A Call for Institutional Reform of the Office of Legal Counsel
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Barron Nomination Could Be on Senate Floor As Early As This Week
WASHINGTON LEGISLATIVE OFFICE URGENT: BARRON NOMINATION COULD BE ON SENATE FLOOR AS EARLY AS THIS WEEK May 5, 2014 Re: Need for All Senators to Read Key OLC Opinions, Including Ones Authorizing the Killing of a United States Citizen Away from a Battlefield, Before Voting on the Nomination of their Author, David Barron, for the AMERICAN CIVIL United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit LIBERTIES UNION WASHINGTON LEGISLATIVE OFFICE 915 15th STREET, NW, 6 TH FL Dear Senator: WASHINGTON, DC 20005 T/202.544.1681 F/202.546.0738 Before voting on the nomination of David Barron for the United States WWW.ACLU.ORG Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the American Civil Liberties Union LAURA W. MURPHY strongly urges you to read the two known Justice Department legal opinions, DIRECTOR authored or signed by Mr. Barron, which reportedly authorized the killing of an NATIONAL OFFICE American citizen by an armed drone, away from a battlefield. The ACLU also 125 BROAD STREET, 18 TH FL. urges you to obtain and read any and all other legal opinions related to the NEW YORK, NY 10004-2400 T/212.549.2500 targeted killing or armed drone program that were written or signed by Mr. Barron. The ACLU does not endorse or oppose any nominee, but strongly urges OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS SUSAN N. HERMAN the Senate to delay any vote on confirmation of Mr. Barron until all senators have PRESIDENT an opportunity to read, with advice of cleared staff, these legal opinions that ANTHONY D. ROMERO authorized an unprecedented killing, as well as any other opinions written or EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR signed by Mr. -
Trump Judges: Even More Extreme Than Reagan and Bush Judges
Trump Judges: Even More Extreme Than Reagan and Bush Judges September 3, 2020 Executive Summary In June, President Donald Trump pledged to release a new short list of potential Supreme Court nominees by September 1, 2020, for his consideration should he be reelected in November. While Trump has not yet released such a list, it likely would include several people he has already picked for powerful lifetime seats on the federal courts of appeals. Trump appointees' records raise alarms about the extremism they would bring to the highest court in the United States – and the people he would put on the appellate bench if he is reelected to a second term. According to People For the American Way’s ongoing research, these judges (including those likely to be on Trump’s short list), have written or joined more than 100 opinions or dissents as of August 31 that are so far to the right that in nearly one out of every four cases we have reviewed, other Republican-appointed judges, including those on Trump’s previous Supreme Court short lists, have disagreed with them.1 Considering that every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has made a considerable effort to pick very conservative judges, the likelihood that Trump could elevate even more of his extreme judicial picks raises serious concerns. On issues including reproductive rights, voting rights, police violence, gun safety, consumer rights against corporations, and the environment, Trump judges have consistently sided with right-wing special interests over the American people – even measured against other Republican-appointed judges. Many of these cases concern majority rulings issued or joined by Trump judges. -
Bruce Ackerman
BOOK REVIEW CONSTITUTIONAL ALARMISM THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. By Bruce Ackerman. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2010. Pp. 270. $25.95. Reviewed by Trevor W. Morrison∗ INTRODUCTION The Decline and Fall of the American Republic is a call to action. Professor Bruce Ackerman opens the book with the claim that “some- thing is seriously wrong — very seriously wrong — with the tradition of government that we have inherited” (p. 3). The problem, he says, is the modern American presidency, which he portrays as recently trans- formed into “an especially dangerous office” (p. 189 n.1) posing “a se- rious threat to our constitutional tradition” (p. 4). Ackerman urges us to confront this “potential for catastrophic decline — and act before it is too late” (p. 11). Concerns of this kind are not new. Indeed, in some respects De- cline and Fall reads as a sequel to Professor Arthur Schlesinger’s 1973 classic, The Imperial Presidency.1 Ackerman writes consciously in that tradition, but with a sense of renewed urgency driven by a convic- tion that “the presidency has become far more dangerous today” than in Schlesinger’s time (p. 188). The sources and mechanisms of that purported danger are numerous; Decline and Fall sweeps across jour- nalism, national opinion polls, the Electoral College, civilian-military relations, presidential control of the bureaucracy, and executive branch lawyering to contend that “the foundations of our own republic are eroding before our very eyes” (p. 188). ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ∗ Professor of Law, Columbia University. For helpful comments on earlier drafts, I thank Akhil Amar, David Barron, Ariela Dubler, Jack Goldsmith, Marty Lederman, Peter Margulies, Gillian Metzger, Henry Monaghan, Rick Pildes, Jeff Powell, John Witt, and participants in faculty workshops at Vanderbilt University and the University of Washington. -
