SignOnSanDiego.com > News > State -- Republicans see Calif. jurist as model for filibuster fight

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > State -- Republicans see Calif. jurist as model for filibuster fightRepublicans see Calif. jurist as model for filibuster fight

By David Kravets
ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:08 a.m. May 19, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO – Janice Rogers Brown, a sharecropper's daughter who became the first black and most conservative justice on California's Supreme Court, is a model jurist for U.S. Senate Republicans fighting judicial filibusters.

So while another of President Bush's judicial nominees, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, is likely to be the flashpoint for a showdown over whether Democrats should be able to stop appointments to the nation's highest courts, Brown is being debated just as much on the Senate floor this week.

In many ways, Brown's court rulings and speeches mirror the thinking of Bush and conservatives coast to coast.

An outspoken Christian conservative from the segregated South, she supports limits on abortion rights and corporate liability, routinely upholds the death penalty and opposes affirmative action.

"A lot of judges get to the point they think they were anointed and not appointed," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Tuesday during floor debate. "I don't think anyone can contend she has performed other than admirably on the bench. She has written beautifully and thoughtfully."

Brown's views are also why Democrats have used a filibuster since 2003 to block her confirmation for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Senate's 55 Republicans have a clear majority to confirm but not the 60 votes need to break the filibuster.

"She has criticized the New Deal, which gave us Social Security, the minimum wage, and fair labor laws. She's questioned whether age discrimination laws benefit the public interest," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "No one with these views should be confirmed to a federal court and certainly not to the federal court most responsible for cases affecting government action."

Brown, 56, caught the attention of conservatives with her majority opinion in 2000 striking down a San Jose city ordinance requiring government contractors to solicit bids from companies owned by women and minorities. Her opinion traced the legal history of race in America, portraying it as ebbing and flowing on whether government should treat all races equally.

Her 40-page conclusion boiled down to this: People should be treated equally, regardless of race.

Even if an ordinance assists minorities, Brown wrote, "benign motivation cannot sanction a requirement that conflicts with the proscription against discrimination and preferential treatment on the basis of race and sex."

California's chief justice, Ronald M. George, concurred with Brown's opinion but attacked her portrayal of affirmative action as "entitlement based on group representation," calling it a "serious distortion of history."

Brown's position, however, meshes well with the philosophy of the Bush administration, which two years ago told the U.S. Supreme Court that it opposed the University of Michigan's race-based admissions policies. In February, she kept up her affirmative action attacks, deciding against safeguards protecting black women from being removed from juries by biased prosecutors.

Her father moved his family from rural Alabama to Sacramento after joining the Air Force. Brown graduated in 1977 from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, then worked in state government and for several Republican governors.

Close friend Douglas Kmiec, a Pepperdine School of Law professor, said Brown became a lawyer after her grandmother espoused the virtues of civil rights attorney Fred Gray, who defended Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.

When Kmiec introduced Brown to the graduating law students at Catholic University in 2003, he said she formulates opinions "in prayer and quiet study of the Bible." Brown then took the podium and criticized philosophers and scientists for trying to mold society "as if God did not exist."

The law, she said, is the "terrain on which Americans are struggling to decide what kind of people they are."

She defended her faith-based approach to the law again last month, telling a gathering of Roman Catholic legal professionals in Darien, Conn., that "these are perilous times for people of faith, not in the sense that we are going to lose our lives, but in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in and say those things out loud."

Brown worked 12 years as a state government lawyer before joining a lobbying and legislative law firm led by former Republican Gov. George Deukmejian's chief of staff, Steve Merksamer. Then she became legal affairs secretary to Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who nominated her to a state appellate court in 1994.

Two years later, Wilson nominated her to the California Supreme Court. She was confirmed in 1996 over the concerns of the state's judicial vetting committee, which rated her "not qualified" because of her limited judicial experience.

Brown has two children and lives in Sacramento with her husband, jazz musician Dewey Parker.

"She's a brilliant African American woman who is able to articulate a conservative judicial philosophy, and the Democrats can't stand it," Merksamer said. "I think it upsets the orthodoxy of the left to have someone who is brilliant and articulate who also happens to be black and female."

Opponents don't see it that way.

"They're hoping that people will feel uncomfortable opposing an African American woman whose father was a sharecropper," said Eva Paterson, president of the Equal Justice Society, a liberal think tank that opposes Brown's nomination.

Regardless, Brown's rulings have shown sympathy at times to the plight of minorities.

In 2002, the California justices upheld the drug conviction of a black man stopped for riding his bicycle the wrong way on a one-way street. Police searched the man, found methamphetamine, and he was convicted and sentenced to nearly three years.

The majority, in upholding the conviction, left it to the "judgment of the arresting officer" on whether to make an arrest under the circumstances. In her lone dissent, Brown said the decision left open the door to racial profiling.

