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Who may be on Trump’s Supreme Court short list? Senate win aids judicial picks

by | Nov 6, 2024 | Law


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U.S. Supreme Court

Who may be on Trump’s Supreme Court short list? Senate win aids judicial picks

By Debra Cassens Weiss

President-elect Donald Trump could get a chance to appoint two U.S. Supreme Court justices if Justice Clarence Thomas, 76, and Justice Samuel Alito, 74, decide to retire. (Image from Shutterstock)

President-elect Donald Trump could get a chance to appoint two U.S. Supreme Court justices if Justice Clarence Thomas, 76, and Justice Samuel Alito, 74, decide to retire.

“With two more appointees,” Law360 reports, “Trump could single-handedly cement the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority for decades to come.”

These judges and lawyers are potential nominees, according to Law360, an op-ed in the New York Times by the editor of a liberal blog, Fox News and a Bloomberg Law story on potential Asian American and Pacific Islander picks.

  • Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. He is the former general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He was in the news in January 2020 for an opinion in which he refused to refer to a transgender inmate by her preferred female pronouns. (Law360, Fox News, the New York Times)

  • Judge Andrew S. Oldham, the 5th Circuit at New Orleans. He is former general counsel for Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbot. (Law360, Fox News)

  • Judge James C. Ho, the 5th Circuit at New Orleans. He is a former Texas solicitor general. In 2022, he said he won’t be hiring future Yale Law School grads as clerks because the university cancels conservative views. (Law360, Fox News, the New York Times, Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Amul Thapar, the 6th Circuit at Cincinnati. He is a former Williams & Connolly lawyer. He has suggested that conservatives withhold donations to law schools that don’t teach originalism. (Law360, Fox News, Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Joan Larsen, the 6th Circuit at Cincinnati. She was formerly a Michigan Supreme Court justice. (Fox News)

  • Judge Gregory G. Katsas, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He is a former Jones Day lawyer and a former deputy counsel in the Trump White House. (Law360, Fox News)

  • Judge Neomi Rao, the D.C. Circuit. She was the administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Trump administration. (Fox News, Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Lawrence VanDyke, the 9th Circuit at San Francisco. He is a former Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher lawyer and a former solicitor general in Nevada and Montana. He received a “not qualified” rating by the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which cited an “entitlement temperament.” (Law360, Fox News, the New York Times)

  • Judge Patrick Bumatay, the 9th Circuit at San Francisco. He was the first openly gay judge to serve on the 9th Circuit. (Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Kenneth Lee, the 9th Circuit at San Francisco. He wrote an opinion finding that a ban on gun advertising that appeals to minors was likely unconstitutional. (Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Barbara Lagoa, the 11th Circuit at Atlanta. She is a former Florida Supreme Court justice and former Greenberg Traurig lawyer. (Fox News)

  • Judge Britt Grant, the 11th Circuit at Atlanta. She is a former Georgia Supreme Court justice. (Fox News)

  • Judge Kevin Newsom, the 11th Circuit at Atlanta. He was formerly the Alabama solicitor general. (Fox News)

  • Judge Michael Park, the 2nd Circuit at New York. He formerly was a lawyer at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr; Dechert; and Consovoy McCarthy Park. (Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge David Stras, the 8th Circuit St. Louis. He is a former Minnesota Supreme Court justice. (Fox News)

  • Judge Allison Jones Rushing, the 4th Circuit at Richmond, Virginia. She was a Williams & Connolly lawyer. (Fox News)

  • Kate Comerford Todd, a former deputy counsel in the Trump White House. (Fox News)

  • U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the Southern District of Florida. She dismissed the classified documents case against Trump. (Law360)

  • U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick, the Western District of Oklahoma. He was formerly an Oklahoma Supreme Court justice. (Fox News)

  • Kristen Waggoner, CEO and general counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom. (Law360, Fox News, the New York Times)

  • Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. (Fox News)

  • Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. (Fox News)

  • Morse Tan, the former dean of the Liberty University School of Law, who is now the senior executive director of Liberty University’s Center for Law & Government. (Bloomberg Law, the New York Times)

  • Former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin, founding dean of High Point University’s law school. (The New York Times)

Confirmation of Trump’s judicial nominees will be easier when Republicans take control of the U.S. Senate, Law360 reports.

