Notable Quotes 2009
November 2009
2009 November 13: Leila Sadat, contributed to The JURIST Op-Ed Forum arguing that after the failure of American legislative and diplomatic initiatives opposing the International Criminal Court, “the time has come for the U.S. to support and cooperate with the ICC. The legislative and diplomatic initiatives against the ICC have failed and have only served to isolate the US … There is added urgency for US participation due to the ICC Review Conference to be held next year in Uganda.” The piece was co-authored by David Crane, former Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. [View op-ed]
October 2009
2009 October 15: Michael Greenfield, discussed how issues with getting credit can make it difficult for people to purchase houses in certain areas in The St. Louis American. The article noted that that’s when houses deteriorate, and people start selling their houses at any price. He said, “It’s a downward spiral of the health of a community.”
2009 October 11: Rebecca Dresser, discussed in vitro fertilization in The New York Times Online Blog. Dresser explained that there “are clear health and safety reasons to set limits on the number of embryos transferred in I.V.F. But designing the proper oversight system to address this problem isn’t easy.”
2009 October 11: Peter Joy, discussed the issue of St. Louis' repeat drunken drivers often avoiding DWI convictions in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Joy said he believes that when courts give someone a second SIS, it is usually by accident, but he suspects that prosecutors sometimes knowingly ignore the law in order to speed up plea deals. Joy stated that such action is “much more problematic from a public safety perspective.”
September 2009
2009 September 29: Mae Quinn,discussed redefining the court process for drug offenders in the Danville Register Bee. Quinn said, “It creates a new role without a change in the legal standards for lawyers.” She added that defense attorneys have a duty to “zealously represent their client” and serve as advocates for the defendant, but the drug court model asks them to be a team player instead.
2009 September 29: Thomas Schweich discussed the current situation in Afghanistan on CBC.
2009 September 21: Merton C. Bernstein, discussed why Massachusetts has a low rate of uninsured in CNNMoney.com. Bernstein said, “The reason for that is that this is a very high wage area. Also this is a heavy population at college and university, which typically, although they may not pay so well, has a higher medical insurance than the general population.” The article notes that Florida, which has a large elderly population, also had a high percentage of uninsured, at 20.8%. Bernstein said this is because Florida is a “low wage state” where insurance is unavailable to many workers.
2009 September 13: Adjunct Michael Downey, discussed a lawyer who was fined and reprimanded for his online posts in The New York Times. Downey said, “When you become an officer of the court, you lose the full ability to criticize the court.” He made similar comments in The Wall Street Journal blog.
2009 September 11: Peter Joy, commented on a lawsuit by Brown & Crouppen against its former associate in the Missouri Lawyers Media. Joy said, “This could be nothing but a contract dispute. But if it’s found that he made misrepresentations to the client about who represented them – that violates an ethical rule to communicate truthfully to clients. If he was not being truthful to the firm, that relates specifically to the ethics rule regarding truthfulness to third parties.”
August 2009
2009 August 30: Katherine Goldwasser, discussed the cases of battered women who will appeal for leniency before the Missouri parole board in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Goldwasser said, “There are aggravating, mitigating circumstances that don’t excuse you for killing someone, but make it more understandable.”
2009 August 26: Hillary Sale, commented on corporate enforcement cases and the settlement with Bank of America Corp in Reuters. Sale said, “It is absolutely appropriate for a judge to question the amount and the context of a settlement. In theory this increases the SEC’s negotiating power. The SEC can say we can’t settle because the courts won’t let us.”
2009 August 21: Hillary Sale, commented on the action to hold third parties accountable in securities fraud cases in the Chicago Tribune. Sale said, “Certainly if lawyers or accountants or bankers or other third parties are actively engaged in promoting a fraud or assisting a fraud, they, too, ought to be liable.” She added, “Securities laws rely on those third parties to review the merits of transactions. If those people don’t do their job, then we have a major gap in enforcement.”
2009August 20: Kathleen Clark, participated in the online debate over the call to fire John C. Yoo, professor at UC Berkeley, in The New York Times blog. In an excerpt from the blog entry, she notes, “Professor Yoo should have an opportunity to explain his actions and the choices he made as a lawyer. If, after an investigation, the law school and the university find that he violated his professional obligations when he served as a lawyer in the Justice Department, I believe that it would be appropriate for them to take action against Professor Yoo.”