Brown showed less mercy when it comes to the death penalty, writing that "murderers do not deserve a fate better than that inflicted on their victims."

On abortion, Brown wrote a scathing dissent in 1997 to a ruling which struck down a parental consent law, calling her colleagues "philosopher kings."

Editors: David Kravets has been covering state and federal courts for more than a decade.

Profile of a justice

NAME – Janice Rogers Brown.

AGE-BIRTH DATE – 56, Born May 11, 1949, Greenville, Ala.

EDUCATION – B.A. California State University, Sacramento, 1974; J.D. University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, 1977; LL.M. University of Virginia School of Law, 2004.

EXPERIENCE – Associate Justice, California Supreme Court, 1996 to present; Associate justice, Sacramento-based 3rd District Court of Appeals, 1994-1996 (both appointments were by former California Gov. Pete Wilson); Wilson's legal affairs secretary, 1991-1994; Sacramento lobbying law firm of Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello & Mueller, 1989-1991; general counsel, California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, 1987-1989; deputy California attorney general, 1977-1987.

FAMILY – Married to Dewey Parker, a jazz musician. Two children.

QUOTE – "These are perilous times for people of faith, not in the sense that we are going to lose our lives, but in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in and say those things out loud."

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Communications Law Summer Class Schedule (425-01)

Communications Law (425-01)

Classes will meet this summer on Wednesdays beginning at 0800 and end at 1340. Classes begin Wednesday June 8th 2005 at 0800.

CAU Summer Schedule of Classes

The schedule is in the PDF format

Download Acrobat Reader Here To View PDF Files

Georgia Report - News Detail Page > Perdue signs repeal of 'Jim Crow' laws

Georgia Report - News Detail Page: "Perdue signs repeal of 'Jim Crow' laws
by Tom Crawford on 4/28/2005

Calling them a “stain on the state of Georgia,” Gov. Sonny Perdue signed four bills Thursday that repeal racially discriminatory laws adopted by white legislators in the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to stop the integration of schools and public facilities.

“We all know these were intended as a roadblock to full citizen participation in government,” Perdue said during a signing ceremony in his office. “It was the right thing to do to take them off the books . . . it’s part of the process of racial reconciliation in Georgia.”

Most of these “Jim Crow” laws had long since been negated by court rulings, but two legislators have tried for several sessions to expunge them from the state code as well: Rep. Tyrone Brooks, a black Democrat from Atlanta, and Rep. Mike Coan, a white Republican from Lawrenceville.

Coan was unable to attend the bill signing ceremony Thursday morning, but Brooks and Rep. Billy Mitchell (D-Stone Mountain) looked on as Perdue signed the bills.

“This stain has been removed to some extent and this is a step in the right direction,” Brooks said. “It does help move us towards the racial reconciliation we are all seeking. It sends the right message to Georgians.”

The bills include:

* HB 25 repeals a law that authorized the governor to close a college if there was any threat of violence.
* HB 26 repeals a law that authorized the governor to suspend compulsory attendance laws in grades K-12.
* HB 27 repeals a law that allowed the General Assembly to provide tax-funded grants for students to attend private schools.
* HB 372 repeals a law that allowed local school systems to lease buildings to private schools.

Perdue signed legislation last week, HB 244, that is strongly opposed by African-American legislators because it will require voters to show photo identification at the polls, a requirement that critics say will suppress the turnout of black voters.

"It is ironic and significant that the governor signed the infamous HB 244, the most discriminatory voting law in the 21st Century, before he repealed the unenforceable Jim Crow laws,” said Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon), an African-American lawmaker.

“Governor Perdue is preaching reconciliation and peddling the politics of secrecy, exclusion, and division,” Brown said. “He says one thing and does another, but the people of Georgia are not fooled. Ordinary Georgians can see right through the governor’s empty rhetoric.”

Final Exam Times

Graduating Seniors Take Final Exam Thursday April 28th 2:00pm-4:00pm

Class That Met Tues/Thurs 10:50am through 12:05pm- Final Exam: Thursday May 5th 1:00pm-3:00pm

Class That Met Tues/Thurs 1:40pm through 3:05pm - Final Exam: Monday May 2nd 10:30am-12:30pm

Class That Met Wednesdays 2:00pm through 4:00pm - Final Exam: Wednesday May 4th 2:00pm-4:00pm

These will be the only times the exam will be given!

Georgia Report - News Detail Page > Court overturns ‘obscene’ phone call law

Georgia Report - News Detail Page: "Court overturns ‘obscene’ phone call law
by Tom Crawford on 4/26/2005

The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously struck down Tuesday a state law that had prohibited the making of lewd or obscene telephone calls, ruling that the statute violated the constitutional right to free speech.

“Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental personal rights and liberties protected from government intrusion by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” the court stated in an opinion written by Justice Robert Benham.

The court ruled that Georgia code section 46-5-21 “is an overbroad infringement on the right to free speech . . . it is clear the statute ‘lacks the precision that the First Amendment requires when a statute regulates the content of speech.’”

The state law thrown out by the court made it a misdemeanor offense for a person “by means of telephone communication in this state to make any comment, request, suggestion, or proposal which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent.”

“Instead of applying only to obscene speech, it applies to speech that is merely indecent,” the court ruled. “Instead of making illegal such speech only when directed at minors, it makes such speech illegal when heard by adults. Instead of applying only to speech not welcomed by the listener and spoken with intent to harass, it applies to speech welcomed by the listener and spoken with intent to please or amuse.”

The court ruled in a case involving Anthony McKenzie, an 18-year-old who made five telephone calls to his 14-year-old girlfriend in 2003 while he was being held in the Forsyth County Detention Center. The calls were routinely tape-recorded at the jail and McKenzie was charged with five counts of making “harassing and obscene telephone calls” after his girlfriend’s mother complained to law enforcement authorities.

McKenzie was found guilty on two of the five counts in 2004 after a bench trial before Forsyth State Court Judge Philip C. Smith, who sentenced McKenzie to two years probation.

McKenzie’s attorney, R. Parker McFarland of Cumming, contended that the obscene phone call statute was unconstitutional in his appeal of McKenzie’s convictions. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a “friend of the court” brief that also alleged the law infringed upon free speech rights.

McFarland argued in his court filings that the Georgia law “permits the unbridled discretion of law enforcement officers to decide which conversation falls into this category.” He noted that the 14-year-old girlfriend accepted each of the five collect calls from McKenzie.

While acknowledging that some of the speech was “sexually explicit,” McFarland added, “when you consider it is being returned by the victim, I don’t know that it rises to the level of being obscene.”

Forsyth Solicitor General Leslie C. Abernathy, the State Court’s chief prosecutor, quoted several of the sexually explicit terms used in McKenzie’s phone conversations and said they were lewd, filthy and indecent “by any reasonable standard.”

McKenzie “is not prohibited from having what he describes as conversation between a boyfriend and his girlfriend; he just cannot have that conversation by telephone,” Abernathy said.

Final Exam PodCasts

CAU MASS COMMUNICATIONS ARTS

Final Exam Review PodCasts Spring Semester 2005

Download these mp3 44.1 bps files to your
computer and listen to them in Microsoft
Windows Media Player on your desktop
computer or transfer it to your mp3 player.

I)Definitions PodCast

         * Ia)Definitions PodCast (addendum)

        II)Essay Instructions PodCast

* This addendum clarifies some definitions
that I was not satisfied with after
I completed the the initial Podcast(I).

The Final Class Assignment

The Final Class Assignment is further down on this page. You will see the two"The Boondocks" comics and a PodCast explaining the assignment. Make sure you bring your response to class by Wednesday.

The Boondocks 4-21-5 Your class assignment is further down on this page. There are two comics there plus a PodCast.

The New York Times > Washington > 2 Reporters Suffer Another Court Setback

The New York Times > Washington > 2 Reporters Suffer Another Court Setback: 2 Reporters Suffer Another Court Setback
By ADAM LIPTAK

Two reporters facing up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify about their sources lost another round in the courts yesterday. The reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, now have only one appeal left, to the United States Supreme Court.

The decision, by the full federal appeals court in Washington, declined to reconsider a unanimous decision of a three-judge panel of the court.

The earlier decision, in February, required the reporters to testify about conversations they may have had with government officials concerning Valerie Plame, an undercover C.I.A. agent whose identity was first disclosed by Robert Novak, the syndicated columnist.

Seven judges participated in yesterday's decision, which noted only that a majority of the court's active judges had not voted in favor of a rehearing. Two active judges did not participate, for unexplained reasons. One judge, David S. Tatel, published an explanatory concurrence. None of the judges noted a dissent.

Speaking to the Newspaper Association of America in San Francisco yesterday, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The Times, emphasized the importance of allowing reporters to keep their promises to confidential sources.

"This is not a New York Times or a Time magazine issue," Mr. Sulzberger said. "What's at stake here is journalism at the grass-roots level."

The two reporters have remained free while they pursue their cases in the appeals court. Under the usual procedural rules, they could face jail as soon as a week from now, when the appeals court will issue its mandate and return jurisdiction in the case to the trial court.

But legal experts say the reporters may try to make a deal with the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, or ask one of the courts involved to issue a stay. In exchange for their continued freedom, the reporters may agree to move quickly enough for the Supreme Court to be able to decide whether to hear the case before its summer recess.

