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Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:29:00 GMT
The decision to prosecute alleged 9/11 master-mind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators in a civil trial in the Southern District of New York sparks debate on how to best try terrorism suspects. Benjamin Wittes offers his views on the significance of trying terror detainees in the U.S. civilian judicial system.
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Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT
October 20, 2009 marked nine months since President Barack Obama took office. Russell Wheeler compares the nomination process for the courts of appeals and district courts of the George W. Bush administration with the current one, focusing on nominations made, hearings held, nominees confirmed and nominee characteristics. Wheeler reveals two striking findings: the relatively paucity of Obama administration nominees and the delay in full Senate action on those nominees.
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Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- October 07, 2009, 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2009-2010 term will consider major arguments on issues ranging from state’s rights and separation of powers to dog-fighting videos. On October 7, the Brookings Judicial Issues Forum hosted a panel discussion to preview the most anticipated and important cases.
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Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The immigration debate is exceedingly difficult given the challenges to the rule of law, exploitation of vulnerable newcomers, and real and perceived competition with Americans for jobs and public resources. The Immigration Policy Roundtable, a joint undertaking of Brookings and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, agreed on a set of recommendations that address the most vexing and controversial obstacles to immigration reform.
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Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- October 06, 2009, 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
On October 6, the Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable released a report proposing six policy changes to break the immigration reform stalemate, including emphasizing enforcement at the workplace, setting standards for the legalization of illegal immigrants and establishing an independent Standing Commission on Immigration.
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Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The challenges that the judiciary system in Uganda has faced are well known, but the country has come a long way from that past. In a new paper, Cynthia Baldwin proposes a four-part approach to control judicial corruption.
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Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT
With Justice Sonia Sotomayer confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court and President Obama set to fill a number of lower court vacancies, there is renewed attention on the demographic makeup of the U.S. judiciary. Russell Wheeler examines federal judicial demographic data from the Eisenhower administration to today. He concludes that while the face of the judiciary has markedly changed over the last 30 years, it hardly mirrors the general population.
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Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:45:59 GMT
Sonia Sotomayor took the judicial oath of office on August 8, becoming the first Hspanic and third woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Visiting Fellow Russell Wheeler examines how the Obama administration will impact the judicial system and what we can expect from Justice Sotomayor.
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Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:24:05 GMT
The Obama administration is considering two different options for prosecuting Guantánamo Bay detainees in the United States. One option calls for trying detainees in several different federal courts in New York, Washington, D.C. and Virginia. The other idea is to try all such cases at a super-max prison in either Michigan or Kansas. Benjamin Wittes says resolving the many issues associated with Guantánamo Bay presents a challenge for the administration.
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Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The judicial appointment process – for both the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts – has been increasingly characterized by senatorial foot-dragging, declining confirmation rates, and protestations by both political parties. Sarah Binder and Forrest Maltzman explore the politics of judicial selection, focusing on partisan, institutional, and temporal forces that shape the fate of presidential appointments to the federal trial and appellate courts. Analyzing historical patterns from over the past 60 years, they find that the polarization of advice and consent worsened over the Bush years, but was broadly consistent with the deterioration of judicial selection over the past several decades.
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Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Obama administration announced plans to restructure how immigrants—most of whom have no criminal records—are detained. Immigration presents courts and administrative agencies tremendous challenges due to a lack of consensus and resources for total enforcement of laws governing entry to and status in the country. Russell Wheeler has explained why crafting better policies for institutions most responsible for enforcing the laws fairly should be part of the broader immigration reform effort.
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Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Closing the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay by President Obama's January deadline is pressuring the administration to craft a new system for incarcerating terrorist suspects, possibly through an executive order. Benjamin Wittes and Colleen Peppard suggest instead a model law for terrorist incapacitation.
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Tue, 26 May 2009 15:46:44 GMT
Russell Wheeler says there is no doubt that U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. The real question is whether she will be confirmed by the October start of the court.