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa intends to reclaim his position as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will consider Trump’s choices, a Grassley spokesperson told Law360.





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Former judge is accused of threatening to burn down polling site

by | Nov 6, 2024 | Law


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Criminal Justice

Former judge is accused of threatening to burn down polling site

By Debra Cassens Weiss

A former New York judge who served time in prison was charged Tuesday with making a terroristic threat after he was only offered a provisional “affidavit ballot” at the polls. (Image from Shutterstock)

A former New York judge who served time in prison was charged Tuesday with making a terroristic threat after he was only offered a provisional “affidavit ballot” at the polls.

Ex-Judge Paul M. Lamson, 69, of Gouverneur, New York, allegedly made “threatening remarks such as burning the place down and returning with a firearm,” according to a Nov. 5 press release from the New York State Police. The incident happened in Fowler, New York, where Lamson once served as a town justice.

The Times Union, North Country Public Radio, the Hudson Valley Post and WWNY are among the publications with coverage.

Lamson pleaded guilty in March 2017 to charges of receiving a bribe and official misconduct, according to a story by the Gouverneur Tribune Press. He had been accused of trading beneficial rulings for sexual favors. He was released on parole in February 2019, according to the Times Union.

Lamson couldn’t vote because he never re-registered after his felony bribery plea, state police said. A 2021 state law gives re-registered felons the right to vote after their release from prison.

Jennie H. Bacon, the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections commissioner, told the Times Union that Lamson claimed that he had registered to vote online. He was offered an affidavit ballot, but he rejected it. He went home to check his registration and “came back even more angry,” Bacon said.

“When we again offered an affidavit ballot, it didn’t help the situation,” she said.

When poll workers called the board of elections, Bacon allegedly heard Lamson threaten to burn the building.

Affidavit ballots can be counted if poll workers later find that a would-be voter is registered, Bacon told the Times Union.





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One of 2 prosecutors ousted by DeSantis wins election; how did other progressive prosecutors fare?

by | Nov 6, 2024 | Law


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Prosecutors

One of 2 prosecutors ousted by DeSantis wins election; how did other progressive prosecutors fare?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Voters have rejected several progressive prosecutors. Among high-profile races in Florida and California, the only liberal victor was Monique H. Worrell, who reclaimed her position as the Orange-Osceola state attorney in Florida after being ousted in August 2023 by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. (Photo by John Locher/The Associated Press)

Voters have rejected several progressive prosecutors.

Among high-profile races in Florida and California, the only liberal victor was Monique H. Worrell, who reclaimed her position as the Orange-Osceola state attorney in Florida after being ousted in August 2023 by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, report the Orlando Sentinel and the Florida Phoenix.

“I feel vindicated,” Worrell told the Orlando Sentinel shortly before final results confirmed her win.

DeSantis had said he suspended Worrell partly because of charging decisions that avoided the triggering of mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing enhancements.

Another prosecutor ousted by DeSantis, Andrew Warren, lost to Republican Suzy Lopez in Hillsborough County. DeSantis suspended Warren in August 2022, citing “woke” positions on abortion and transgender medical care.

In California, progressive Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón lost a reelection bid to Nathan Hochman, report the Associated Press and NBC News.

“The voters of Los Angeles County have spoken and have said enough is enough of DA Gascón’s pro-criminal extreme policies,” Hochman said in a statement.

In Oakland, California, voters recalled another progressive prosecutor, Pamela Price, according to the Alameda County, California, election website and results posted by ABC 7 News.

Losses by Gascón and Price follow the recall of progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in June 2022.

The three prosecutors had “offered new approaches to the criminal justice system, ones promising a greater focus on pursuing police wrongdoing and less emphasis on prison sentence enhancements,” Law.com reports. Public sentiment apparently changed after an increase in violent crime in California.

In keeping with the more conservative trend, California voters approved Proposition 36, which increased penalties for fentanyl and other drug charges, KABC reports. The measure also creates a new crime category in which drug defendants could receive treatment instead of prison. It also creates heightened penalties for shoplifting and theft, the Hill reports.

Another high-profile Democratic prosecutor, Fani Willis of Fulton County, Georgia, won reelection Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. Willis is the prosecutor who indicted then-former President Donald Trump in August 2023 for an alleged racketeering conspiracy intended to overturn the 2020 election results.

