#David Tatel
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Former federal judge blasts John Roberts in new book and says Ruth Bader Ginsburg was annoyed by pressure to retire | CNN Politics
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Former federal judge blasts John Roberts in new book and says Ruth Bader Ginsburg was annoyed by pressure to retire | CNN Politics
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I found this on NewsBreak: Former federal judge blasts John Roberts in new book and says Ruth Bader Ginsburg was annoyed by pressure to retire
I found this on NewsBreak: Former federal judge blasts John Roberts in new book and says Ruth Bader Ginsburg was annoyed by pressure to retire
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Excerpt from this story from The Hill:
Scientists for the third time in two months won their case against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which under Scott Pruitt had barred those who received agency grants from serving on any of its boards.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday sided with Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups who had challenged the 2017 decision.
Former Administrator Pruitt had argued scientists who had already received funding from the agency would have a conflict of interest, disrupting their ability to offer sound scientific advice on any number of committees that advise the agency.
But a three-judge panel for the circuit said the policy incorrectly conflicts with the longstanding practice of allowing grant recipients to serve on scientific committees.
“The directive itself agrees that ‘it is in the public interest to select the most qualified, knowledgeable, and experienced candidates.’ Yet the directive nowhere confronts the possibility that excluding grant recipients—that is, individuals who EPA has independently deemed qualified enough to receive competitive funding—from advisory committees might exclude those very candidates,” Judge David Tatel wrote for the panel.
A court made a similar ruling on a case just last week filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
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The Scourge of Military Commissions by David K. Shipler
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Of all the self-inflicted wounds by the United States since 9/11, the flawed military commissions set up to try suspected foreign terrorists rank high on the list. At Guantanamo, the commissions have been bogged down in a swamp of dubious ethical, legal, and procedural practices. Their constitutionality has been challenged, their partial secrecy denounced.
Some of their military judges have demonstrated bias, and one was reprimanded in April by the powerful Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which vacated all his orders back to Nov. 19, 2015, the date he initiated a conflict of interest by applying to the Justice Department to be an immigration judge. All rulings on his orders by the Court of Military Commission Review were also set aside, wiping the slate almost clean of pretrial decisions in the case, now requiring re-argument on many of the issues. It was a telling illustration of the mess that’s been created.
Without the military commissions, it’s a good bet that the most prominent prisoners at Guantanamo would have been executed years ago, or at least be sitting on death row waiting for the needle. They would have been tried in civilian federal courts, which Republicans have blocked, although the courts are the jewel in the crown of the American judicial system. If juries had found them guilty, it’s hard to imagine anything but the death penalty. Instead, the alleged organizers of the 9/11 attacks and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen have been in U.S. custody for more than 15 years, at taxpayers’ expense, waiting for trial by military commissions that are so ill-conceived as to be vulnerable to obstruction by prosecutors and multiple motions by defense attorneys seeking to guard their clients’ rights.
Among five suspects in the 9/11 plot is the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Last April’s appeals-court ruling involved Abd al Rahim Al-Nashiri, charged with orchestrating the Cole bombing. Both men were tortured by the CIA in “black sites” before being transferred to Guantanamo.
Al-Nashiri was granted a Writ of Mandamus, which he sought after his lawyers learned that the former judge in his case, Air Force Colonel Vance Spath, had been secretly promoting himself for a position with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. He had even cited his role in the Al-Nashiri case as a credential, and had submitted one of his pretrial orders as a writing sample. (Immigration judges are employees of the Justice Department, not part of the independent judiciary. And while the military commissions are run by the Defense Department, the Justice Department is involved in rule-making and appeals; a Justice Department lawyer played a major role in the team prosecuting Al-Nashiri.)
The decision of the three-judge panel was unanimous. Written by Judge David Tatel, the opinion stopped short of citing any evidence of actual bias in Spath’s orders—many of which were adverse to the defendant—but it noted that “jurists must avoid even the appearance of partiality. Judge Spath’s conduct falls squarely on the impermissible side of the line.” The opinion continued: “It is beyond question that judges may not adjudicate cases involving their prospective employers. The risk, of course, is that an unscrupulous judge may be tempted to use favorable judicial decisions to improve his employment prospects—to get an application noticed, to secure an interview, and ultimately to receive an offer.”
To a layman’s eye, some of Spath’s rulings seemed to fit that pattern. One instance came after defense attorneys were warned by their officer in charge, Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, “that he had lost confidence in the confidentiality of Guantanamo’s meeting spaces,” according to Tatel’s opinion. But Spath adamantly denied that any cause for concern existed that privileged consultations between Al-Nashiri and his lawyers were being monitored. He denied the defense’s motion for discovery, even after lawyers found a hidden microphone, which the government claimed was inoperative.
When the three of Al-Nashiri’s lawyers, who were civilian employees of the Defense Department, concluded that professional ethics required them to withdraw from the case, General Baker granted their request. Spath ordered Baker to rescind his decision. Baker refused, so Spath ordered the general fined $1000 and confined to his quarters for 21 days.
