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Law and Politics

2017

University of Maine School of Law

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Law

Boumediene V. Bush: Flashpoint In The Ongoing Struggle To Determine The Rights Of Guantanamo Detainees, Michael J. Anderson Oct 2017

Boumediene V. Bush: Flashpoint In The Ongoing Struggle To Determine The Rights Of Guantanamo Detainees, Michael J. Anderson

Maine Law Review

Following the harrowing events of September 11, 2001, and pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed soon thereafter by Congress, the United States Armed Forces began capturing and detaining individuals at the Naval Air Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The choice of where to house these detainees was not random. Internal memoranda from the Justice Department reveal that the Naval Base was selected as a means of avoiding any legal entanglements that might ensue from such imprisonment. What resulted was what some commentators have called a “legal black hole” at Guantanamo, a place where any individual …

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Reflections On Forty Years Of Private Practice And Sustained Pro Bono Advocacy, Stephen H. Oleskey Oct 2017

Reflections On Forty Years Of Private Practice And Sustained Pro Bono Advocacy, Stephen H. Oleskey

Maine Law Review

I am going to address two topics. The first is the one Judge Coffin asked me to address in October 2009, when I was invited to give the 2010 Coffin Lecture: how to combine the private practice of law with an active pro bono practice. The second topic is the one Dean Peter Pitegoff and I agreed to add: a brief discussion of legal developments in national security law since 9/11. My pro bono involvement in Guantanamo Habeas litigation began in 2004 and led directly to my interest in national security law and to my recognition of how difficult it …

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Frank Morey Coffin's Political Years: Prelude To A Judgeship, Donald E. Nicoll Oct 2017

Frank Morey Coffin's Political Years: Prelude To A Judgeship, Donald E. Nicoll

Maine Law Review

Each day when I go to my study, I see a wood block print of two owls gazing at me with unblinking eyes. Ever alert, they remind me of the artist, who in his neat, fine hand, titled the print “Deux Hiboux,” inscribed it to the recipients and signed it simply “FMC 8-2-87.” In addition to his talents as an artist and friend in all seasons, FMC was a remarkable public servant in all three branches of the federal government and, with his friend and colleague Edmund S. Muskie, a creative political reformer for the State of Maine. Throughout his …

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The First Wartime Water Torture By Americans, Allan W. Vestal Apr 2017

The First Wartime Water Torture By Americans, Allan W. Vestal

Maine Law Review

The first use of wartime water torture by Americans occurred during the Philippine-American War of 1899 to 1902, when American soldiers and their indigenous minions used the “water cure” to extract information from Filipinos who resisted the occupation of their land, and to punish them. The practice, in which a prisoner was held down and forced to ingest large quantities of water to simulate drowning, was almost universally acknowledged at the time to be a form of torture, illegal under the applicable laws of war. The Philippine-American War, an early foray into overseas imperialism, was extremely controversial at the time. …

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Community Development Law, Economic Justice, And The Legal Academy, Peter R. Pitegoff Jan 2017

Community Development Law, Economic Justice, And The Legal Academy, Peter R. Pitegoff

Faculty Publications

The evolution of community economic development (CED) over the past several decades has witnessed dramatic growth in scale and complexity. New approaches to development and related lawyering, and to philosophies underlying these approaches, challenge us to reimagine the framework of CED. From the early days of community development corporations to today’s sophisticated tools of finance and organization, this evolution reflects “why law matters” in pursuit of economic justice and opportunity. Change is visible in new approaches to enterprise development and novel grassroots initiatives that comprise a virtual “sharing economy,” as well as intensified advocacy around low-wage work and efforts to …

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Seen And Heard: A Defense Of Judicial Speech, Dmitry Bam Jan 2017

Seen And Heard: A Defense Of Judicial Speech, Dmitry Bam

Faculty Publications

Judicial ethics largely prohibits judges from engaging in political activities, including endorsing or opposing candidates for public office. These restrictions on judicial politicking, intended to preserve both the reality and the appearance of judicial integrity, independence, and impartiality, have been in place for decades. Although the Code of Conduct for United States Judges does not apply to the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Justices have long followed the norm that they do not take sides, at least publicly, in partisan political elections. And while elected state judges have some leeway to engage in limited political activities associated with their own candidacy," …

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Tailored Judicial Selection, Dmitry Bam Jan 2017

Tailored Judicial Selection, Dmitry Bam

Faculty Publications

American states have experimented with different methods of judicial selection for two centuries, creating uniquely American models of selection, like judicial elections, rarely used throughout the rest of the world. But despite the wide range of selection methods in existence throughout the nation, neither the American people nor legal scholars have given much thought to tailoring the selection method to particular levels of the judiciary. To the contrary, the most common approach to judicial selection in the United States is what I call a unilocular, “a judge is a judge,” approach. For most of our nation’s history, all judges within …

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