Saturday, May 02, 2009

Judge Altonaga feted in New Haven

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The Latino Law Students Association at Yale Law School is awarding SDFla Judge Altonaga (YLS '86) its Public Service Award tonight at New Haven's Union League Café. Dean (and Supreme Court Candidate®) Harold Koh is scheduled to attend. Last year, LLSA honored Judge (and Supreme Court Candidate®) José Cabranes (which we know because they have yet to update their web site). Maybe they'll post some pictures or a nice blurb on their blog or Facebook page.

The photo is YLS's Sterling Law Building in 2006 and the guy who wouldn't get out of my shot.

Bern backs UBS

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The government of Switzerland filed an elegantly understated amicus brief for Judge Gold's consideration on Thursday (according to PACER) or yesterday (according to the media). The upshot of it is that enforcement of the United States' summons—which it implies (but refrains from outright saying) is just a "fishing expedition"—circumvents the applicable treaty and violates Swiss law. Here is the very abridged version:
The Government of Switzerland has a strong interest in the preservation of the integrity of Swiss law and sovereignty and in promoting respect by the United States of its international treaty obligations to Switzerland.
If the Court were to order UBS to produce evidence from Switzerland, and backed that order with coercive powers, the Court would be substituting its own authority for that of the competent Swiss authorities, and therefore would violate Swiss sovereignty and international law.
The Wall Street Journal reports that an IRS agent speaking at a financial conference in Miami confirms that more "John Doe" summonses are in the works.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Souter succession speculation

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ABC News Supreme Court correspondent Jan Crawford Greenberg canceled her scheduled appearance today at the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Extravaganza in Birmingham. Instead, she stayed in Washington to contribute to the frenzy of speculation about Justice Souter's successor. (The President is chatting with Souter in the photo, which is from the White House's new Flickr photostream.)

The Wall Street Journal has a fun graphic with scary mugshots of leading contenders. The Economist includes former President Clinton among the hopefuls. CNN lists seemingly everyone imaginable except Bill—including SDFla's Judge Jordan, whom this blog has previously all but endorsed.

As for Souter, he's not yet gone but already seems to be forgotten. Justice Stevens wrote today about Souter that "the Court will suffer a far greater loss than many now realize." That's almost certainly true as even the illuminati of constitutional law seemed at a painful loss today to dig up even one defining, signature Souter opinion in United States Reports. Professor Powe of Texas summed it up: "He couldn’t be my favorite for what he wrote; he was my favorite for what he was." (Souter did write one that shows how crafty he is—Brendlin v. California (2007)—but I'm apparently not on the New York Times' speed-dial.)

"I direct you to wipe your minds clean."

That was Judge Lenard instructing the Liberty City jury to start over with its deliberations, after replacing a sick juror with an alternate. Here is Jay Weaver's article.

Guest Blogger

Professor Ricardo Bascuas has agreed to guest-blog next week. Have fun!