2009 August 18: Kimberly Norwood, commented on the life and example of Margaret Bush Wilson, in The St. Louis American. Norwood said Wilson was an inspiration for her. “She had such a wonderful life,” she said. “What she did in this small place changed the nation. She was an incredible motivator who was soft and gentle though she was pushing you to do something.”
2009 August 13: Thomas Schweich, Washington University’s ambassador-in-residence, gave an interview on BBC World News Radio in which he discussed the drug trade in Afghanistan. He also discussed the counternarcotics program in Afghanistan on BBC Radio the World Tonight.
2009 August 11: Hillary Sale, commended in The Chicago Tribunearticle “SEC Takes Sword to Shield Protecting Lawyers from Investors’ Suits.” A U.S. senator and the Securities and Exchange Commission have sought to hold lawyers, accountants, and other third parties accountable in cases of securities fraud. The moves would puncture some of the immunity granted to such professionals that the U.S. Supreme Court has reinforced in recent decisions. Sale, who supports the bill, noted, “Certainly if lawyers or accountants or bankers or other third parties are actively engaged in promoting a fraud or assisting a fraud, they, too, ought to be liable,” she said. “Securities laws rely on those third parties to review the merits of transactions. If those people don't do their job, then we have a major gap in enforcement.”
July 2009
2009 July 31: David Law, commented as one of the guests on a program about states’ rights and the role of the federal government in CNN American Morning. Should states’ rights trump the fed? The program focused on whether this is a trend across the country. At least 20 states have introduced resolutions reasserting states’ rights because they think that the federal government is too involved in what states do with areas like taxes and health-care and education.
2009 July 23: Hillary Sale, commented on President Obama’s proposal of an insurance requirement for risky investments in the American Public Media. President Obama wants to require FDIC-like insurance for risky investments, “far-out transactions.” Bill Radke asked Sale how this might work.
2009 July 20: Richard Kuhns, responded to an editorial on Justice Sonia Sotomayor in The Oregonian. Excerpts from Richard Kuhns’ response include: “Justice Sotomayor will need to forget about where she comes from if she truly believes in fidelity to law. What a strange notion of ‘fidelity to law’! And, as The Oregonian’s editorial observed, a demand for fidelity never made of white males. Without being constantly aware of the role of their experiences – and, thus, their potential biases – judges are less likely to be open to views that challenge their experiences and ironically, less likely to exhibit the ‘objectivity’ that Huffman lauds.”
2009 July 1: Samuel Buell, discussed the sentencing of Bernie Madoff and Bernie Ebbers in theHouston Chronicle. Buell said, “You have the perception of him reaching directly into the pockets of the victims and taking money out for himself.” He added, “People react with a greater degree of outrage at the Ponzi scheme case. … In a Ponzi case, there’s no rationalization that can be given. There’s no veneer of respectability at all.”
June 2009
2009 June 20: Peter Joy, commented on a juror being charged with seeking a bribe in a Metro East car dealership tax case in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Joy said it may seem counterintuitive to let an acquittal stand in such a case, but he couldn’t find a precedent in which one was overturned.
2009 June 18: Samuel Buell, discussed the indictment of two brothers accused in a spam e-mail case on KMOV-TV. Spam e-mails slow down the Internet and cost people more to go online. Craig Cheatham investigated what was being done to stop these spam e-mails. Buell commented on the impact of criminal prosecution on these cases.
2009 June 9: Daniel Keating, discussed reasons why investors might choose GM in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Keating said, “There’s a good chance that when the plan finally comes to fruition, there will be some payout to the old equity.” He added: “Sometimes, in effect, they’re getting paid to go away.”
May 2009
2009 May 29: Merton C. Bernstein, commented on a press release by senators on health-care reform in the Columbia Journal Review. Bernstein said, “It’s enabling more senators to straddle.” He added, “A pool is about as amorphous a description as you can muster.” The release gave Senate staffers something to say to single-payer and public plan supporters, he says, who call wanting to be reassured that their senators are in sync with what they want.