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Fri, 22 May 2009 10:40:59 GMT
As the national security debate continues, one question is whether the president has provided enough specifics for lawmakers to accede to his requests. There are no easy options for closing the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, according to Wittes; as commander in chief, Obama must weigh all risks to Americans.
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Thu, 21 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Last week, President Obama outlined his approach to closing the Guantánamo Bay detention center on the heels of Congress voting overwhelmingly to block the $80 million he requested to close the the prison. The speech was forward-looking, writes Brookings expert Ben Wittes, in that he maintained the need for a preventative detention system created by Congress and overseen by the courts.
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Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
President Obama will soon make his first Supreme Court nomination. It seems unlikely that the addition of President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court will change the outcome in church-state cases, writes Rogers, but the views and voice of his nominee will certainly affect the debate at the Court and shape decisions long after Obama leaves the White House.
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Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
American domestic law has long accepted the use of targeted killings as self-defense toward ends of vital national security that do not necessarily fall within the strict terms of armed conflict. However, the legal space for it and the legal rationales on which it has been traditionally justified are in danger of shrinking, writes Kenneth Anderson.
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Sun, 10 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Benjamin Wittes and Stuart Taylor examine how to amend American interrogation laws to balance the need to avoid the past administration's excesses against the need to get intelligence from captured terrorists. They review the post-September 11 evolution of Bush administration policies on interrogation, the experiences of the CIA and the military and the lessons to be learned from those experiences.
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Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
More than seven years after 9/11, the government’s legal, practical and moral authority to detain suspected terrorists without trial remains a subject of fierce debate. Robert Litt and Wells Bennett say Congress could significantly ameliorate the problem by authorizing the creation of a National Security Bar, a permanent corps of security-cleared lawyers who could represent defendants in terrorism-related cases.
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Sun, 03 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
As President Obama considers his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, several supporters insist on getting more diversity on the bench. As Benjamin Wittes cautions, Democrats have less latitude for bucking these expectations in judicial nominations than Republicans do, as the conservative talent pool on the federal courts is larger and deeper than the liberal one.
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Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The federal government relied heavily on immigration laws in its immediate response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, largely because they were available, flexible, and could be directed toward targets deemed immediate and urgent. In a Brookings paper, David Martin suggests how to refine immigration law’s role in counterterrorism, which have clouded a traditional American stance of openness and welcome that has been valuable to diplomacy, business and the successful integration of immigrant populations.
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Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
This perceptive book emphasizes the need for an overall analytical framework that can be applied to different countries to help analyze the current situation, identify potential areas for improvement, and assess their relative feasibility and the steps needed to promote them.
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Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- February 20, 2009, 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
The Justice Department’s immigration courts have been the object of attention not only for how their judges have been selected but also for their heavy caseloads and shortage of resources, including the inadequacy of legal representation available to aliens. On February 20, Russell Wheeler moderated a discussion on these issues with Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and other immigration law experts.
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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The Obama administration will certainly terminate the military commission system, and take steps to reduce reliance on the underlying practice of long-term military detention. In this paper, Robert Chesney explores the capacities and limitations of the federal criminal justice system as it relates to terrorism, and suggests a series of steps Congress could take to make the criminal justice system a more useful tool in counterterrorism cases.
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Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT
On January 22, 2009, President Obama signed an executive order to close down the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Benjamin Wittes and his colleagues identify and describe, in as much detail as the public record will permit, the current population of detainees at Guantánamo, what the government alleges about them and what they claim about their own affiliations and conduct.
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Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The U.S. Congress has voted overwhelmingly to block the $80 million President Obama requested to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. On May 21, the president gave a national security address to discuss in greater detail his plan for closing Guantanamo. Brookings expert Ben Wittes offers a checklist of important decisions the president must make before he can shutter the detention camp.
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Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT
President-elect Obama has reiterated his campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay. As Benjamin Wittes writes, the incoming administration must create a systematic and rigorous review of the detainee population, whose handling will require wrenching choices with no easy answers.
