Thanks again for a great semester. We laughed, we cried and we talked about so many court cases! Hope you had fun during the semester and hope you earned the grade you wanted.
Congratulations to the students who made A's and B's in the class -- those are achievements you should be proud of.
And extra congratulations to those graduating. I'll be at graduation tomorrow to recognize this milestone with you.
Let me leave you with a few interesting things I've come across in the last week.
As you know, President Obama named the U.S. Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, as his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court. Since she has not served as a judge, some commentators aren't sure what her decision-making might be like as a Supreme Court justice. There are some interesting articles about her views on relevant topics.
For an analysis of her First Amendment views, check out a piece at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, an advocacy group that it says is "dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment rights of the comics art form and its community of retailers, creators, publishers, librarians, and readers." You can find the article by clicking here.
For another piece about her "stance," check out this fun article at the Major League Baseball website, entitled "Kagan knows importance of strong stance." Examining a photo of her batting during her softball-playing days, Major League players evaluate her stance at the plate. Mixing Supreme Court politics with baseball -- I must be in heaven.
You can find this article by clicking here.
I mentioned to one of my classes that I'll be reporting for jury duty on May 20 in Austin Municipal Court! I really hope I get chosen to serve. We'll see. Check back here toward the end of the month -- I'll post an entry on the experience.
So, I hope you keep in touch and let me know how things are going from time to time. And I hope you check out the blog every once a while.
Best wishes for a great summer!
4 comments:
Mr. Martinez,
I was going to send you an e-mail asking you about your thoughts on President Obama's pick, but you beat me to it. I was wondering too why would the president pick a person who has no bench experience at all. I may be going out on a lim here, but I have a feeling the Senate may not confirm her. Truly, Kagan may have academic experience, but she has never been ajudge. I followed closely a lot of the articles about her, and I was quite concerned about that.
Monte Ashqar
Monte Ashqar,
On the issue of Kagan being critcized for organizing the students to demand that they ban military recruiters on Harvard's campus, that criticism of her suppressing free speech is unfounded because she was restricting the government's speech. The First Amendment protects the people and the media from the government, not vice-versa. Also, the crticism of her defense of the government's decision to ban the distribution and dessemination of dog-fighting vidoes is also unfounded because, as Solicitor General, she is being the Attorney of the U.S. Government, and all attorneys have to represent their clients zealously.
Monte -- check out this comment about Kagan's qualifications on the liberal news site, Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/11/white-house-contrasts-kag_n_571605.html
The basic point is that former Chief Justice William Rehnquist and others before him joined the court without prior bench experience and it's only been in recent Supreme Court history that nominees were all former appellate justices.
I don't think it's a deal-breaker for Kagan. It seems to me that Republicans may fight her nomination, but I'm not hearing a strong opposition to her.
Check out this New York Times analysis, "Kagan Nomination Leaves Longing on the Left": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/us/politics/11nominees.html?scp=9&sq=elena%20kagan%20left&st=cse
"I must be in heaven." HAHA! You know, as I was reading through that and I had the same exact thought about you! And then your wrote it! Have a great summer!
Hope your jury duty was everything you hoped it would be!
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