The Death Penalty As Torture
The Death Penalty as Torture bessler DPT last pages.indb 1 1/12/17 11:47 AM Also by John D. Bessler Death in the Dark: Midnight Executions in Amer i ca Kiss of Death: Amer i ca’s Love Affair with the Death Penalty Legacy of Vio lence: Lynch Mobs and Executions in Minnesota Writing for Life: The Craft of Writing for Everyday Living Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Found ers’ Eighth Amendment The Birth of American Law: An Italian Phi los o pher and the American Revolution Against the Death Penalty (editor) bessler DPT last pages.indb 2 1/12/17 11:47 AM The Death Penalty as Torture From the Dark Ages to Abolition John D. Bessler Carolina Academic Press Durham, North Carolina bessler DPT last pages.indb 3 1/12/17 11:47 AM Copyright © 2017 John D. Bessler All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bessler, John D., author. Title: The death penalty as torture : from the dark ages to abolition / John D. Bessler. Description: Durham, North Carolina : Carolina Academic Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016036253 | ISBN 9781611639261 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Capital punishment--History. | Capital punishment--United States. Classification: LCC K5104 .B48 2016 | DDC 345/.0773--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036253 Carolina Academic Press, LLC 700 Kent Street Durham, North Carolina 27701 Telephone (919) 489-7486 Fax (919) 493-5668 www.cap-press.com Printed in the United States of America bessler DPT last pages.indb 4 1/12/17 11:47 AM For all victims of torture bessler DPT last pages.indb 5 1/12/17 11:47 AM bessler DPT last pages.indb 6 1/12/17 11:47 AM “Can the state, which represents the whole of society and has the duty of protect- ing society, fulfill that duty by lowering itself to the level of the murderer, and treating him as he treated others? The forfeiture of life is too absolute, too irre- versible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process.” — U.N. -
A Close Reading of Barnette, in Honor of Vincent Blasi
FIU Law Review Volume 13 Number 4 Barnette at 75: The Past, Present, and Future of the Fixed Star in Our Constitutional Article 8 Constellation Spring 2019 A Close Reading of Barnette, in Honor of Vincent Blasi Paul Horwitz Gordon Rosen Professor, Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. School of Law, University of Alabama Follow this and additional works at: https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/lawreview Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, First Amendment Commons, Legal Education Commons, and the Religion Law Commons Online ISSN: 2643-7759 Recommended Citation Paul Horwitz, A Close Reading of Barnette, in Honor of Vincent Blasi, 13 FIU L. Rev. 689 (2019). DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.25148/lawrev.13.4.8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by eCollections. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Law Review by an authorized editor of eCollections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 05 - HORWITZ.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 4/6/19 12:41 PM A CLOSE READING OF BARNETTE, IN HONOR OF VINCENT BLASI Paul Horwitz* I am aware that we must decide the case before us and not some other case. But that does not mean that a case is dissociated from the past and unrelated to the future.1 —Justice Felix Frankfurter I. INTRODUCTION Because he spent years teaching at both Columbia and the University of Virginia (after stints at Texas and Michigan), Vincent Blasi has been influential, as a colleague or teacher, for many contemporary First Amendment scholars. Although all of us have learned from his first-rate body of writing on the First Amendment, his influence as a teacher has been no less profound. -
The Obama Administration and the Prospects for a Democratic Presidency in a Post-9/11 World
NYLS Law Review Vols. 22-63 (1976-2019) Volume 56 Issue 1 Civil Liberties 10 Years After 9/11 Article 2 January 2012 The Obama Administration and the Prospects for a Democratic Presidency in a Post-9/11 World Peter M. Shane The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/nyls_law_review Part of the Law and Politics Commons, Law and Society Commons, Military, War, and Peace Commons, and the National Security Law Commons Recommended Citation Peter M. Shane, The Obama Administration and the Prospects for a Democratic Presidency in a Post-9/11 World, 56 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REV. 28 (2011-2012). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@NYLS. It has been accepted for inclusion in NYLS Law Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@NYLS. VOLUME 56 | 2011/12 PETER M. SHANE The Obama Administration and the Prospects for a Democratic Presidency in a Post-9/11 World ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. 27 THE PROSpeCTS FOR A DemoCRATIC PRESIdeNCY IN A POST-9/11 WORld [W]hen I won [the] election in 2008, one of the reasons I think that people were excited about the campaign was the prospect that we would change how business is done in Washington. And we were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn’t change how things got done. And I think that frustrated people. -
Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration: Hearing Before the Subcomm
Georgetown University Law Center Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW 2009 What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Administrative Oversight and the Courts of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 111th Cong., May 13, 2009 (Statement of David Luban, Prof. of Law, Geo. U. L. Center) David Luban Georgetown University Law Center, [email protected] This paper can be downloaded free of charge from: http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cong/42 This open-access article is brought to you by the Georgetown Law Library. Posted with permission of the author. Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cong Part of the Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons, and the Military, War and Peace Commons Testimony of David Luban Professor, Georgetown University Law Center Hearing: What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration May 13, 2009 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts Chairman Whitehouse and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. You've asked me to talk about the legal ethics of the interrogation memos written by lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel. Based on the publicly- available sources I've studied, I believe that the memos are an ethical train wreck. When a lawyer advises a client about what the law requires, there is one basic ethical obligation: to tell it straight, without slanting or skewing. That can be a hard thing to do, if the legal answer isn't the one the client wants. -
Indirect Constraints on the Office of Legal Counsel: Examining a Role for the Senate Judiciary Committee
Stanford Law Review Volume 73 June 2021 NOTE Indirect Constraints on the Office of Legal Counsel: Examining a Role for the Senate Judiciary Committee William S. Janover* Abstract. As arbiter of the constitutionality of executive actions, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) possesses vast authority over the operation of the federal government and is one of the primary vessels for the articulation of executive power. It therefore is not surprising that the OLC has found itself at the center of controversy across Democratic and Republican administrations. OLC opinions have justified the obstruction of valid congressional investigations, the targeted killing of an American citizen overseas, repeated military incursions without congressional approval, and, most infamously, torture. These episodes have generated a significant body of proposals to reform, constrain, or altogether eliminate the OLC. All of these proposals can be categorized as either direct or indirect constraints on how the OLC operates. Direct constraints target how the OLC actually creates its legal work product. Indirect constraints instead focus on the OLC’s personnel or the public scrutiny the Office’s opinions will face. This Note expands on this existing body of research, focusing on how one institution unstudied in this context, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, can operationalize meaningful indirect constraints on the OLC. Unlike the other actors that scholars have examined, the Committee’s position outside the executive branch allows it to sidestep the President’s ever-expanding reach within the federal bureaucracy. At the same time, the Committee’s oversight powers and its central role in the nomination of both the OLC’s leader and Article III judges give it important constitutional and statutory authority to constrain the Office. -
DOJ Information Technology Strategic Plan 2010-2015
DOJ IT Strategic Plan Appendix E: DOJ COMPONENTS LIST DOJ Components include the following organizations: Antitrust Division (ATR) Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) Office of Dispute Resolution (ODR) Civil Division (CIV) Office of the Federal Detention Trustee (OFDT) Civil Rights Division (CRT) Office of Information and Privacy (OIP) Criminal Division (CRM) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Community Relations Service (CRS) Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison (OIPL) Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Office of Justice Programs (OJP) Environment and Natural Resources Division Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) (ENRD) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Office of Legal Policy (OLP) Executive Office for United States Attorneys Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA) (EOUSA) Executive Office for United States Trustees Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA) (EOUST) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Office of Public Affairs (PAO) Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) Foreign Claims Settlement Commission (FCSC) Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) INTERPOL ‐ United States National Central Professional Responsibility Advisory Office Bureau (USNCB) (PRAO) Justice Management Division (JMD) Tax Division (TAX) National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) United States Marshals Service (USMS) National Institute of Corrections United States Parole Commission (USPC) National Security Division (NSD) The FY2009 DOJ IT Budget of $2.8 billion is allocated by component as follows: U.S. Department of Justice 12/9/2009 Office of the Chief Information Officer 41 DOJ IT Strategic Plan Source: FY2009 DOJ IT Exhibit 53 U.S. Department of Justice 12/9/2009 Office of the Chief Information Officer 42 . -
