Judges United States

At the end of the narrow sandy road that winds to the marshy shore of Moon River lies the life into which Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas was born--and the life that his sister never left. Emma Mae Martin still lives in a dilapidated frame house with a hole in the roof just a few steps from the spot where a midwife delivered her and her two younger brothers. Nearby stands the rotting factory where she had once picked crabs, as her mother had done before her.

A federal judge in New York said Thursday that he was on the verge of declaring the federal death penalty law unconstitutional because too many condemned inmates have turned out to be innocent. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff issued the tentative order in a pending narcotics and murder case in which two men face a possible death sentence. If he makes the order final, the two defendants would still face murder charges but could not be executed if convicted.

No one has ever accused Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist of being a stylish dresser. In his early years on the court, the tall and gawky Rehnquist sported loud ties and mismatched suits. While the other justices walked the halls in gray suits and black leather shoes, he wore khakis and Hush Puppies. Four years ago, he decided the plain black robe would not suffice.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected President Bush's choice of conservative Mississippi Judge Charles W. Pickering for the U.S. Court of Appeals on Thursday, signaling that they would engage in payback for the way Republicans treated many liberal nominees in the 1990s. The panel voted, 10-9, along party lines to kill Pickering's nomination. Democrats called him too conservative and too political to be promoted to a higher court.

In the throes of a civil war that left his wife, baby son and brother dead and made him the target of Muslim rebels, Moses Cirrilo fled Sudan for a free life in America. He thought that once the authorities heard his story, they would greet him with open arms and grant him political asylum. He never expected he would spend the next three years in jail, sometimes handcuffed and shackled, he said, "like a criminal."

U.S. District Judge Robert P. Aguilar was sentenced Thursday to six months in prison for obstruction of justice for lying to FBI agents and leaking word to an aging mobster that he was being wiretapped. U.S. District Judge Louis Bechtle of Philadelphia imposed far less prison time than prosecutors had sought. But he told Aguilar that an obstruction of justice conviction "by a judge, no less, is a chilling message indeed."

When Chief Justice Warren Burger told President Reagan in 1986 that he planned to retire from the Supreme Court, he handed Reagan's aides exactly the opening they had hoped for. Reagan's agenda on abortion, school prayer and affirmative action was blocked in Congress, and Burger's resignation gave the White House a chance to break what they saw as the liberals' lock on constitutional law.

The U.S. Senate on Friday confirmed Century City lawyer A. Howard Matz to a federal district judgeship in Los Angeles. "I'm very honored, and I'm truly looking forward to serving," said Matz, 54, a partner at Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert & Matz. "It's a wonderful opportunity to participate in the process of pursuing justice." Matz was nominated for the position by President Clinton last October on the recommendation of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.

A controversial federal judge surprised a Senate committee Tuesday by asserting that young blacks who were attacked by police dogs may have benefited from the experience. Judge Kenneth L. Ryskamp, President Bush's nominee to move up to a federal appeals court, said the mauling of several young black men by police attack dogs may have provided "a negative reinforcement" against their committing future crimes.

The judge who tried the white supremacists charged in the slaying of radio talk show host Alan Berg was appointed Monday to handle the Oklahoma City bombing case, replacing a judge whose chambers were damaged in the blast. U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch, a 65-year-old ex-prosecutor appointed to the Denver bench by then-President Richard Nixon, was assigned the case by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court Friday ordered U.S.

Facing defeat on a party-line vote, Senate Republicans on Thursday were granted a week's delay in deciding the fate of embattled Mississippi trial judge Charles W. Pickering. An angry Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) accused "extreme left Washington interest groups" of "lynching" the 64-year-old judge for political gain.

In early May, President Bush proudly introduced his first judicial nominees in a White House ceremony and said all 11 of them had "sterling credentials" to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Most already were judges on lower courts; four others were prominent lawyers or law professors who had clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court. But as the year ends, only three of these nominees have won confirmation in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

A Los Angeles federal judge has ruled that portions of the 1996 federal anti-terrorism law are unconstitutional--a ruling with potential ramifications for new legislation introduced after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In a decision made public Thursday, U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins said that the 1996 law's prohibition against providing "training" and "personnel" to groups designated as "foreign terrorist organizations" by the U.S.

A month after the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision that gave George W. Bush the presidency, dissenting Justice David H. Souter said he could have won over Justice Anthony M. Kennedy with just another day, according to a new book by a Newsweek reporter. David A. Kaplan wrote that Souter made the comment while discussing the matter in private with a group of prep school students.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved its top Republican lawyer for the federal bench Thursday, even as tensions on Capitol Hill escalated over President Bush's judicial nominations. The committee unanimously approved the nomination of Republican Judiciary Counsel Sharon Prost to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, making her only the fifth judge approved by the committee this year. Prost's nomination now goes on to the Senate, where she probably will face little opposition.

The Supreme Court justices do not spend all their time indoors squinting over legal briefs, or so they are quick to report. Take Justice Antonin Scalia, the combative conservative, for instance. When he's not firing verbal shots at his colleagues over what he views as flawed reasoning, he likes to take aim at deer, ducks and turkeys. In a May interview with GQ magazine, the former University of Chicago law professor said his favorite magazine is "Ducks Unlimited."

Moderate Republican U.S. appeals court judge Amalya L. Kearse, 54, a black woman and moderate Republican, was appointed to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. She was the first woman and second black to join that court. (The first was Thurgood Marshall.) Kearse's name has come up before as a possible Supreme Court appointee.

Justice Byron R. White, the lone Democrat on the Supreme Court, announced Friday that he will retire in June, clearing the way for the first time in a quarter-century for a Democratic President to select a new appointee to the high court. White's retirement was not unexpected, although many observers had thought that the court's oldest justice, Harry A. Blackmun, would depart first. White, 75, a terse, no-nonsense jurist, announced his decision in a typically brief written statement.

In an anxiously awaited ruling, a federal appeals court Thursday unanimously overturned the proposed breakup of software giant Microsoft Corp. But the ruling kept intact much of a lower-court judge's findings that the company had maintained an illegal monopoly, even as it harshly criticized his conduct in the case. The 125-page ruling by the seven judges of the U.S.

Thomas Penfield Jackson went so far over the line in harsh comments to journalists about Microsoft that the federal judge deserves the severe criticism he received on Thursday from an appeals court, say a wide array of legal scholars. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a stinging rebuke of Jackson for "deliberate, repeated, egregious and flagrant" violations of judicial ethics for remarks he made to journalists throughout the landmark antitrust trial.