RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, April 28, 2008, The New Republic
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. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Thomas E. Mann, April 2008, The Forum, Volume 6, Issue 1
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. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, April 05, 2008, The New Republic
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. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, March 21, 2008, The New Republic
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. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, February 14, 2008, The New Republic
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. Read More
PAST EVENT
Friday, February 01, 2008
Washington, DC
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. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, January 31, 2008, The New Republic
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. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, January 25, 2008, The New Republic
Benjamin Wittes examines Solicitor General Paul Clement's legal brief in the Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality of Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban and argues that "Acknowledging the amendment as proclaiming a right, but candidly treating that right as more flexible and less absolute than its neighbors in the Bill of Rights" is an appropriate way to translate Second Amendments values from the founding era to our own. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, January 07, 2008, The New Republic
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. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, December 07, 2007, The New Republic
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. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Russell Wheeler, November 20, 2007, Opportunity 08
Infected by polarization, confirmation rates for federal judges have plummeted and long delays are commonplace. Brookings’s Russell Wheeler recommends that the next president should create a bipartisan commission and set a timetable to prevent the lengthy nomination battles. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes and Mark Gitenstein, November 15, 2007, Opportunity 08
A core challenge facing the next president in the war on terror is developing a legal framework for detaining terrorists. Brookings’s experts Benjamin Wittes and Mark Gitenstein offer recommendations that balance basic protections for detainees with regularized judicial review. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Daniel L. Byman, October 15, 2007, The Boston Globe
Daniel Byman discusses the U.S.'s rendition process. Byman asserts that renditions are an effective means of fighting terrorism and possibly in obtaining terrorist information, but that the policy must be modified to ensure fair treatment of apprehended individuals and due process of law. Read More
PAST EVENT
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Washington, DC
On October 10, Brookings will host a discussion on prosecutorial misconduct, examining its frequency at the state and federal levels, the circumstances under which it is most likely to occur, and strategies to minimize its impact. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, October 01, 2007, The New Republic
The Supreme Court begins its term on October 1st. Benjamin Wittes of Governance Studies weighs in on some of the big cases on their schedule and the ideological divisions within the court. Read More