The Office of Legal Counsel and Torture: the Law As Both a Sword and Shield
Note The Office of Legal Counsel and Torture: The Law as Both a Sword and Shield Ross L. Weiner* And let me just add one thing. And this is a stark contrast here because we are nation [sic] of laws, and we are a nation of values. The terrorists follow no rules. They follow no laws. We will wage and win this war on terrorism and defeat the terrorists. And we will do so in a way that’s consistent with our values and our laws, and consistent with the direction the President laid out.1 —Scott McClellan, Spokesman to President George W. Bush, June 22, 2004 * J.D., expected May 2009, The George Washington University Law School; B.A., 2004, Colgate University. I would like to thank Kimberly L. Sikora Panza and Charlie Pollack for reading early drafts and guiding me on my way. I am indebted to the editors of The George Washington Law Review for all of their thoroughness and dedication in preparing this Note for publication. Finally, thank you to my parents, Tammy and Marc Levine, and Howard and Patti Weiner, for all their hard work. 1 Press Briefing, White House Counsel Judge Alberto Gonzales, Dep’t of Defense (“DoD”) Gen. Counsel William Haynes, DoD Deputy Gen. Counsel Daniel Dell’Orto, and Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence Gen. Keith Alexander (June 22, 2004) [hereinafter Press Briefing], available at http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/06/ 20040622-14.html. February 2009 Vol. 77 No. 2 524 2009] The Law as Both a Sword and a Shield 525 Introduction On September 11, 2001, nineteen men, each a member of al- Qaeda,2 hijacked and crashed four airplanes, killing nearly 3,000 Americans. -
HLS in the World
HLS in the World Artificial Intelligence and the Practice of Law Faculty Host: Susan Crawford Participants: Edward Felten, Stasia Kelly Join Edward Felten, one of the nation's leading experts on artificial intelligence, and Stasia Kelly, a leader of DLA Piper, as they discuss the effect of artificial intelligence on the practice of law. When clients get their answers from machines, what's left for lawyers to do? The Changing Political and Intellectual Landscape of Criminal Justice Reform Faculty Hosts: Andrew Crespo ’08, Carol Steiker ’86, Alex Whiting Participants: Rachel Barkow ’96, Brook Hopkins ’07, Alan Jenkins ’89, Derecka Purnell ’17, Jonathan Wroblewski The law, politics, and scholarship of criminal justice reform have been shifting in potentially tectonic ways. After several decades of increasingly punitive policies across the country which resulted in surging incarceration rates, the last several years have seen an increasingly bipartisan shift towards a critique of what has come to be called mass incarceration. Yet, the recent presidential election signals a shift in federal priorities away from a reform agenda a development that may (or may not) have consequences for the recent trajectory in favor of reform by many state and local actors. This interactive discussion explores these crosscurrents in the law, policy, and discourse surrounding our criminal justice system. Constitutionalism and Courts: A Transnational Conversation Among Judges Faculty Hosts: Vicki Jackson, Mark Tushnet Participants: Rosalie Abella, Manuel Jose Cepeda LL.M. ’87, Dieter Grimm LL.M. ’65, Koenraad Lenaerts LL.M. ’78, Sandile Ngcobo LL.M. ’86 A moderated discussion among justices from high courts around the world about, among other topics, the challenges they face, the ways they interpret their constitutions and similar documents, and the role of international and comparative law in their work. -
(U) Evaluation of the National Reconnaissance Office Crimes Reporting Process
UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (U) Evaluation of the National Reconnaissance Office Crimes Reporting Process Report Number IO-2013-002 April 2014 Important Notice This report contains information that the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community has determined is confidential, sensitive, or protected by Federal Law, including protection from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 5 U.S.C. § 552. Recipients may not further disseminate this information without the express permission of the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community personnel. Accordingly, the use, dissemination, distribution or reproduction of this information to or by unauthorized or unintended recipients may be unlawful. Persons disclosing this information publicly or to others not having an official need to know are subject to possible administrative, civil, and/or criminal penalties. This report should be safeguarded to prevent improper disclosure at all times. Authorized recipients who receive requests to release this report should refer the requestor to the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO (U) Table of Contents (U) Executive Summary .................................................................................................. 4 (U) Background ............................................................................................................... 8 (U) Objective, Scope, and Methodology