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Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT
America’s civil litigation system begins to break down when a lawsuit requires the disclosure of secret information that could threaten the security of the nation. As a result, Congress should act now to provide federal courts with clear guidance for civil cases in which they must balance the competing demands of open justice and state secrecy, writes Justin Florence and Matthew Gerke.
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Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT
In an interview with CBS News, Benjamin Wittes discusses three possible ways the Obama administration could close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
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Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- November 12, 2008, 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Key legal and constitutional policy issues from the Bush administration will no doubt carry over to the Obama administration: protecting national security with due regard for civil liberties, achieving an immigration policy that secures the nation's borders and treats lawful immigrants fairly, and identifying the proper extent and limits of presidential authority. On November 12, Brookings Visiting Fellow Russell Wheeler moderated a panel of experts to discuss what this will mean for the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies.
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Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Ron Haskins and Laurence Steinberg, in this companion to the new edition of The Future of Children devoted to juvenile justice, examine the problem of youth confinement in correctional facilities, including adult jails and prisons. They pay special attention to why harsh punishment of adolescents is not only often unjust but also counterproductive and make recommendations for more appropriate and cost-effective responses to youth crime.
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Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- October 15, 2008, 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM
After a decade of declining juvenile crime rates, the forces that fueled the “get-tough” reforms of the 1990s have waned, as has enthusiasm for the reforms that eroded the boundaries between juvenile and criminal court, exposing juvenile offenders to harsh punishments. The antisocial acts that bring young people into contact with the justice system are often accompanied by other problems, most of which the justice system alone is ill-equipped to address. A slate of panelists, will discuss reforming juvenile justice to reflect these differences between adolescent and adult offenders.
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Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Hot-button social topics often dominate voters' views of where presidential candidates stand on judicial appointments. Plus, as in much of U.S. politics, the process of getting judges on the bench has become cantankerous and divided. Russell Wheeler says that the next president should try to work with the Senate to restore civility.
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Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- September 04, 2008, 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
The next U.S. president may well have to reconfigure both the Supreme Court and the U.S. courts of appeals. On September 4, the Brookings Judicial Issues Forum hosted a discussion of how John McCain or Barack Obama might approach this opportunity differently and how they might address the challenges associated with appointing judges and shaping courts.
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Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Matthew Waxman examines the questions underlying the discussion of administrative detention, the possible need for new laws in combating terrorism, and how to make and review detention decisions for whom to detain.
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Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The interrogation programs of both the military and the intelligence community have been criticized at great length for being inconsistent with American values. In testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary, Benjamin Wittes examined America's interrogation policy in the war against terrorism and offered steps towards a healthier statutory environment.
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Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Russell Wheeler and Stuart Taylor engage in a NewTalk discussion on whether it's possible for judges to apply the law in court cases without making or affecting social policy.
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Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Benjamin Wittes discusses recent legal developments in the war on terror with Josh Patashnik of The New Republic and Andrew McCarthy, director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- June 27, 2008, 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
In June 2008, the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns and ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute someone who rapes a child. The Court also ruled in favor of Guantánamo detainees' habeas corpus rights. On June 27, Brookings Fellow Benjamin Wittes moderated a briefing on these rulings and other developments of the 2007-08 term.
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Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- June 24, 2008, 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM
Brookings hosted a speech by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on international governance and American law. The event celebrated the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies at Brookings, which is named in honor of longtime Brookings trustee Ezra K. Zilkha.
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Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Six years after the September 11 attacks, America is losing a crucial front in the ongoing war on terror. It is losing not to Al Qaeda but to its own failure to construct a set of laws that will protect the American people. Now, in the twilight of President Bush’s administration, Benjamin Wittes offers an analysis of the troubling legal legacy of the Bush administration, the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court.
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Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- June 23, 2008, 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Benjamin Wittes, Brookings fellow and research director in public law, offered a vigorous analysis of how America came to its current impasse in the debate over liberty, human rights and counterterrorism and drew a road map for how the country and the next president might move forward.
