Civil rights advocate William L. Taylor will speak on the increasingly important topic of judicial selection at the University of Missouri School of Law. Taylor’s talk, which will take place on Sept. 4 at 6 PM in the Hulston Hall courtroom, is hosted by the MU Chapter of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.

Taylor is Director of the Washington, D.C.-based Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan organization that monitors the civil rights practices of the federal government. A long-time advocate for civil rights, he was selected as the first recipient of the D.C. Bar’s Thurgood Marshall Award and is considered a “Legend in the Law” by the same organization. Taylor is also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he has been teaching since 1986.

A Yale Law School graduate, Taylor’s career began in 1954, when he served as a staff member of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. During the 1960s, he became general counsel and then staff director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

Among his many accomplishments, Taylor helped to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994. Additionally, as a private attorney, he has helped minority and economically disadvantaged children to obtain an equal education by taking on the issue of school segregation. In his work on educational rights, Taylor represented minority children of St. Louis, and obtained for them the largest voluntary school desegregation plan in the nation.

Taylor has authored many articles on public policy and legal issues, as well as the 1971 book, Hanging Together: Equality in an Urban Nation. His memoirs, The Passion of My Times: An Advocate’s Fifty-Year Journey in the Civil Rights Movement, were published in 2004.

The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy is one of the nation’s leading progressive legal organization, comprised of lawyers, judges, students and policy makers committed to promoting the vitality of the Constitution and the fundamental values it expresses.  The views of the speaker are his own and should not be attributed to ACS.

No criminal prosecutions are planned for former Justice Department officials accused of allowing politics to influence the hiring of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers…

[Mukasey] told delegates to the American Bar Association annual meeting, “Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws.”

Other intrusions of Bush administration politics into department hirings and firings remain under investigation. Justice officials say the attorney general’s remarks do not preclude criminal prosecutions if wrongdoing is found in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the hiring practices in the department’s civil rights division.

Attorney General Mukasey says no prosecutions planned in Justice Department hiring scandal by Mark Sherman (Tribune/AP)

See also: ACS Criticizes DOJ Hiring Practices

After Indiana enacted an election law (SEA 483) requiring citizens voting in person to present government-issued photo identification, petitioners filed separate suits challenging the law’s constitutionality.

Following discovery, the District Court granted respondents summary judgment, finding the evidence in the record insufficient to support a facial attack on the statute’s validity. In affirming, the Seventh Circuit declined to judge the law by the strict standard set for poll taxes in Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U. S. 663, finding the burden on voters offset by the benefit of reducing the risk of fraud.

Held: The judgment is affirmed.

Update: See Court rejects voter ID challenge; no new grants (SCOTUSblog) for a quick rundown of the opinion and Supreme Court Upholds Voter ID Law in Indiana (AP via NYT) for the earliest news coverage.

Update #2: See MU Professor Says U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision to Uphold Voter ID Law Should Not Revive Stricken Missouri State Law (MU News Bureau) for analysis on the potential Missouri impact by MU Law Professor Reuben, Initial Thoughts on the Supreme Court’s Opinion in Crawford, the Indiana Voter Identification Case (Election Law Blog) for a general breakdown by Loyola (LA) Professor Rick Hansen, In a 6-to-3 Vote, Justices Uphold a Voter ID Law (NYT) for more detailed news coverage by Linda Greenhouse, and the New York Times’ Editorial (from 4/29/08) The Court Fumbles on Voting Rights (NYT).

At the behest of the Bush Administration, Congress is debating a number of updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This long-standing law, passed in response to widespread abuses of executive power during the Nixon era, protects American citizens from being spied upon by the government. FISA strikes a balance between ensuring Americans’ rights to security in their communications and keeping our country safe from foreign threats.

One of the key characteristics of FISA is that it allows the government to engage in surveillance of suspected foreign threats, such as terrorists BEFORE seeking a court order.

The FISA court, the judicial body created to review government requests for permission to wiretap suspected threats, routinely granted such requests. The President would have us believe that this permissive system is not enough and that sweeping NEW powers should be granted to the Executive Branch to engage in spying upon American citizens.

This should be troubling to all Americans. Indications are that the government has already engaged in such activities, in violation of existing law. The Administration’s request would provide retroactive cover for these illegal acts. Furthermore, the President is demanding that Congress grant immunity to the telecommunications companies who handed over untold amounts of information about domestic communications at the government’s request. The Administration would have you believe that such immunity is warranted because these companies were simply doing their “patriotic duty.” Nevertheless, these same businesses cut off FBI wiretaps of suspected terrorist targets when the government failed to pay its bills on time.

What is most troubling of all is that the Senate has already passed a bill that gives the Administration everything it wants. Any chance to stop this assault on our civil liberties now lies in the House.In order that concerned citizens may better understand the proposed changes to FISA, the MU chapter of the American Constitution Society will host a panel discussion on the topic this Thursday, February 21 March 13, 2008 from 5:00 to 6:00 pm in Hulston Hall, Room 6.

