Richard Zorza's Access to Justice Blog » Federal Courts

I have been suggesting that the “public trust and confidence” analogy between public commitment to court processes and fairness and public politics process and fairness might be useful.  The...

https://accesstojustice.net/2018/06/09/the-corporate-response-to-trump/

In a brilliant piece in Politico today, Professor Richard Primus argues that the Baking for Gay Marriage Opinion, by rejecting broad First Amendment protections for discrimination, sets up the tr...

https://accesstojustice.net/2018/06/04/justice-kennedys-opinion-on-baking-discrimination-is-clarion-call-for-process-neutrality-the-entire-governmental-sphere/

I was getting ready to draft a rebuttal to an article from the New York Times, Would you go to a Republican Doctor, reporting a study that “knowing about people’s political beliefs did interf...

https://accesstojustice.net/2018/05/28/study-showing-greater-racial-bias-by-republican-judges-has-to-shatter-our-assumptions/

In what many would consider a “class act,” Chief Justice Roberts recently appointed Chief Judge of the DC Circuit Judge Garland to chair the Executive Committee of the Federal Judicial Confer...

https://accesstojustice.net/2017/11/23/roberts-choice-of-garland-to-head-executive-committee-of-federal-judicial-conference-is-a-huge-atj-opportunity/

This is really weird.  A defendant in a very high profile case, Gates, goes into court today essentially without a lawyer and has a public defender stand up for him on a very short term basis. ...

https://accesstojustice.net/2017/10/30/that-defendant-gates-is-looking-for-a-lawyer-can-only-mean-that-a-new-conflict-with-manafort-has-now-become-clear/

The Seven Circuit, through Judge Wood, has responded to Judge Posner’s criticism of the Court’s approach to those without lawyers as follows: First, while is certainly entitled to his own vi...

https://accesstojustice.net/2017/09/16/seventh-circuits-response-to-judge-posner-misses-the-point/

This from Adam Liptak in the Times on Judge Posner’s resignation speaks for itself (read the whole piece, please). “About six months ago,” Judge Posner said, “I awoke from a slumber of 35...

https://accesstojustice.net/2017/09/11/more-on-judge-posners-apostasy/

An ABA Journal article, could open a whole front in access to justice: abruptly announced his retirement from the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, effective the next day. The rea...

https://accesstojustice.net/2017/09/10/a-revolution-on-the-federal-judiciary-about-treatment-of-those-without-laywers/

It does appear to be good law that even Federal Court criminal contempts are pardonable by presidents.  (I had  thought there might be a separation of power claim.) However, the Supreme Curt ha...

https://accesstojustice.net/2017/08/21/a-small-caution-for-trump-on-the-pardon-power-with-respect-to-federal-contempts/

There is certainly evidence in support of the dominant meme of Gorsuch’s extreme conservatism.  However, there may be one nugget of good news in the access to justice area. In a VA disability ...

https://accesstojustice.net/2017/07/07/maybe-gorsuch-has-some-possibilities/