“While Willis is a Democrat,” the Associated Press reports, “she doesn’t fit into the group of progressive prosecutors elected in jurisdictions across the country in recent years. Some critics on the left believe she’s overzealous in her use of the state’s anti-racketeering and anti-gang laws, unnecessarily complicating cases to get the enhanced penalties attached to those statutes.”

See also:

Progressive prosecutors are encountering pushback

Politics are at play in states seeking to rein in ‘progressive’ prosecutors





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Once-liberal lawyer said to be ‘brains’ behind 2020 election-interference scheme suspended from practice

by | Nov 6, 2024 | Law


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Ethics

Once-liberal lawyer said to be ‘brains’ behind 2020 election-interference scheme suspended from practice

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro sits with his attorney Manny Arora during a hearing in which Chesebro accepted a plea deal at the Fulton County Courthouse on Oct. 20, 2023, in Atlanta. (Photo by Alyssa Pointer via the Associated Press)

A New York appeals court has ordered the interim suspension of lawyer Kenneth Chesebro following his guilty plea in Georgia’s 2020 election-interference case.

Chesebro was “the brains” behind a fake-elector scheme intended to help then-President Donald Trump win the 2020 election, according to Harvard Law School professor emeritus Laurence Tribe, who had once mentored Chesebro.

The once-liberal Chesebro had helped Tribe represent former Democratic Vice President Al Gore in litigation that led to the 2000 presidential victory for former President George W. Bush.

The fake-elector scheme involved creating fake slates of electors in six contested states that could be accepted by then-Vice President Mike Pence to declare Trump the winner.

Chesebro pleaded guilty in Georgia in October 2023 to a single felony charge of conspiracy to file false documents. The felony constitutes a serious crime in New York, according to an Oct. 31 opinion by the Appellate Division’s Third Judicial Department of the New York Supreme Court.

The appeals court said Chesebro’s guilty plea constituted a conviction, even though he could be “completely exonerated of guilt” if he successfully completes a five-year probationary period.

Publications with coverage of the suspension include NBC News, Reuters, Law360, Law.com and the New York Times.





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‘Watchdogs’ author has no regrets about choosing civil service over the NBA

by | Nov 6, 2024 | Law


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The Modern Law Library

‘Watchdogs’ author has no regrets about choosing civil service over the NBA

By Lee Rawles

Glenn Fine served as inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice from 2000 to 2011 and the Department of Defense from 2015 to 2020.

Glenn Fine’s career-long crusade against corruption might have its roots in his college days. As a point guard for the Harvard basketball team, Fine had his personal best game Dec. 16, 1978, the same day that he interviewed for—and received—a Rhodes Scholarship. He put up 19 points against Boston College, including eight steals, and the team nearly eeked out a win against the favored Boston players. A remarkable day.

What Fine would later discover was that mobsters had bribed Boston College players to play worse, keep the game tight and not cover the point spread. Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke—later portrayed by Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro in the movie Goodfellas were part of the point-shaving scheme.

Fine would later be drafted in the 10th round of the NBA draft by the San Antonio Spurs, but it was the anti-corruption law that stuck, not basketball.

Fine took a job out of law school as a prosecutor in Washington, D.C., and joined the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Justice in 1995. He would go on to serve as inspector general at the DOJ from 2000 to 2011, then at the Department of Defense from 2015 until 2020. He was one of the five inspectors general fired by then-President Donald Trump in what the Washington Post referred to as the “slow-motion Friday night massacre of inspectors general.”

book cover

But what do inspectors general do? It’s a question that Fine wants to answer with his book, Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government. In this episode of The Modern Law Library podcast, Fine and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles discuss the function, history and importance of the position, along with ways that Fine thinks that government oversight can be improved.

As of the book’s publication in 2024, there are 74 inspectors general offices at the federal level, with more than 14,000 employees. As the IG for the Department of Defense, Fine oversaw the largest office, with some 1,700 employees. Inspectors general conduct independent, nonpartisan oversight investigations into waste, fraud, misconduct and best practices and deliver their reports and recommendations to Congress and the agencies involved. The IGs cannot enforce the adoption of recommendations, but their work acts as the “sunshine” for disinfection, Fine says.