The panel will consist of Christina Wells, Professor of Law at MU, whose studies have focused on free speech and government access; Charles Davis, Professor of Journalism at MU and the executive director for the National Freedom of Information Coalition; local attorney and civil rights advocate Dan Viets; and John Coffman, who lobbies for the American Civil Liberties Union in Jefferson City.

[Ed. Note : This event has been rescheduled for March 13th due to severe weather. Professor Davis has also been added to the panel]

The ACS-Missouri Supreme Court Series:
 Ledbetter v. Goodyear and the Roberts Court

Panelists:  Assistant Attorney General of the State of Missouri Heidi Vollet, and University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law Professors Christina Wells and Rigel Oliveri.

Here, a video of Ledbetter describing her case before the House Committee on Education and Labor.

The case involves Oregon family law practicioner Brandon Mayfield, who was erroneously accused of involvement in the Madrid Train bombings of 2004. The FBI “matched” fingerprints found on a bag of detonating devices in Spain to Mayfield’s. Despite subsequent communication from Spanish authorities that Spain’s law enforcement officials suspected certain Morrocan nationals as the culprits, and despite Mayfield’s uninterupted presence within the United States for the previous ten years, the FBI sought and received from the FISA court warrants to secretly search Mayfield’s home and office (“sneak-and-peek”), and to listen-in on conversations both in Mayfield’s home and office. FBI surveillance further included watching the Mayfield family as they traveled to and from their place of worship, to and from the Mayfield children’s school, and to and from family activities.

By the way, Mayfield and his family are practicing Muslims. From the opinion (pps 9-11):

Plaintiff’s allege that DOJ and FBI employees “concocted false and misleading affidavits” in order to justify even more intrusive searches and ultimately to justify Mayfield’s arrest as a “material witness.” [...] Although the affidavits stated that “preliminary findings” of the SNP [Spanish National Police] “were not consistent” with the FBI fingerprint analysis, no mention was made of Spain’s [...] report to the FBI that stated the SNP did not agree with the FBI’s fingerprint match …

The affidavit included “speculative and prejudicial narratives” focusing on Mayfield’s religion and association with co-practicioners. Plaintiffs cite as an example, [FBI agent] Werders’s inclusion in his affidavit the fact that Mayfield attended a mosque and advertised his legal services in “Jerusalem Enterprises,” or what are known as the “Muslim Yellow Pages,” as evidence connecting Mayfield to the bombings as a material witness. Plaintiffs respond that the “Muslim Yellow Pages” also includes advertising by major companies such as Avis, Best Western, and United Airlines.

[...]

Based on these affidavits, broad search warrants were sought and issued. Mayfield’s family home and law office were searched. Computer and paper files from his home, including his children’s homework, were seized. Mayfield was ultimately arrested and initially held in the lockdown unit[.] His family was not told where he was being held. He and his family were told, however, that he was being held as a primary suspect on offenses punishable by death, and that the FBI made a 100% match of his fingerprint with the Madrid train bombing fingerprint.

The ease with which the FBI could obtain FISA warrants were due to two provisions inserted into FISA by the Patriot Act. First, where previously wiretapping and “sneak and peek” warrants required a “primary purpose” of obtaining foreign intelligence information, the Patriot Act revisions to FISA lowered the bar to a “significant purpose.” Second, where the target of the surveillance is a U.S. citizen, the FISC judge “must also find that the Executive Branch’s certification that a significant purpose of the search or surveillance is to obtain foreign intelligence information is not ‘clearly erroneous.’” Intstead of the “probable cause” standard of a crime committed or in commision, the government’s burden is dramatically lightened to simply “not clearly erroneous.”

Judge Aiken notes in the opinion (p. 19) that “the practical result of this amendment [...] is that in criminal investigations, the government can now avoid the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause requirement when conducting surveillance or searches of a criminal suspect’s home or office merely by asserting a desire to also gather foreign intelligence information[.]“

As easy as the press of a button.

Following up on a prior post regarding Habeas Corpus:

The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 is likely to be going up for a vote this week and you may find it of interest to follow the informal vote count (below). This legislation is in direct response to a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (“suspend[ing] habeas corpus for any alien determined to be an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ engaged in hostilities or having supported hostilities against the United States”). A more complete breakdown of the anticipated vote count is available at restore-habeas.org. Please note that ACS does not take a position on specific legislation.

From the site:

This week, we have a critical opportunity to restore habeas corpus.

The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act gives us a chance to reverse one of the Bush Administration’s many assaults on our civil liberties.

We all want to make America safe from terrorism, but becoming a nation that sanctions the unlawful detention of its own residents — detaining and jailing them without the chance to appear before a judge — does not make us safe. Instead, it violates a value that we have held dear for centuries — safeguarding our individual freedom before arbitrary state action.

See also:

Killing Habeas Corpus by Jeffrey Toobin for The New Yorker