Courts & Law

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The AP wraps up the first week of trial. Pennsylvania voter ID law trial wraps up first week:

A professor who specializes in political communication gave low
grades Friday to the 2012 multimedia campaign to educate Pennsylvania
voters about the state’s new voter-identification law as part of a court
trial on its constitutionality.

Diana Mutz, a faculty member at
the University of Pennsylvania and its Annenberg School for
Communication, said the centerpiece of the campaign — TV ads in which
people holding up photo ID cards urged voters to “show it” — seemed
confusing.

“It wasn’t always clear what ‘it’ was,” said Mutz, the
author of several books, who testified as an expert witness on behalf of
plaintiffs who sued the state in an attempt to overturn the
yet-to-be-enforced March 2012 law.

The “show it” slogan, which was
also incorporated in radio and print ads, also provided little guidance
to voters who lacked a Pennsylvania drivers’ license or other
acceptable IDs.

“To say ‘show it’ presumes you have it,” she said.

Her testimony wrapped up the first week of the trial in Commonwealth Court.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I previously posted about the richly detailed data analysis by Morgan Kousser at Reuters, Gutting the landmark civil rights legislation, which blows away the disingenuous sophistry of Chief Justice John Roberts in Shelby County v. Holder. Research data proves the Supreme Court is wrong.

Key takaeway: updating the data, as the court suggests in Shelby County, would produce nearly the identical coverage as the current formula that the court found "outdated" and thus "unconstitutional" under a previously heretofor unknown constitutional standard of review ("we don't like it"):

Congress did not update the formula because it knows it still works. The comprehensive database that I assembled proves this.
Consider, from 1957 through 2006, almost 94 percent of all voting
rights minority lawsuits, legal objections and out-of-court settlements
occurred in jurisdictions now subject to federal oversight under the
Section 4 formula.

* * *

My database, however, shows that Congress acted wisely because it knew
that the formula works. Of 3,874 voting rights actions from 1957 through
2006, 3,636 — or 93.9 percent — came from jurisdictions covered under
the Section 4 formula. Many depended on the coverage formula because
they were based on Justice Department objections, or drew “more
information requests” or lawsuits to enforce Section 5.

Suppose we look instead at cases and consent decrees filed under Section
2 — which can be filed anywhere in the country, in areas not subject to
federal jurisdiction as well as in covered jurisdictions. I have
identified 1,244 Section 2 actions from 1957 through 2006 — and fully
83.7 percent occurred in the jurisdictions subject to federal oversight.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In all the media coverage of the George Zimmerman trial, I do not recall anyone posing the pertinent question: "What if Trayvon Martin had been carrying a firearm? Would he have been justified in using deadly force to 'stand his ground' when he was lawfully where he had a right to be and was accosted by George Zimmerman?"

In President Obama's remarks today on Trayvon Martin, he posed the pertinent question. Lawyers are like that.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Making a surprise appearance in the White House press room today, President Obama discussed his views on the Trayvon Martin verdict in a remarkably personal manner, speaking extemporaneously, and described how it feels as an African-American to have these "inescapable" experiences.  "I think it's important to recognize that the African-American community
is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history
that — that doesn't go away," he said. Video below the fold. Full transcript (excerpt):

The reason I actually wanted to come out today is not to take
questions, but to speak to an issue that obviously has gotten a lot of
attention over the course of the last week, the issue of the Trayvon
Martin ruling. I gave an — a preliminary statement right after the
ruling on Sunday, but watching the debate over the course of the last
week I thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a
little bit.

First of all, you know, I — I want to make sure that,
once again, I send my thoughts and prayers, as well as Michelle’s, to
the family of Trayvon Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and
dignity with which they’ve dealt with the entire situation. I can only
imagine what they’re going through, and it’s — it’s remarkable how
they’ve handled it.

The second thing I want to say is to reiterate
what I said on Sunday, which is there are going to be a lot of
arguments about the legal — legal issues in the case. I’ll let all the
legal analysts and talking heads address those issues.

The judge
conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the
defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that
in a — in a case such as this, reasonable doubt was relevant, and they
rendered a verdict. And once the jury’s spoken, that’s how our system
works.