One major recommendation that Fine makes in Watchdogs is that an inspector general be established for the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal judiciary, who could perhaps file their reports to the chief justice or the head of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Fine points to judicial ethics concerns and polls finding public trust in the Supreme Court at historic lows and argues that one way to increase public trust is through the transparency provided by an inspector general.

Also in this episode, Fine offers advice for anyone considering a career in public service. Rawles and Fine discuss stories of his investigations, including evaluating the claims of a whistleblowing scientist at the FBI laboratory and looking into how the infamous double-agent spy Robert Hanssen was able to fool his FBI superiors and pass intel to Soviets and Russians.

In This Podcast:

<p>Glenn Fine</p>

Glenn Fine

Glenn Fine served as the Department of Justice’s inspector general from 2000 to 2011 during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. After practicing law at a large Washington law firm for several years, Fine returned to government. And in January 2016, he became the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense. In that role for over four years, he led the largest federal inspector general’s office, which employs over 1,700 staff in 50 offices around the world. Fine was co-captain of the Harvard basketball team and was drafted in the 10th round of the 1979 NBA draft by the San Antonio Spurs. Instead of trying out for the Spurs, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. He received a bachelor’s degree from Oxford and a law degree from Harvard Law School. Fine is now a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and Standford Law School. Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government is his first book.





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Dentons, Boies Schiller call lawsuit claims against them ‘literally incoherent’ and ‘utterly implausible’

by | Nov 5, 2024 | Law


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Law Firms

Dentons, Boies Schiller call lawsuit claims against them ‘literally incoherent’ and ‘utterly implausible’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

Dentons and Boies Schiller Flexner are asking a New York City federal judge to toss a racketeering lawsuit against them in legal briefs that deride the allegations by its former clients as “literally incoherent” and “utterly implausible.” (Image from Shutterstock)

Dentons and Boies Schiller Flexner are asking a New York City federal judge to toss a racketeering lawsuit against them in legal briefs that deride the allegations by its former clients as “literally incoherent” and “utterly implausible.”

Law360 and Reuters have coverage of the law firms’ briefs seeking dismissal (here and here), which were filed Oct. 31.

Dentons said former clients Frank Corsini and his companies had stiffed Dentons on $1.9 million in legal fees, and contrary to the suit allegations, it was the “plaintiffs themselves who have long been unjustly enriched.”

Boies Schiller said it also received no fees from the plaintiffs because its representation was on a contingency basis in an ultimately unsuccessful arbitration before a panel of the International Chamber of Commerce. The plaintiffs “received the benefit of first-class counsel,” Boies Schiller argued, “without having to pay a dime.”

The $300 million suit by Corsini and two of his companies had alleged that Dentons and Boies Schiller ignored “red flags” suggesting that his contract to develop a power plant in Senegal, a country in West Africa, was invalid. The firms then schemed to generate legal fees, he said in the April suit.

Dentons had represented Corsini in negotiations with Senegal’s energy supplier Senelec. The contract signed by a Senelec representative was invalid because it was not approved by Senelec’s board, Corsini said. He also claimed that Boies Schiller failed to verify whether the contract was valid before the arbitration.

Corsini alleged that the firms and several attorneys violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by seeking to present false testimony about the invalid contract to the arbitration tribunal. He also alleged fraud and unjust enrichment.

Dentons responded that the plaintiffs’ claims had “fatal flaws,” and their narrative was “utterly implausible.” Even though a Dentons partner provided testimony that supported the position of Corsini’s companies in the arbitration, the plaintiffs manufactured “a laundry list of absurd allegations, all premised on conclusory buzzwords without foundation,” Dentons said.

Boies Schiller said the plaintiffs’ claims “ignore controlling law and are devoid of any particularized allegations of how they were supposedly defrauded. More fundamentally, plaintiffs’ claims are literally incoherent: They seek (astronomical) damages based on the dismissal of a prior arbitration claim in which BSF represented them on contingency and which plaintiffs now allege never had merit in the first place.”

Dentons said it would be seeking sanctions in a future motion.

Paul Amandio Batista, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, commented on the dismissal arguments in an email to Law360.

“I look forward to the day when jurors hear evidence at trial about the misconduct of these two major firms,” he said. “Jurors have a refreshing ability to understand reality, and the reality here is that two immense law firms abused Mr. Corsini.”

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is Corsini v. Dentons.





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