Tag Archives: Courts

Scholars’ Circle – Capital Punishment in US is explored as it faces ethical, political and legal concerns – May 21, 2023

May 22, 2023 host

The death penalty in the United States has faced increased opposition based on ethical, political, and legal concerns. Several states have outlawed it, but the federal government has returned to its use with a feverish wave of state executions last year. We discuss the implications of the use of the death penalty in the US and examine additional forms of extreme sentencing, such as life without parole. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Frank R. Baumgartner is the Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is the co-author of The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence and Deadly Justice: A Statistical Portrait of the Death Penalty.
Lee Kovarsky is Bryant Smith Chair in Law and Co-Director of the Capital Punishment Center at The University of Texas in Austin School of Law. He is the author of The Trump Executions and the co-author of The Death Penalty: Concept and Insight.
Jenny-Brooke Condon is a Professor of Law in the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School. She directs the Equal Justice Clinic. She is the author of When Cruelty is the Point: Constitutional Restraints and Remedies for Family Separation and Denialism and the Death Penalty.

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Scholars’ Circle – Biography of Judge Frank M. Coffin ; History of 3rd party politics in US – October 30, 2022

October 29, 2022 host

Some say that we have entered a new era in Supreme Court jurisprudence in the wake of the Court’s recent Dobbs decision, reversing nearly 50 years of law recognizing a woman’s right to choose, and that this has ushered in a far more confrontational and political court. But are both political and legal considerations baked into America’s judiciary by design? We speak with the author of a new biography of former First Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge, Frank M. Coffin, a former member of congress, former USAID official and jurist renowned for his deep understanding of the politics of judging but was able to do so in a manner that privileged comity, cooperation and respect, even in times of profound political disagreement. Hosted by Tim Fadgen. [ dur: 23mins. ]

Richard J. Maiman is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at University of Southern Maine. He is the author of A Man for All Branches: Judge Frank M. Coffin of Maine.

On this election week, we bring you from our archives this panel discussion on third parties in the United States.

Throughout US history third parties have had a profound impact on policy, governance and voter turnout. So why are we still in a two-party system? [ dur: 35min. ]

This interview was first broadcast in July 2017.

Omar H. Ali is a professor of African Diaspora History and Politics at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the author of In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third-Party Movements in the United States.
David Gillespie is a professor of Political Science at College of Charlston & the Citedal. He is the author of Challengers to Duopoly: Why Third Parties Matter in American Two-Party Politics
Scot Schraufnagel is a professor of Political Science & Director of Graduate Studies at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of Third Party Blues: The Truth and Consequences of Two-Party Dominance

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Scholars’ Circle – Insight into Ethnic Conflict in Autocratic Uzbekistan and Tajikistan ; Creative Lawyers for Human Rights – September 11, 2022

September 12, 2022 host

Protests across Central Asia have rocked the nations of the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The states’ violent suppression of these movements have killed hundreds and undermined human rights protections. We explore the roots of these conflicts and what these violent crackdown mean for human rights, democracy, transparency and peace in the region. [ dur: 31mins. ]

Steve Swerdlow, esq. is Associate Professor of the Practice of Human Rights in the Department of Political and International Relations at the University of Southern California. A human rights lawyer and expert on the former Soviet region, Swerdlow was Senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, heading the organization’s work on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and founding its Kyrgyzstan field office. He is the author of Uzbekistan’s Religious and Political Prisoners and Uzbekistan’s Ethnic Minorities: Out of Sight, But Not Out of Mind.
Suzanne Levi-Sanchez is Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. She is the author of The Afghan-Central Asia Borderlands: The State and Local Leaders, Bridging State and Civil Society: Informal Organizations in Tajik/Afghan Badakhshan, and The assassination that shook the Pamir Mountains to the core.

We interview Maria Armoudian who has authored a book on international human rights and the role that lawyers have played at advancing cases against human rights abusers. [ dur: 27mins. ]

Maria Armoudian is a lecturer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She is the author of the books Reporting from the Danger Zone: Frontline Journalists, Their Jobs and an Increasingly Perilous Future, Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World, and her most recent Lawyers Beyond Borders : Advancing International Human Rights Through Local Laws and Courts . Maria is a host and anchor of the Scholars’ Circle.