2009 May 27: Gregory Magarian, commented on the choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court in the Missouri Lawyers Media. Magarian said Sotomayor was a “brilliant pick by Obama, just like [Chief Justice John] Roberts was a brilliant pick by Bush.” Unless new information about the judge surfaces, she won't face a serious confirmation fight, he said, noting that Republicans don’t want to alienate Hispanic voters. “She is by every traditional measure extraordinarily well-qualified,” he said.
2009 May 18: Andrew Martin’s research on the voting patterns of judges is referenced in the article: “What Another Woman Would Bring to Supreme Court” inThe Christian Science Monitor. The research, conducted by Martin, Lee Epstein of Northwestern University Law School in Chicago, and Christina Boyd of Washington University in St. Louis, found that on most issues, there was no difference in the voting patterns of male and female judges. But in sex-discrimination cases, female judges were about 10 percent more likely to rule for the party bringing the suit.
2009 May 15: Mike Spivey, dean for career services at Washington University Law, commented on law firms lowering starting pay and delaying the start of work for new hires in the St. Louis Business Journal: “The moves by those firms – St. Louis’ three largest, collectively employing more than 800 area attorneys – mirror actions taken by firms across the country.”
2009 May 11: Neil Bernstein, discussed the president of a shipyard workers’ union returning pay in The Washington Times. Bernstein said retirement plans typically are paid out once employees leave an organization. “Normally that’s money they can’t get their hands on until they retire,” he said.
2009 May 4: Daniel Mandelker, commented on the laws to block or limit the use of digital billboards in the Daily Star. Mandelker said, “(Billboard companies) seek out the very sites where they could be most obtrusive because that’s where the heaviest traffic is.” He added: "These signs are very distracting, especially in low-light communities such as ours. Just like cell phones, it’s the kind of thing that is fine for a passenger who is free to be as distracted as ever, but not for a driver, who has hundreds of pieces of information to sort through while driving.”
April 2009
2009 April 27: Neil Bernstein, discussed a pilots’ labor dispute in The Arizona Republic. Bernstein said it will come down to the union’s actions. “The pilots who are suing their union have to show skullduggery, show that the union did something underhanded,” he said.
2009 April 27: Peter Joy, commented on jurors using Twitter in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Joy said, “It raises serious questions if someone is allowing their ultimate goal to write about their experience influence their sworn duty to be fair and impartial.”
2009 April 20: Peter Joy, addressed the relationship between prosecutors and police officers in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.Joy said, “Police and prosecutors are on the same team,” and there’s no reason to be suspicious “until something bad happens.” But Joy added, “Prosecutors are not supposed to be rubber stamps to whatever the police hand them.”
2009 April 19: Marion Crain, discussed labor issues in relation to AT&T workers’ health-care contract negotiations in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Crain said, “It makes it much more difficult for the union to get public support for a strike.”
2009 April 15: Peter Joy, commented on how police in St. Charles County, Missouri are increasingly performing blood tests on suspected drunk drivers in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Joy said, “You can have blood drawn even if you don’t want your blood drawn.”
2009 April 14: Charles R. McManis, discussed the need for new intellectual property owners to be vigilant in protecting their investment in The New York Times. McManis said a business has to maintain quality control, or the courts might conclude that it was trying to commit fraud: “A consumer is entitled to get what the trademark symbolizes, with merchandise roughly the same quality as before.”
2009 April 2: Samuel Buell, discussed how defendants with frozen assets are finding it difficult to hire attorneys in The Wall Street Journal. “Do defendants have an absolute right to these funds? No, but many prosecutors and judges feel that [freeing up some money] is the right thing to do.”
March 2009
2009 March 3: Thomas Schweich, as an op-ed contributor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, discusses the Republican Party in Missouri and the choice of U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt as the GOP candidate to replace retiring Missouri Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond. He notes: “Roy Blunt is a dedicated public servant, a patriot and a worthy man. But I believe he should not be the nominee of our party for Bond's seat. As a lifelong Republican and Missourian — and a former ambassador and senior international law enforcement official under President George W. Bush — I am at a loss for why the Republican Party of Missouri would rather be united in defeat than fight for victory.” Schweich adds: “The Missouri Republican Party seems to have no plan for responsible Missourians. Just saying no to what Obama or Nixon wants is not a plan.” [View Op-Ed]
Quick Links
- News Highlights Report (October 2008 - March 2009) [view PDF]
- Notable Quotes (2007-2008) [view]
- University Communications [view]