Last September, after retiring from the Air Force, Spath took the oath as an immigration judge, where he is making life-changing decisions for immigrants. His successor on the case, Colonel Shelly Schools, then followed the same route, seeking and accepting an immigration judgeship. When the defense got wind of it, and the government confirmed it, she had to step down as well.
Military involvement in the terrorism cases began when President George W. Bush, ignoring the legislative branch, established tribunals to process Guantanamo detainees and others. For several years, he dodged and weaved in and out of a series of adverse Supreme Court rulings, finally enlisting a too-compliant Congress in 2005 and then in 2006 to establish military tribunals and commissions. Initially they could admit hearsay evidence, the fruits of illegal searches, and confessions coerced under torture.
Then the Military Commissions Act of 2009 cleaned things up a bit but still empowered the executive branch to try a vast array of cases, even inside the United States, involving not U.S. citizens but “alien unprivileged enemy belligerents.” A president and his attorney general can choose whether to send such defendants to trial before civilian judges and citizen jurors in federal criminal courts, or before panels of military officers in commissions. This is an enormous grant of executive power to evade a court system whose procedures have been seasoned by generations of constitutional precedent. The absence of such extensive precedent for military commissions is one reason for the litigation that is delaying trials.
Under the law now in effect, appeals from the commissions can be heard by the appeals court in D.C., which can even second-guess a guilty verdict by reexamining the evidence. Statements by the accused or witnesses would be inadmissible if made under torture or “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment,” but less severe coercion might be allowed during capture or combat if a military judge finds the information “reliable and possessing sufficient probative value.” Because much of the torture remains classified, it is hard for defense lawyers to argue in detail how it was used to extract information that should be ruled inadmissible.
As in civilian courts, the prosecution must disclose exculpatory facts to the accused, who may summon witnesses and confront those against him, but hearsay may also be admitted under restricted conditions. As in civilian courts, complex procedures governing classified evidence seem, on paper, to protect the accused against conviction by secret information he cannot challenge. It remains to be seen how effective that protection will be in practice.
Some judges and some military lawyers who appear on both sides have shown impressive legal ethics and courage to work for justice within a system “flawed in both design and execution,” as General Baker, the Chief Defense Counsel, put it in a 2006 speech at Georgetown. “Put simply, the military commissions in their current state are a farce,” Baker said. “Instead of being a beacon for the rule of law, the Guantánamo Bay military commissions have been characterized by delay, government misconduct and incompetence, and even more delay.” The rest of his address is a point-by-point indictment of the system and its government practitioners.
No system should depend entirely on the goodness of its participants. Our history contains no guarantee that one or another citizen who rises to authority will wield the immense power of the state with wisdom, fairness, and humaneness. Fragmentation of power, as with a judiciary independent of the executive branch, is the most reliable restraint.
In his speech, General Baker quoted Justice Robert Jackson, whose opening argument as chief prosecutor at Nuremberg contained this admonition on trying our enemies: “We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”
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Judge David Tatel Honored by Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
At its 50th Anniversary Gala on October 24, the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights granted its Legal Champion Award to Judge David S. Tatel. Here we will review the Gala Co-Chair’s introduction of the Judge, the latter’s response and the Judge’s recent opinion for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upholding a House of Representatives committee’s subpoena to an accounting…
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#American Academy of Arts and Sciences#American Philosophic Society#Bell Boyd Lloyd Haddad & Burns#Bill Haddad#Birmingham Alabama#Black Panthers#Chicago IL#Chicago Lawyers&039; Committee for Civil Rights#Chicago Urban League#David Tatel#Department of Health Education and Welfare (HEW)#Dick Babcock#Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.#Edith Tatel#Ethics in Government Act of 1978#Federal Judicial Center#Fred Hampton#Guantanamo detainees#Hogan & Hartson#Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg#K&L Gates#Mark Clark#McGuire Woods#Medgar Evers#Nate Eimer#National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Science#National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights#President Bill Clinton#President John F. Kennedy#President Richard Nixon
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Court okays 6G, finds no "harmful" interference
Judge David Tatel, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, (above)
The decision was in yesterday’s 24-page opinion written by D.C. Federal Judge David Tatel.
6G has been approved for “unlicensed” devices like:
smartphones
laptops
tablets
routers
Except the court wants to hear concerns from radio and television networks.
Because the FCC ignored them.
So the case remains open.
And can be reversed.
If the court rules that 6G signals interfere with television shows and radio broadcasts.
Stay tuned.
A court case is never over until the judge says its over.
Here is the Judge Tatel’s opinion:
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/7658F4CE919568A7852587B900589344/%24file/20-1190-1928330.pdf
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Biden Gets Two Vacancies To Fill On Influential D.C. Circuit Court
With Judge David Tatel stepping down, and Judge Merrick Garland set to become Attorney General, expect Katanji Brown Jackson to fill one of the slots. She's also a potential Supreme Court nominee.
