The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation and Museum commemorated the 40th anniversary of President Ford's pardon of President Richard Nixon by hosting a symposium focusing on President Ford's constitutional legacy at the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids on Oct. 20.
The symposium, co-hosted by the National Constitution Center and the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, presented two panel discussions featuring retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeff Rosen, former United States Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, Benton Becker, who served as special counsel to President Ford, and Steve Ford, President Ford's son.
The first panel discussion focused on "President Ford and the Rule of Law." The second panel discussion focused on "President Ford and the Pardon of Richard Nixon."
Pictured from left to right: Ken Gormley, Constitutional expert and dean of Duquesne University School of Law; The Hon. John Paul Stevens; Jeff Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center; and Paul O’Neill, former secretary of the treasury and deputy director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget during Ford’s administration.
Photos by Jim Hill for the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation.
Posted by Samantha Meinke
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation and Museum will commemorate the 40th anniversary of President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 20 by hosting a symposium focusing on President Ford's constitutional legacy at the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids.
The symposium, co-hosted by the National Constitution Center and the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, will present two panel discussions featuring such noted public figures as retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeff Rosen, former United States Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, Benton Becker, who served as special counsel to President Ford, and Steve Ford, President Ford's son.
The first panel discussion will focus on "President Ford and the Rule of Law." The second panel discussion will focus on "President Ford and the Pardon of Richard Nixon.
The panel discussions will be open to the public, but reservations are required to attend them.
RSVP for the panel discussions.
A lunch at the JW Marriott Hotel will take place after the discussions, but it is only available to members of the Economic Club of Grand Rapids.
- See more at: http://sbmblog.typepad.com/sbm-blog/2014/10/retired-supreme-court-justice-john-paul-stevens-to-speak-in-grand-rapids-on-oct-20.html#sthash.3jqQJWFP.dpufThe Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation and Museum will commemorate the 40th anniversary of President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 20 by hosting a symposium focusing on President Ford's constitutional legacy at the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids.
The symposium, co-hosted by the National Constitution Center and the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, will present two panel discussions featuring such noted public figures as retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeff Rosen, former United States Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, Benton Becker, who served as special counsel to President Ford, and Steve Ford, President Ford's son.
The first panel discussion will focus on "President Ford and the Rule of Law." The second panel discussion will focus on "President Ford and the Pardon of Richard Nixon.
The panel discussions will be open to the public, but reservations are required to attend them.
RSVP for the panel discussions.
A lunch at the JW Marriott Hotel will take place after the discussions, but it is only available to members of the Economic Club of Grand Rapids.
- See more at: http://sbmblog.typepad.com/sbm-blog/2014/10/retired-supreme-court-justice-john-paul-stevens-to-speak-in-grand-rapids-on-oct-20.html#sthash.3jqQJWFP.dpufThe Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation and Museum will commemorate the 40th anniversary of President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 20 by hosting a symposium focusing on President Ford's constitutional legacy at the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids.
The symposium, co-hosted by the National Constitution Center and the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, will present two panel discussions featuring such noted public figures as retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeff Rosen, former United States Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, Benton Becker, who served as special counsel to President Ford, and Steve Ford, President Ford's son.
The first panel discussion will focus on "President Ford and the Rule of Law." The second panel discussion will focus on "President Ford and the Pardon of Richard Nixon.
The panel discussions will be open to the public, but reservations are required to attend them.
RSVP for the panel discussions.
A lunch at the JW Marriott Hotel will take place after the discussions, but it is only available to members of the Economic Club of Grand Rapids.
Posted by Samantha Meinke
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled four to three in People v Carp, People v Davis and People v Eliason that those offenders sentenced as juveniles to life without the possibility for parole prior to the Supreme Court of the United States decision in Miller v Alabama will not be eligible for new sentencing hearings.
Justice Stephen Markman wrote for the majority that since the changes made by the Miller precedent were merely procedural, no sentencing hearings were required for those juveniles sentenced to life prior to Miller.
Justice Mary Beth Kelly wrote for the dissent, signed on to by Justices Bridget McCormack and Michael Cavanagh, that because Miller changed the variety of sentences available for the those juveniles sentenced to life prior to Miller, that the Miller precedent should apply retroactively.