Mr. Fitzgerald has consistently urged the courts to take quick action, adding in a recent filing that his investigation into the disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity is all but complete. A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald declined to comment yesterday.

Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, ordered the reporters jailed in October unless they agreed to testify. Judge Hogan said a 1972 decision of the Supreme Court, Branzburg v. Hayes, provided reporters with no First Amendment protection when grand juries sought their sources.

In a speech in Montana, Judge Hogan suggested last week that he expected the Supreme Court to hear the case, according to reports in the local newspapers there.

In his concurrence, Judge Tatel, who also participated in the February decision, suggested yesterday that the reporters' arguments were best addressed to the Supreme Court.

"Only the Supreme Court can limit or distinguish Branzburg," Judge Tatel wrote.

But Judge Tatel conceded that decisions of his own court's interpreting Branzburg were "somewhat conflicted." Other federal appeals courts, too, have read Branzburg in various ways, and the Supreme Court often accepts cases to resolve conflicts among federal appeals courts.

"The courts are all over the lot," said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a Los Angeles lawyer who filed a brief supporting the reporters on behalf of 25 news organizations. "This case has nationwide implications, and given what's at stake here for the public - not just the journalists - it seems like an ideal case for the court to take."

Judge Tatel also defended much of the secrecy attached to the case, including his decision to redact eight pages that were part of his concurrence in February, which presumably set out grand jury evidence supporting the need for the reporters' testimony. Lawyers involved in the case have speculated that the pages described Mr. Novak's mysterious role in the matter, and they have argued that the secrecy that has permeated the case violated the reporters' due process rights.

Judge Tatel disagreed.

"Telling one grand jury witness what another has said," he wrote, "not only risks tainting the later testimony (not to mention enabling perjury or collusion), but may also embarrass or even endanger witnesses, as well as tarnish the reputations of suspects whom the grand jury ultimately declines to indict."

Katharine Q. Seelye contributed reporting for this article.

Forum on Communications Law - American Bar Association

Representing Your Local Broadcaster

Download Conference Brochure below in the PDF file format:
Representing a broadcaster

ABA National Conference for the Minority Lawyer, Forum program on 'Celebrity Justice: Press Freedom and Fair Trials,' June 23-24, 2005, Seattle Sheraton Hotel & Towers, Seattle, WA."

Download Conference Brochure below in the PDF file format:
National Conference For The Minority Lawyer

Class Assignments For The Week of April 18th 2005

Complete and hand in the Boondocks assignment(immediately below) by the date of your first law class of the week (either Tuesday or Wednesday). In addition make sure you have read the rest of chapter five. Focus on the Florida Star v. BJF case page 188, the "Red Kimono" case pages 188-189 and the section inthe text discussing "False Light" found on pages 191 through 193.
"Thought Question" Does the "False Light Doctrine" apply to the Boondocks comics below? You might want to discuss this in your answer to the question below.

PodCast > Boondocks Class Assignment Instructions

Boondocks class assignment

Boondocks 4-13-5

The Boondocks 4-14-5 Does McDonalds have a tort claim against the creator and/or publisher based upon this comic, if so how , if not why not? This might make a good test question! Write an analysis of the proceeding question and bring it to class next tuesday or wednesday depending on when your class meets. No late assignments will be accepted. You will receive a grade on the response with comments that will assist you on your "Final Exam".

Program and Obituary for the Johnny Cochran Jr Funeral April 5th 2005

This post, a pdf file was submitted by Katie Smith, an excellent "Communications Law" student from the Fall semester 2004. You will need to have "acrobat reader" on your computer to view this file. You may download the free version of this program at Adobe Customer Support

Johnny Cochran Funeral Program

International Journal of Communications Law and Policy

International Journal of Communications Law and Policy: "Welcome to the IJCLP

Welcome to the International Journal of Communications Law and Policy. Founded by an international team from the Universities of Münster, Oxford, Warwick and Yale and edited by legal scholars from the Universities of Yale, Milan, Singapore, Münster and the European University Institute, Florence, the IJCLP is an electronic journal devoted to the changing law, policy and technology of media regulation around the world. As a result of technological convergence, we understand 'communication' to include the content and carriage of traditional broadcasting and cable as well as internet and telecommunications and welcome the submission of intellectually rigorous and challenging articles, working papers and editorials in these areas of inquiry.
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This is a very interesting journal featuring articles discussing Communication Law. There is a whole issue just on cybercrime. You may also submit research papers to this journal

Communications Law Class Assignment For The Week of April 10th 2005

Make sure you have completed your reading of chapter five of the text book. We will be completing our discussion of "Invasion of Privacy" this week. In class we will be discussing "False Light", page 193, "Intrusion" and the "Expectation of Privacy". You must read at least to page 200 in the text.