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Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT
A divided Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees have a right to seek release. Benjamin Wittes writes that many fundamental questions remain unanswered and urges Congress to enact a comprehensive legislative solution to the problem of detentions in the war against terrorism.
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Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Dahlia Lithwick of Slate and Benjamin Wittes of The Brookings Institution examine the military tribunals being held at Guantanamo Bay, terrorism detainees, and the legal framework on the War on Terror.
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Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. In recent testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Benjamin Wittes addressed the need for building an appropriate regime for detaining alien terrorist suspects seized abroad.
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Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT
California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, and ruled that civil unions are not a legally adequate substitution for marriage. Are then civil union supporters the legal equivalent of segregationists? The California court thinks so, writes Benjamin Wittes.
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Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The Supreme Court recently handed down a decision upholding as constitutional the specific mixture of drugs by which thirty states put condemned prisoners to death. In this piece, Ben Wittes writes about the Supreme Court's failure to rationalize its decisions about cruel and unusual punishment.
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Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- April 24, 2008, 12:30 PM to 2:00PM
The Transparency and Accountability Project hosted Diana Villiers Negroponte, Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow, to discuss the elements necessary for effective judicial reform in Latin America and the obstacles thrown into its path.
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Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The fascinating 2008 presidential election has produced recent campaign finance developments, writes Thomas Mann, suffiently dramatic as to raise questions about the viability of the entire regime of campaign finance law.
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Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The Justice Department recently released John Yoo's 2003 "torture" memo to Congress. Questions remain on what to do with the people the military and the CIA interrogated brutally in 2002 and 2003, writes Ben Wittes, and how the CIA should handle such people in the future.
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Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT
A decision recognizing an individual right to gun ownership will put a limit on how far gun control can go, writes Ben Wittes. Those who dream of a gun-free society will have to dream of ratifying a new constitutional amendment.
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Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will test President Bush's military commissions, according to Brookings Benjamin Wittes, and reveal how they work and why they fail.
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Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- February 01, 2008, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
In a conference co-sponsored by the American University Washington College of Law and Brookings, panelists discussed the pros and cons of establishing a special National Security Court for the purpose of conducting major terrorism trials, and what jurisdiction should be assigned to such a court.
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Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Attorney General Michael Mukasey has the capacity to be a great attorney general, writes Brookings Benjamin Wittes, but not the opportunity. Arriving a year too late, Mukasey will not achieve greatness himself, but might set the table for it in the next attorney general, who will have a momentous opportunity to institutionalize and shape the war on terrorism in law for the long term.
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Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments on whether the drugs used in lethal injections constitute cruel and unusual punishment. While capital punishment appears on the wane, Benjamin Wittes argues that this will not be the end of the death penalty.
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Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Detainees held for nearly six years at the Guantanamo Bay military prison recently received another hearing at the Supreme Court. But neither the justices nor the public should take at face value the insistence that large numbers of innocents populate Guantanamo, writes Benjamin Wittes. The broader debate over Guantanamo has suffered greatly from these overbroad claims of erroneous detentions.
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Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Controversial interrogation techniques such as waterboarding have become flash points in the debate over the limits of U.S. interrogation policy since the launch of the Iraq war. Fellow Benjamin Wittes discusses waterboarding and its political implications.
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Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT
On Tuesday, a divided Senate Judiciary Committee approved Michael Mukasey as U.S. attorney general despite concerns about his refusal to denounce simulated drowning as torture. Fellow Benjamin Wittes writes that there are several good reasons to let Mukasey dodge that question.
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Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Is money in politics a problem at all, or is unregulated spending the most effective way to ensure citizens have the power to speak to their government? Thomas Mann and Bradley Smith debate on the future of campaign finance reform.
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Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Are there campaign finance reform methods that are not vulnerable to 1st Amendment challenges? Thomas E. Mann and Bradley Smith debate the future of campaign finance reform.
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Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Are matching funds ever going to work at the federal level? Can they succeed at the state and local levels? Thomas E. Mann and Bradley Smith debate the future of campaign finance reform.
