Supreme Court Nominee

    If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you know that a new Supreme Court Nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson has been nominated by President Biden. Ketanji Brown Jackson has experience with Supreme Court Clerking, as a Public Defender, as a District Judge, and as a Court of Appeals Judge. But what does it take to be selected as a Supreme Court Justice?

    As with any job, there are qualifications. While the Constitution does not provide specifics such as age, education, or citizenship, it does require that all Justices are trained in the law - but not necessarily law school! For example, James F. Byrnes, who served as Justice from 1941-1942, did not attend any law school (www.supremecourt.gov). He did not even graduate from high school. However, he did teach himself the law and passed the bar. Wouldn’t that be nice? Of course, standards and schooling has changed since the 40’s and Justice Byrnes was the last Justice to be appointed without a formal legal education. 

    If you have set your sights on becoming a Supreme Court Justice, you’ve done yourself a great service by attending law school. Next, you must be selected. The first step is to be nominated by the President to fill a vacancy on the Court. From here, the Senate votes to confirm the nominee, which requires a majority (Id). Should the nominee be confirmed, the Constitution states that Justices “shall hold their Offices during good Behavior”. U.S. Const. Art II, §2. This means Justices hold office as long as they choose and can only be removed from office by impeachment. 

Do you think there should be stricter parameters in qualifying for a Supreme Court Justice position? Should there be term limits to ensure the Court is representative of the society in which they serve?

-Taylor Mace

Supreme Court of the United States. “General Information.” Home - Supreme Court of the United States, https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/faq_general.aspx. 

Life Story Rights

It seems like recently every show or movie is the dramatized retelling of someone’s life story. There’s “Inventing Anna”, “Pam and Tommy”, “The Dropout”, “The Girl from Plainville”, and many more. But what does it mean when someone’s life story is purchased for these shows?
When the rights to portray someone in film or television are purchased, it is actually a bundle of rights, including protection from suits based on defamation, invasion of privacy, and the right to publicity (Litwak, 2016). The purchaser might even need the subject’s participation or the participation of the family to have access to personal items. The parties must decide the scope of the rights provided (Id). Will the purchaser have rights to remakes, sequels, or merchandise? Will the subject’s partner, children, or friends be depicted? The buyer will want to ensure the agreement is as comprehensive as possible to allow for the greatest artistic control over their work.
 With so many of these life stories based on criminal conduct, like the local story of Michelle Carter in “The Girl from Plainville”, an important aspect to consider is the Son of Sam Laws. These laws were named after serial killer David Berkowitz in 1977 in New York after he sold his exclusive story rights (Thomas, 2009). The purpose of the law was to prohibit criminals from profiting from writings or shows about their crimes. However, in Simon & Schuster v. Crime Victims Board decided in 1991, the Supreme Court ruled the statute an unconstitutional content-based restriction (Id). Each state has their own version of the Son of Sam Laws that survive constitutional scrutiny in order to limit criminals from profiting off of the harm and trauma they’ve caused to victims. 

    Massachusetts attempted to implement their own version of this statute that diverted profits criminals made from their crimes to an escrow account reserved for the victims (2002). The court ruled this, too, would restrict free speech rights. While Massachusetts has repealed the Son of Sam Law, the state has not replaced it. What does that mean for Michelle Carter? Judge Moniz, the judge presiding over her case, ordered that she is not to profit from the publicity of her case for the next two years. Commonwealth v. Carter, 2019. This may have been a factor in the original contract between the producers of the show and Michelle.
    What do you think is the best balance between the rights of a victim and those of their perpetrator?

-Taylor Mace

Litwak, Mark. Dealmaking in the Film and Television Industry: From Negotiations to Final 
       Contracts. 4th ed., Silman-James Press, 2016. 

Thomas, Sandra. Son of Sam Laws, The First Amendment Encyclopedia, 2009,    

        https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1242/son-of-sam-laws. 

“California, Massachusetts Courts Nix Son of Sam Laws.” The Reporters Committee for   

        Freedom of the Press, The News Media and The Law, 2002,    

        https://www.rcfp.org/journals/the-news-media-and-the-law-spring-2002/california-   

        massachusetts-co 

Commonwealth v. Carter, 481 Mass. 352, 115 N.E.3d 559 (2019).

Law and Poetry

            Is there a connection between law and poetry? The anthology “Law and Poetry: Promises from the Preamble” suggests there is. The study of law and the study of poetry is essentially the study of language. Both disciplines communicate their meanings through carefully chosen words and both are creations of imagination that add form and structure to the realities of daily life (Eberle & Grossfeld, 2006). Poetry, like the law, reflects and can reshape the culture which surrounds it, while offering insight and understanding into the human experience (Id). We must understand each other before installing guidelines on how a society may thrive under a judicial system. Poetry allows the reader to step into the shoes of a judge, an attorney, a witness, or the accused.

This anthology includes 56 poems – one for each state, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories. In this collection of poems, the authors challenge the language of the Preamble, forcing the reader to consider how the shared human experience of opportunity under the law can be achieved.

Offerings to an Ulcerated God

“Mrs. Lopez refuses to pay rent,
                and we want her out,”
                the landlord’s lawyer said,
                tugging at his law school ring.
                The judge called for an interpreter,
                but all the interpreters were gone,
                trafficking in Spanish
                at the criminal session
                on the second floor.

A volunteer stood up in the gallery.
                Mrs. Lopez showed the interpreter
                a poker hand of snapshots,
                the rat curled in a glue trap
                next to the refrigerator,
                the water frozen in the toilet,
                a door without a doorknob.
                (No rent for this. I know the law
                and I want to speak,
                she whispered to the interpreter).

“Tell her she has to pay
                and she has ten days to get out,”
                the judge commanded, rose
                so the rest of the courtroom rose,
                and left the bench. Suddenly
                the courtroom clattered
                with the end of business:
                the clerk of the court gathered her files
                and the bailiff went to lunch.
                Mrs. Lopez stood before the bench,
                still holding up her fan of snapshots
                like an offering this ulcerated god
                refused to taste,
                while the interpreter
                felt the burning
                bubble in his throat
                as he slowly turned to face her.

-Martin Espada

Letters of Credit

He looks deeply into the mirror of his children
                but cannot see himself, though he knows he is there,
                somewhere in the depths. They speak to him
                with the greatest politeness, and if there is affection
                he feels it as the slightest warm breeze in summer,
                a hot dying breath of presence, not of comfort.

He works their love like his job, studying precedent
                and applying law to fact, to derive a holding, a balance
                of truth, justice and equity, completely anomalous
                in the calculus of emotion. Still there is a sense of obligation,
                like throwing coins into the tollbooth - regardless of whether
                they hit, or bounce off the rim and roll away, the debt is paid.

They are gone, glimpsed through materializing letters
                on the instant messaging boards of computer screens,
                or in the electronic conversions of voices to ear, heard
                like the ocean in shell: false, imitative, distant and faint,
                or like letters of credit, carrying his value into the void
                of commerce, of life, to distant lands he will need see.

-Steven M. Richman

                Have you written poetry about or influenced by the law or your time in law school? Leave it in the comments or send it to taylor.mace@msl.edu to be featured on the blog.

-Taylor Mace

Eberle, Edward J. and Grossfeld, Bernhard (2006) “Law and Poetry,” Roger Williams University Law
           Review: Vol. 11: Iss. 2, Article 3.

Adams, Kristen David. Law and Poetry: Promises from the Preamble. American Bar Association, 
                Business Law Section, 2021.