University of Pittsburgh School of Law Faculty Blog

Professor Jules Lobel was quoted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in connection with reports that thousands of police officers will be called in to serve during the upcoming G-20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh.

The specter of thousands of police officers and soldiers in Pittsburgh worries some free-speech advocates and members of groups that are planning to protest the economic policies of G-20 leaders.

“When you have reports of huge numbers of police coming in, it suggests they plan to cordon off much of Pittsburgh and prevent meaningful protest,” said Jules Lobel, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. “Hopefully, that’s not what they’re planning.”

Mr. Lobel also is vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York group that was involved with lawsuits related to the 2004 Republican National Convention.

“There are certainly security concerns, but those concerns have to be balanced with First Amendment rights to protest,” he said. “If there are law violators, the police ought to arrest them, but not arrest hundreds of other people.”

Mr. Lobel will be working with Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, and Michael Healey, a Pittsburgh lawyer with extensive experience in free speech cases, to make sure city officials don’t try to keep protesters away from the Golden Triangle or follow the “kettling” practices of London police that involved keeping large groups of people confined in one area for hours.

Link

Professor John Burkoff was quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in connection with an effort by a local Assistant U.S. Attorney to solicit attendees at the sentencing hearing in an obscenity case.

It is expected during a criminal prosecution that a defendant will pack a courtroom with family, friends and supporters during sentencing.

It’s unusual, though, for that to happen for prosecutors.

“It may be tacky, but I don’t think it’s unethical,” said University of Pittsburgh law professor John Burkoff.

Link

Professor Deborah Brake was in New York City on Monday, June 29, for the filming of a documentary about Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The film is part of The Constitution Project series, produced by the Annenberg Foundation and The Documentary Group, and is slated for distribution in 2010 to high schools and select PBS stations.

For only the 14th time in American history, the House of Representatives impeached a federal judge. Professor Arthur Hellman’s testimony at the impeachment hearing was cited repeatedly in the debates before the House voted four articles of impeachment against District Judge Samuel B. Kent of Texas.

Professor Hellman’s testimony was quoted at length in the Report of the House Judiciary Committee. The Report explained:

Professor Hellman provided expert testimony that, in essence, concluded that Judge Kent’s conduct in making false statements to fellow judges (and thereby obstructing justice), as well as abusing his power as a Federal judge to sexually assault women, constituted independent grounds to justify his impeachment and removal from office.

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Less than a week after the impeachment, Judge Kent resigned from the bench, thus making unnecessary an impeachment trial in the Senate.

On June 9, 2009, Professor Peter Oh presented “Taking Empirical Stock of the Best Corporate and Securities Articles,” which examines attributes of the Best Corporate and Securities Articles and their authors, at the American Association of Law Schools Conference on Business Associations in Long Beach, California.

Link to the paper

On June 8-12, 2009, Professor Ronald Brand taught a course on “Private International Law as a Transaction Planning Tool” as part of the University of Bologna Law Faculty’s International Commercial Contracts Program in Ravenna, Italy. The course covered issues of contract drafting raised by rules on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments, as well as legal system differences in areas of private international law that affect decisions on choice of court and choice of law.

Professor Michael Madison appeared on KDKA radio in Pittsburgh on Monday, June 22 to talk about the implications of the recent $1.9 million verdict in the case of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman accused of illegally uploading copyrighted music.

Link

Professor Anthony Infanti has published Critical Tax Theory: An Introduction, which he edited with Professor Bridget Crawford of Pace University School of Law.

A summary:

Tax law is political. This book highlights and explains the major themes and methodologies of a group of scholars who challenge the traditional claim that tax law is neutral and unbiased. The contributors to this volume include pioneers in the field of critical tax theory, as well as key thinkers who have sustained and expanded the investigation into why the tax laws are the way they are and what impacts tax laws have on historically disempowered groups. This volume, assembled by two law professors who work in the field, is an accessible introduction to this new and growing body of scholarship. It is a resource not only for scholars and students in the fields of taxation and economics, but also for those who engage with critical race theory, feminist legal theory, queer theory, class-based analysis, and social justice generally. Tax is the one area of law that affects everyone in our society, and this book is crucial to understanding its impact.

The book is available from Cambridge University Press.

It’s too early to make generalizations about President Obama’s judicial appointments, Professor Arthur Hellman told USA Today.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said that with his recent nominations of Sonia Sotomayor and others, President Obama is driving courts “far to the left” by choosing “activist” federal judges. Sessions mentioned circuit court nominees David Hamilton, Andre Davis, and Gerard Lynch. But Professor Hellman said such criticism is premature at this point.

“The differences [among the court of appeals nominees] struck me more than any similarities,” Professor Hellman said.

“Lynch is a straight-down-the-middle former prosecutor. With Hamilton, you have someone who happens to have two high-profile cases in two of the most contested areas of the law, abortion and prayer.”

Link

Professor Haider Ala Hamoudi was quoted in the New York Times on Sunday, June 21 on the slow pace of legislative action in Iraq.

“If there was decent electricity and clean drinking water, there might be more patience from people,” said Haider Ala Hamoudi, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, who has advised the Iraqi government on legal issues. “But on some of these laws, especially the ones that aren’t controversial, Parliament has to do something or it risks losing legitimacy.”

Link