Posted by Samantha Meinke
On April 22 (Earth Day and the birth of V. I. Lenin and death of Richard Nixon, probably just a coincidence), the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, a constitutional challenge to an Ohio law that criminalizes false statement during an election campaign about the voting record of a candidate or public official, and the dissemination of any false statement about a candidate, either knowing it is false or with reckless disregard for whether it is true, with the goal of electing or defeating the candidate. Or, to put it more drily and precisely, the Supreme Court will consider:
(1) Whether, to challenge a speech-suppressive law, a party whose speech is arguably proscribed must prove that authorities would certainly and successfully prosecute him, as the Sixth Circuit holds, or should the court presume that a credible threat of prosecution exists absent desuetude or a firm commitment by prosecutors not to enforce the law, as seven other Circuits hold; and (2) whether the Sixth Circuit erred by holding, in direct conflict with the Eighth Circuit, that state laws proscribing “false” political speech are not subject to pre-enforcement First Amendment review so long as the speaker maintains that its speech is true, even if others who enforce the law manifestly disagree.
As reported in the New York Times, which makes it official, to aid the Court the Cato Institute and humorist P.J. O'Rourke ("America's leading political satirist"1 and an H.L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute) have submitted an amicus brief in support of the constitutionality of the law. Its main assertions are:
In a Daily Beast essay, O'Rourke has disavowed authorship of the brief:
Cato did not ask me to write their brief for the same reason that you do not ask me to perform your appendectomy. … I was asked to read it and give it my endorsement because I am an expert on being run out of Ohio. Ask my mother.
1 Example of truthiness?
Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l is a case about whether computer-implemented inventions -- specifically, a software application that reduces risk in currency transactions -- are patentable. The oral argument this week led the Court into deep hypothetical territory, illustrated by this peregrination from Justice Breyer:
Imagine King Tut sitting in front of the pyramid where all his gold is stored, and he has the habit of giving chits away. Good for the gold, which is given at the end of the day. And he hires a man with an abacus, and when the abacus keeping track sees that he’s given away more gold than he has in storage, he says, stop. You see? Or my mother, who used to look at my checkbook when she saw that in fact, I had written more checks than I had in the account, she would grab it. Stop. You see? ... How is that less abstract that King Tut, if we had the same thing with a grain elevator, if we had the same thing with a reservoir of water, if we had the same thing with my checkbook? You see the point.
And the difference between high-powered Supreme Court litigators and the rest of the world is that the defender of the patent DID see the point, and even had an answer, which was (slightly paraphrased) "Methodology!" But then again, perhaps he didn't see the point, because Justice Breyer was still puzzled. "If you say, computer stop, you have an invention. Useful add but if you say, mother stop, you don't?" In the end the litigator said something like, "but our patented methodology stops a whole bunch of transactions at exactly the right time." Which apparently he thinks Justice Breyer's mother could not do. Nor the abacus.
At any rate, the Wall Street Journal, and others, say that the Court appears "skeptical" about the patent claim.
Last week the Supreme Court granted the North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners' cert petition asking review of the 4th Circuit's conclusion that the Board didn't qualify for immunity from the FTC's prosecution of the Board's efforts to block nondentists from offering teeth-whitening services. The case is North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission. An amicus brief filed by the North Carolina State Bar, the North Carolina Board of Law Examiners, the West Virginia State Bar, and The Florida Bar explains the connection to state bar associations:
The Fourth Circuit holds that "when a state agency is operated by market participants who are elected by other market participants, it is a 'private' actor," and therefore must be actively supervised by other state officials to receive state action immunity (while also stating that its "opinion should not be read as precluding" an otherwise undefined category of "more quintessential state agencies," not "composed entirely of private market participants," from "arguing that they need not satisfy the active supervision requirement"). Absent such supervision, no action of a state body run by elected professionals would appear to be reliably protected by state action immunity, even if the conduct is authorized by state statute or a state's constitution. That holding is extraordinarily broad, reaching far beyond the specific facts presented.