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
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New Vacancy On D.C. Circuit Gives Biden Boost In Filling Judicial Nominations
Judge David Tatel's decision to take senior status opens a second vacancy on the D.C. circuit, giving President Biden a boost in filling judicial nominations.
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Appeals Court Blocks White House From Suspending Reporter’s Press Pass
The ruling came with assurance that the White House could remove any “rogue, mooning journalists” if such a disruption were to happen.
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Friday blocked the Trump administration from imposing a 30-day suspension on the White House press pass of a reporter for trading caustic and blustering comments with Sebastian Gorka, a right-wing commentator who worked briefly in the White House, after an event in the Rose Garden last year.
In a 19-page ruling, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the suspension of the credential for Brian Karem, a reporter for Playboy Magazine, violated his constitutional rights because the White House had no written rules or advance notice about what would constitute unprofessional behavior that could temporarily cost him his press pass.
The ruling upheld an earlier injunction blocking the move that had been issued by a Federal District Court judge. The Justice Department had appealed.
“Karem’s due process claim is likely to succeed because, on this record, nothing put him on notice of ‘the magnitude of the sanction’ — a monthlong loss of his White House access, an eon in today’s news business — that the White House ‘might impose’ for his purportedly unprofessional conduct at the non-press-conference event,” Judge David S. Tatel wrote.
The ruling was unanimous. Judges Sri Srinivasan and Cornelia Pillard, both Obama appointees, joined in the opinion by Judge Tatel, a Clinton appointee.
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment. Mr. Karem celebrated the ruling by pointing toward broader press freedom issues in an era when the president has frequently deemed journalists “the enemy of the people” and reporters have been injured while covering the nationwide demonstrations against police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.
“You cannot beat us down on police lines. You can’t intimidate us by pulling our press passes. You cannot deny us due process. We were here before you. We will be here after you,” Mr. Karem wrote on Twitter, tagging the account of President Trump along with that of his own lawyer, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., and the press freedoms group Reporters Without Borders.
The legal dispute stemmed from an altercation at the White House in July. Mr. Trump invited a number of far-right commentators for what he called a social media summit, even though it did not include major companies like Twitter and Facebook.
After Mr. Trump praised them in a Rose Garden speech and was leaving without taking questions, Mr. Karem shouted a question, according to a summary of events in the court ruling. Several of the summit attendees began jeering the penned-off press section, and Mr. Karem smiled and gestured at them, declaring, “This is a group eager for demonic possession.”
The remark angered Mr. Gorka, who began yelling at Mr. Karem. He shouted back, “Hey, come on over here and talk to me, brother, or we can go outside and have a long conversation.” Mr. Gorka then advanced on Mr. Karem and accused him of threatening him. Mr. Karem lowered his voice and said, “I said I’d be happy to talk to you,” but Mr. Gorka continued to yell, responding, “You are a punk! You’re not a journalist! You’re a punk!”
As he walked away, Mr. Karem shouted at Mr. Gorka to “go home” and “get a job.” Several minutes later, in the Palm Room of the White House, Mr. Karem tried to shake Mr. Gorka’s hand, but Mr. Gorka refused and repeatedly told him, “You’re done.”
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Three weeks later, Mr. Trump’s press secretary at the time, Stephanie Grisham, informed Mr. Karem that the White House was suspending his press credential — which lets reporters who regularly cover the White House to quickly get on the grounds of the compound — because he had caused a disruption and violated basic standards of professional behavior.
Mr. Karem sued, defending his comments as jocular and within normal parameters of a freewheeling press environment and also making several legal claims, including that he had no notice of the severity of the penalty that might be imposed for such conduct. That argument alone was sufficient for him to win, the appeals court said.
Judge Tatel also derided as “raising the specter of the absurd” an argument the Trump administration had put forward: If the court ruled for Mr. Karem, the White House would be powerless even “were a reporter to ‘moon’ the president, shout racial epithets at a foreign dignitary or sexually harass another member of the press corps.”
The judge said Mr. Karem’s behavior fell short of such acts, adding, “In any event, the White House can rest assured that principles of due process do not limit its authority to maintain order and decorum at White House events by, for example, ordering the immediate removal of rogue, mooning journalists.”
In 2018, the Trump administration had tried to revoke the press credentials of Jim Acosta, a CNN reporter who covers the White House, because he refused to relinquish a microphone during a news conference when Mr. Trump tried to move on to another reporter.
CNN sued, and a judge blocked the move because there were no rules providing notice that reporters could lose their passes for such an act. After the ruling, the White House promulgated formal standards for how journalists must comport themselves in news conferences.
But those rules did not extend to other types of events, like the summit. The White House has yet to release any standards for what would constitute sanctionable behavior outside the context of news conferences, said Jonathan Karl of ABC News, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
In a statement on behalf of the group, Mr. Karl also said: “Today, the D.C. Circuit affirmed what we all know — the work of journalists reporting from the White House is essential to our republic. The W.H.C.A. stands ready to fend off efforts by any administration to constrain the rights of journalists or to threaten our ability to exercise our First Amendment rights.”
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