We’ve decided to tweak the format of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch a bit. Beginning today, we’ll be bringing you all the lawyer weddings featured in the New York Times.
This, admittedly, is the kind of everyone’s-a-winner feel-goodism that we normally abhor. Alas, to be frank, we’re sick of the constant death threats from couples who don’t make our column. Don’t worry — we’ll keep the focus on our brilliant featured couples, as always. But starting with today’s installment, you’ll also be able to check out the honorable mentions (and others) at the end of each post.
Also, congratulations to Elena Lalli and Guillermo Coronado, who edged out Caroline Lopez and Nicholas Miranda in our last reader poll for Couple of the Week.
This week’s featured couples are:
1. Meredith Osborn and Christiaan Highsmith
2. Claire McCusker and Michael Murray
3. Emily Keifer and Jordan Barry
More about these couples — and a list of all the NYT’s recent legal eagle matings — after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Spreading the Love”
Jay Bybee
* An interesting look at the role played by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and his S.D.N.Y. colleagues in the recent Russian spy swap. [New York Times]
* The government’s obscenity case against porn purveyor John Stagliano has climaxed… in a dismissal. [Politico via First One @ One First]
* Now that the damn hole is plugged, at least for the time being, all eyes are on BP compensation fund czar Kenneth Feinberg. [New York Times]
* The Justice Department has launched the largest health-care fraud sting in U.S. history. [Washington Post]
* Still on the DOJ, here’s the interesting backstory on how Jay Bybee came to head the Office of Legal Counsel. [Main Justice]
We took a muscular view of presidential authority. We were offering a bottom line to a client who wanted to know what he could do and what he couldn’t do. I wasn’t running a debating society, and I wasn’t running a law school.
– Ninth Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee, testifying to the House Judiciary Committee about his authorization of aggressive interrogation methods as head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
Judge Stephen Reinhardt (left), perhaps the most prominent liberal appeals court judge in the country, is buddies with his conservative colleague on the Ninth Circuit, Judge Alex Kozinski (right). But we suspect that Judge Reinhardt feels less warmly towards Judge Jay S. Bybee (far right).
You can always count on the Ninth Circuit for a good old-fashioned judicial smackfest. And this latest one is very, very good.
Stepping into the ring are two of the Ninth Circuit’s most high-profile judges. On the left: Judge Stephen Reinhardt, the court’s liberal lion, who has been trading benchslaps with conservatives for decades. On the right: Judge Jay Bybee, one of the court’s newer (and more conservative) members. Luckily for him, Judge Bybee was confirmed to his life-tenured post shortly before eruption of the controversy over the 2002 Bush administration “torture memo” (which he signed).
From an article by Justin Scheck of The Recorder:
In March of 2005, Reinhardt and Bybee found themselves on a three-judge panel — together with Senior Judge Procter Hug Jr. — that heard the case of Roger Smith. Smith claimed that his guilty plea in the murder of Emmet Konzelman was no good since his supposed accomplice Jacob Edmonds — who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and testified against Smith — later recanted his testimony.
In his majority opinion, Reinhardt wrote that even though Smith had not exhausted his state claims, a rarely used exception should allow his case to move forward in federal court.
Par for the Reinhardt course. How did Bybee respond?
“I disagree with nearly every word the majority has written, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ My profound disagreement is not limited to the facts, but runs throughout the majority opinion.”
Gee, Judge Bybee, tell us how you really feel!
And there’s more. Check out the rest, after the jump.
Continue reading “Bench-Slapped! Reinhardt v. Bybee”
