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April 2009

April 15, 2009
Video Interviews/Podcasts Explore Voting Rights Case
In late April, the U.S. Supreme Court will entertain argument in a case that will likely either sustain or greatly weaken the Voting Rights Act. In Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder (NAMUDNO), the justices will center primarily on whether congressional reauthorization of a significant section of the Voting Rights Act was constitutional. Much has already been written about the case and what it portends for civil rights legislation before the high court.
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Voting rights, Democracy and Voting, Voting Rights Act
April 14, 2009
Report Details ‘Neglect’ of Right to Counsel
By Virginia E. Sloan, President of The Constitution Project

On April 14, 2009, the National Right to Counsel Committee released its groundbreaking report on the crisis in our country’s indigent defense system. It has been more than 40 years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, holding that poor defendants in felony cases have the right to a publicly funded lawyer. Since then the Court has expanded that ruling, applying it to other criminal and juvenile delinquency cases. The Committee, an independent, diverse group that examined the nation’s ways of providing defense services for the poor, is sounding the alarm about the grave problems that exist today across our country.
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Access to Justice, Right to Counsel, Sixth Amendment
April 14, 2009
Prof. Kmiec Challenges Opposition to OLC Nominee Dawn Johnsen
Douglas W. Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University and former head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, says opposition to President Obama’s nominee to head the OLC is unjustified.

In an article, “Let Dawn Do It,” for Legal Times, Kmiec writes that Dawn Johnsen, an Indiana University law professor and former OLC deputy has “a uniquely well-informed understanding of the OLC’s role as honest broker.” The OLC, as Kmiec writes, is a “vital internal check upon executive overreaching,” by providing sound legal advice on policy.

Johnsen, a former member of the ACS Board of Directors and frequent critic of some of the legal advice that the OLC offered President George W. Bush, should be confirmed by the Senate, Kmiec maintains. He writes:
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Executive power, Separation of Powers and Federalism, Dawn Johnsen, Executive Power, OLC
April 13, 2009
Federal Appeals Court, States Reexamining Shackling of Pregnant Inmates
Guest Post
By Kathrine Jack, staff attorney at National Advocates for Pregnant Women
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Prison policy/incarceration, Criminal Justice, Eighth Amendment, Guest Post
April 13, 2009
Justice Thomas Notes a ‘Proliferation of Rights’
Before a group of high school students at a gathering sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institution, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reminisced on his childhood, described some trying times while serving on the high court and suggested that the nation is too consumed with individual rights. “I tend to be morose sometimes,” Thomas told the winners of high school essay contest at a Washington, D.C. ballroom. He added, The New York Times reported, that, “I am rounding thelast turn for my 18th term on the court, this endeavor.”
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Constitutional Interpretation and Change, civil rights, Constitution, Justice Clarence Thomas

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