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Scholars’ Circle – Undoing of Separation between Church and State by SCOTUS – July 31, 2022

July 30, 2022 host

Thomas Jefferson once declared that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was intended to build a wall of separation between the church and state. Have the recent Supreme Court rulings eroded this purpose? And what do these ruling mean for the role of religion and lawmaking in the larger society across the United States? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Samuel D. Brunson is Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He is the author of God and the IRS: Accommodating Religious Practice in United States Tax Law and God Is My Roommate? Tax Exemptions for Parsonages Yesterday, Today, and (if Constitutional) Tomorrow.
Andrew Koppelman is John Paul Stevens Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Increasingly Dangerous Variants of the “Most-Favored-Nation” Theory of Religious Liberty and The Supreme Court and the new religious aristocracy in the Hill.
Micah Schwartzman is the director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy and the Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law at University of Virginia. He is the co-author of Establishment Clause Appeasement, When Do Religious Accommodations Burden Others? and The Quiet Demise of the Separation of the Church and State.
Caroline Mala Corbin is Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law. She is the author of Opportunistic Originalism and the Establishment Clause, The Supreme Court’s Facilitation of White Christian Nationalism and Justice Scalia, the Establishment Clause and Christian Privilege.

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Scholars’ Circle – SCOTUS on the path to take back tribal sovereignty set in law by the US Congress – July 24, 2022

July 23, 2022 host

The US Supreme Court just challenged tribal sovereignty in its ruling in Oklahoma v Castro-Huerta, which empowers the state much greater power to prosecute for alleged crimes in tribal lands. The legal implications are vast. We will explore the case and the future of tribal sovereignty in light of the Court’s drastic reversal of case precedent.

What does this case mean for the jurisdiction of the tribe on reservations and on child welfare under what’s called the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Robert J. Miller is Professor of Law at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. He is Interim Chief Justice at Pascua Yaqui Tribe Court of Appeals. He is the author of American Indian Sovereignty versus the United States (in Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies) and the forthcoming A Promise Kept: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation and McGirt v. Oklahoma. He is an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe.
Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, Yunpoví, is Assistant Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. She is the author of The Other American Law and The Supreme Court strikes again — this time at tribal sovereignty. She is tribally enrolled at Nambé Pueblo.
Matthew L.M. Fletcher is the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at Michigan Law. He sits as the Chief Justice of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. He is the author of American Indian Education: Counternarratives in Racism, Struggle, and the Law and Ghost Road: Anishinaabe Responses to Indian-Hating. He is a member of the Grand Traverse Band.

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Scholars’ Circle – Regulatory challenges for EPA after West Virginia v. EPA Decision of 2022 – July 17, 2022

July 16, 2022 host

The Supreme Court has weakened executive agencies and their ability to regulate and make policy. No agency has been more affected than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). What is next for environmental protection? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Traditionally, the US Supreme Court has given executive branch agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency quite a bit of latitude at enforcing Congressional legislation. This principle is called Chevron deference. But in this term, the Supreme Court weakened this principle significantly, in particular in the area of environmental protection. In West Virginia v EPA, the Court signaled that the EPA can only enforce on areas specifically outlined by Congress. Specifically, it weakened the agency’s ability to take regulatory steps to combat climate change. We will discuss what this means for the EPA, for public policy, and for the US’s ability to make international commitments on the environment.

Joel A. Mintz is Professor Emeritus of Law and C. William Trout Senior Fellow in Public Interest Law at Nova Southeastern University Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is the author of Enforcement at the EPA: High Stakes and Hard Choices and “Thinking Beyond Gridlock: Towards A Consistent Statutory Approach To Federal Environmental Enforcement“.
Richard N. L. (Pete) Andrews is a Faculty Fellow of the Institute for the Environment and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is the author of Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy.
Pamela Chasek is Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department at Manhattan College. She is the author of Global Environmental Politics.

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Scholars’ Circle – US Supreme Court decisions and American Law ; Insights on the Pink wave in Latin America – June 26, 2022

June 26, 2022 host

What are the US Supreme Court’s decisions from this year’s docket? We will explore some of these decisions and what it means for the future of American law. [ dur: 25mins. ]

Erwin Chemerinsky is the Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. His many publications include, most recently, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights, and The Religion Clauses: The Case for Separating Church and State (with Howard Gillman).

What does the leftist turn in Latin American elections mean for the politics of the region? Is it a response to neoliberalism? Is it a response to the endemic corruption in the region? We explore the so-called “pink wave” in the region. [ dur: 33mins. ]

Benjamin Arditi is Professor of Politics at the National University of Mexico. He is the author of Politics on the Edges of Liberalism: Difference, Populism, Revolution, Agitation and “Arguments about the Left Turns in Latin America: A Post-Liberal Politics?“
Maxwell A. Cameron is Professor of Political Science in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA) and Political Science at the University of British Colombia. He is the co-editor of Latin America’s Left Turns: Politics, Policies and Trajectories of Change, and author of “The Return of Oligarchy? Threats to Representative Democracy in Latin America.”
Marcia Ribeiro Dias is adjunct professor and researcher at the School of Political Science of the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) and works as a permanent member of the PPG in Political Science. She is co-author of “The mutualism between liberal-conservatism and fascism: ideological dispute and political scenario of contemporary Brazil.“

