Professor Scott Fruehwald has created a website entitled “Neurojurisprudence” at sfruehwald.com. Neurojurisprudence is the study of legal philosophy using techniques of evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and related fields. The website contains short articles, bibliographies, and links to other information on neurojurisprudence and law & behavioral biology.

Professor of Law Monroe H. Freedman is an active member of the National Right to Counsel Committee. They produced the following report.

Attorney General Holder Highlights Constitution Project Report

6/25/2009

Last night, speaking at the a conference of the American Council of Chief Defenders, Attorney General Eric Holder urged a resumed dialogue on the issue of indigent defense and applauded the Constitution Project’s National Right to Counsel Committee report, “Justice Denied: America’s Continuing Neglect of our Constitutional Right to Counsel.” The Attorney General said, “The Constitution Project has done excellent work in describing the state of indigent defense in its report, Justice Denied. As the report pointed out, many jurisdictions have made great progress in their public defense systems in recent years, but wholesale improvements remain elusive.”

Mr. Holder highlighted the nation’s indigent defense crisis by noting the large resource disparity between public defender programs and other justice system programs. He announced that the Department of Justice would renew its commitment to improving the indigent defense system and that the guiding principle would be “that justice shall be done.” To fulfill this promise, the Department will ensure that the voices of public defenders are heard, collect meaningful data on public defense programs, and host a national conference on issues surrounding indigent defense.

At the same conference, Laurie Robinson, the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs at the Justice Department, also expressed her commitment to working with the indigent defense community to improve the system. While noting that the problems of the indigent defense system are longstanding and “static,” Ms. Robinson, a former member of the Constitution Project’s Board of Directors, cited “Justice Denied” for also demonstrating “that offices across the country are doing some very innovative and creative things to ensure that their clients are well-represented.”

The Constitution Project’s National Right to Counsel Committee released its comprehensive report in April. It details the endemic and systemic failures of the indigent defense system and recommends twenty-two specific and urgently needed reforms to fix them.

Professor of Law Monroe H. Freedman was the principal drafter of a Judicial Experts' Declaration, signed by two dozen ethics experts, that has been filed in the matter of Judge Sharon Keller with the Texas Judicial Conduct Commission. Judge Keller ordered the clerk's office closed promtly at 5:00p.m. to prevent a late filing of pleadings by lawyers for Michael Richard, who was scheduled for execution that evening. As a result, Mr. Richard was executed a few hours later. In response to the Declaration, Professor Freedman has been threatened by Judge Keller's lawyer with a defamation action and a perjury prosecution. See below for the article in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

Lawyer; law students here weigh in on Texas judge's disciplinary case
By John Flynn Rooney
April 21, 2009

A group of ethics experts, including a Chicago lawyer, is calling for the removal of a Texas criminal court judge accused of improperly cutting off appeals for a condemned inmate on the night of his execution.

Five Loyola University School of Law students also worked on the Ethics Experts' Declaration filed in the matter of Judge Sharon Keller, under the supervision of Robert P. Cummins, who teaches a professionalism class at Loyola.

The students worked with Cummins on an initial draft of the declaration based upon their research efforts, which included looking into the underlying facts in the case, Cummins said Tuesday. The students also performed legal research and participated in conference calls with a number of judicial ethics experts, he added.

The students are Erica Greene, Elizabeth Cebula, Michael Baniak, Christopher Blum and Nicholas Morjal.

In February, the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct filed a complaint against Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, that could lead to her removal from office.

Convicted killer Michael Richard was put to death by lethal injection on Sept. 25, 2007, after Keller ordered a clerk to close the court's office promptly at 5 p.m. Lawyers for Richard had asked that the office stay open an extra 20 minutes to permit a late appeal.

"In brief, our opinion is that Judge Sharon Keller has violated judicial ethics under the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct, which includes her obligation to provide litigants due process of law," states the Ethics Experts' Declaration submitted by Cummins and 23 other experts in the field of judicial ethics and disciplinary enforcement. "These violations are sufficiently serious to require that Judge Keller be removed from the bench, pursuant to the Texas Constitution."

Cummins, a former chair of the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, and Monroe H. Freedman, a professor at Hofstra Law School, took the lead in drafting the declaration. The document was shipped to Texas on Monday evening, Cummins said.

Keller has denied engaging in misconduct and sought dismissal of the charges. Keller's attorney, Charles L. Babcock of Houston, also maintains that the charges are unconstitutional because his client has been denied the right to counsel.

Babcock asserts that Commission of Judicial Conduct and Texas Ethics Commission "are forcing [Keller] to an election; either defend herself pro se or risk a financially ruinous legal bill to defend against these charges, which are without merit." Keller's answer was filed with the commission in late March.

But the declaration cites Keller's "dishonesty in her financial reporting and her dishonesty in her attempt to obtain money from the state."

The declaration added that "[i]n her financial disclosure statements, Judge Keller repeatedly omitted reference to her ownership interest in several residential and commercial properties that could be valued at close to" $2 million. That information was gleaned from a March 30 article in the Dallas Morning News.

"Apparently, Judge Keller also withheld this information from her lawyer, who said he had not known about her real estate holdings when he made his claims on her behalf," a footnote in the declaration states.

Babcock was said to be attending a court hearing Tuesday morning and could not be reached for comment.

When asked why the declaration was filed, Cummins replied, "There are people still around that [believe] reporting lawyer and judicial misconduct is an obligation. That is what motivated the folks involved in this declaration to act."

Professor of Law Monroe H. Freedman participated in a press conference in Washington, D.C., to launch "Justice Denied: America's Continuing Neglect of Our Constitutional Right to Counsel." It is a 219-page Report and Recommendations prepared by the National Right to Counsel Committee, on which Professor Freedman serves.

Dean and Professor of Law Nora V. Demleitner was asked to join the Editorial Board of a new series on "Studies in Intercultural Human Rights" at Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. The series is described as follows:
"This series offers pathbreaking studies in the dynamic field of intercultural human rights. Its primary aim is to publish volumes which offer interdisciplinary analysis of global societal problems, review past legal responses, and develop solutions which maximize access by all to the realization of universal human aspirations. It also includes other original studies in the field of human rights."