ties help older animals, in particular, get noticed and adopted more quickly. “We’d never used bow ties before and right away we saw a big difference,” one worker said.
- Four years later, 14-year-old Darius’s Singer sewing machine is still working overtime in his mom’s apartment. He estimates he’s donated more than 600 bow ties for dogs and cats in shelters. So far he’s taken his bow ties to dogs, and a few lucky cats, in DC and eight states, including Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.
- “Polka dot ties, striped ties, ties with dog paws and rhinestones — every tie is different,” he says. “Even something small like a tie can help get an animal adopted because a bow tie is unique and helps bring out a pet’s personality.” (WaPo, $)
Additional Reads
- Feeling like a kid again: Baby bottle craze sweeps Gulf Arab states, sparks backlash (AP)
- The Bachelor’s Cluelessness About Race Comes To A Head In Season Finale (NPR)
- Scientists Search For The Anthropocene (NPR)
- From Amazon To FedEx, The Delivery Truck Is Going Electric (NPR)
- My Shot: Doctors remix ‘Hamilton’ song for COVID-19 vaccine (Olympian). Luckily, they’re not quitting their day jobs.
- Kevin Roose’s ‘Futureproof’ Offers Rules To Thrive In The Age Of Automation (NPR)
- On ‘The Last Friend,’ Michael League Imagines Death As A Benevolent Companion (NPR)
- Why Mount Everest’s height keeps changing (Vox). It isn’t tall enough already?
- 6 cities where police reform is shaping the race for mayor (Politico)