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Scholars’ Circle – Ketanji Brown Jackson nomination for the US Supreme Court – March 27, 2022

March 26, 2022 host

In what ways is the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson historic? What impact will having a former criminal defense attorney on the Supreme Court have on future rulings or on dissents? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Danielle Holley-Walker is the Dean and Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law. She is the author of “A New Era for Desegregation” and “After Unitary Status: Examining Voluntary Integration Strategies for Southern School Districts.”
Abbe Smith is Director of the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic and Professor of Law at Georgetown University. She is the author of Guilty People and co-author of Beyond the Rodney King Story: An Investigation of Police Conduct In Minority Communities.
Olu Orange is the Director of the USC Dornsife Trial Advocacy Program and also the Director of the USC Dornsife Agents of Change: Civil Rights Advocacy Initiative. A practicing attorney, he has won several important cases, including B.B. (Burley) v. County of Los Angeles — a knee-on-neck police death case which established that police officers who intentionally cause harm cannot offset their own liability with their victims’ negligence. The case has been referred to “George Floyd without video.” And in 2018, A.G. v. County of Los Angeles which established that non-biological children have standing in California to sue for the wrongful death of persons who raise them as parents.

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Scholars’ Circle – Attacks on the Legitimacy and Independence of Courts in United States – January 23, 2022

January 22, 2022 host

The attacks on the legitimacy and independence of courts in the United States is increasing.

What are these attacks? Where are they coming from? And what might be the effect on justice in America? [ dur: 58mins. ]

This webinar was organized by UC Berkeley’s Civil Justice Research Initiative. It is part of the Berkeley Boosts program.

Alicia Bannon is the Managing Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. She is the co-author of the report State Supreme Court Diversity, Legislative Assault on the State Courts – December 21 Update, and The Power of State Courts in Securing Abortion Access: ‘It’s Time to Give Them Center Stage’.
James Brosnahan is Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He is Senior Trial Counsel at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. He is the author of Defending Clients, Not Movements and a contributor to the book Trial Evidence in the Federal Courts: Problems and Solutions.
Erwin Chemerinsky is the Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. His many publications include, most recently, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights, and The Religion Clauses: The Case for Separating Church and State (with Howard Gillman).
Denyse F. Clancy is a partner in the Oakland, CA law firm of Kazan, McClain, Satterley & Greenwood. She is a nationally recognized appellate and trial lawyer with prominent experience in asbestos and talc litigation and other toxic torts. She is the author of Fraud Claims Under Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933: Should Pleading with Particularity be Required? and The Deductibility of the Costs of Aircraft Maintenance.

We would like to thank the University of California, Berkeley’s Civil Justice Research Initiative and Berkeley Law Executive Education for making this recording available.

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Scholars’ Circle – How power of the Supreme Court fails institution of American democracy – December 19, 2021

December 18, 2021 host

The US Supreme Court faces a legitimacy crisis. The US faces a democracy deficit because of the power of the Court. How should the US address both concerns? Several proposals for reform of the Court have advocated change. Would these help to rebuild the Court’s image and legitimacy? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Christopher W Schmidt is Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States at Chicago-Kent School of Law. He is the author of The Sit-Ins: Protest and Legal Change in the Civil Rights Era and Civil Rights in America: A History .
Richard Pacelle Jr. is Professor and Department Head in Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the co-author of Decision Making by the Modern Supreme Court and the author of The Supreme Court in a Separation of Powers System: The Nation’s Balance Wheel.
Eric J. Segall is Ashe Family Chair Professor of Law at Georgia State University College of Law. He is the author of the books Originalism as Faith and Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is not a Court and its Justices are not Judges.

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Tag Archives: Courts

Scholars’ Circle – Capital Punishment in US is explored as it faces ethical, political and legal concerns – May 21, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Biography of Judge Frank M. Coffin ; History of 3rd party politics in US – October 30, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Insight into Ethnic Conflict in Autocratic Uzbekistan and Tajikistan ; Creative Lawyers for Human Rights – September 11, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Undoing of Separation between Church and State by SCOTUS – July 31, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – SCOTUS on the path to take back tribal sovereignty set in law by the US Congress – July 24, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Regulatory challenges for EPA after West Virginia v. EPA Decision of 2022 – July 17, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – US Supreme Court decisions and American Law ; Insights on the Pink wave in Latin America – June 26, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Ketanji Brown Jackson nomination for the US Supreme Court – March 27, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Attacks on the Legitimacy and Independence of Courts in United States – January 23, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – How power of the Supreme Court fails institution of American democracy – December 19, 2021

By Maria Armoudian