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Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Does the Supreme Court's recent Wisconsin Right to Life decision signal the end of all campaign finance reform laws? Thomas Mann and Bradley Smith debate the future of campaign finance reform.
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Mon, 09 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Senior Fellow Thomas Mann argues that the Supreme Court went both too far and not far enough in its Wisconsin Right to Life decision.
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Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- April 20, 2007, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Brookings continued its Judicial Issues Forum series with a discussion on lessons learned from the attorney general firings and other legal controversies. Panelists discussed the trial and conviction of Scooter Libby, former White House chief of staff; the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act; prosecution of voter fraud; and the replacement of all U.S. attorneys by the Clinton Administration in 1993.
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Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing District of Columbia’s gun-ban appeal. The city's ban on handguns is one of the strictest in the nation and has been in place for 31 years. In this context, Benjamin Wittes argues that the Second Amendment is linked to institutions that no longer exist, but that its modern interpretation embodies values that many do not agree with. So to enable sensible gun control, "Let's repeal the damned thing," Wittes says,
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Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- December 04, 2006, 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
On November 29, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on one of the most important environmental cases in decades, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The justices reviewed a federal appeals court ruling in favor of the Bush Administration's refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. On December 4, Brookings continued its Judicial Issues Forum series with a discussion on the case and the larger issues around global warming.
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Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- September 05, 2006, 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Brookings continued its Judicial Issues Forum series with a discussion on whether the death penalty deters crime, whether it is administered fairly, whether death row exonerations prove the system a failure, whether federal courts should provide more-or less-supervision of state death sentences, and whether the abhorrence of our death penalty regime overseas should tip Americans of mixed views toward the abolitionist position.
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Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- June 20, 2006, 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM
Brookings continued its Judicial Issues Forum series with a discussion of whether judges are political, examining the impact of ideology on the federal judiciary. A group of leading legal analysts discussed the Brookings book, Are Judges Political? An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary.
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Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT
No degree of substantive law improvement—even world "best practice" substantive law—will bring the Rule of Law to a country without effective enforcement. A sound judiciary is key to enforcement. No doubt some technical laws can be enforced by administrative means, but a Rule of Law, in the primary economic sense of protecting property and enforcing contracts, requires a judiciary to resolve disputes between private parties. And protection against the state itself is made easier where the judiciary can resolve a controversy raised by a private party against the state based on constitutional provisions or parliamentary legislation. One conclusion widely agreed upon, not just in the economic literature but also among lawyers and legal scholars, is therefore that the judiciary is a vital factor in the Rule of Law and more broadly in economic development.
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Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT
China is the fastest growing country in the world. Moreover, its economy has already become one of the most important in the world. Many commentators predict that China will surpass the size of the U.S. economy some time in the second decade of this century (although it will, to be sure, still be at a much lower per capita income level). Though these predictions are for most purposes quite misleading, China's prowess in manufacturing is already a challenge to the manufacturing sectors of the most advanced economies, at least in labor intensive industries. Moreover, China is going beyond lowwage manufacturing and entering the high technology arena (from the top down, so to speak) through high-level research backed by a growing army of highly educated scientists and engineers completing graduate studies and through the outsourcing to China of research and development activities from some of the world's most accomplished high technology firms.
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Mon, 12 Dec 2005 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- December 12, 2005, 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Controversial interrogation techniques such as waterboarding have become flash points in the debate over the limits of U.S. interrogation policy. Stuart Taylor, Jr. moderated a panel discussion on whether the nation can protect itself against terrorism while giving captured terrorists traditional protections of federal and international law.
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Mon, 17 Apr 2000 00:00:00 GMT
The case before the U.S. Supreme Court on the right of Massachusetts and several California localities to promulgate regulations on foreign trade—specifically, to impose sanctions on Myanmar, formerly Burma, for human-rights violations—is a clear test of the post-Cold War maxim to "think globally, act locally."