Hearsay
Excerpts from faculty op-eds
"Talking to terrorists is different from
giving in to them. Sometimes it may be good practice to know what they are
thinking, or, as a line in 'The Godfather' goes, it is important to 'keep your
friends close but your enemies closer.' FBI and police hostage negotiators
nearly always negotiate with hostage-takers--to gather information, to look for
leverage and in an effort to gain the psychological advantage."
Professor Robert H. Mnookin '68, in a Sept. 26 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, written with Susan Hackley, managing director of the Program on Negotiation, on negotiating with terrorists and hostage-takers.
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"Conservatives need to wake up and smell the
coffee. Judges, including conservative ones, do make law from the bench. We
should see to it that they make good law rather than the bad kind. The first
step toward that goal is to require that they admit what they're doing.
Transparency is a virtue, in judging as in governing more generally. American
courts are too shrouded in mystery already; they would benefit from more
sunlight, not less."
Professor William J. Stuntz, in a Jan. 11 op-ed in the online journal Tech Central Station, criticizing right-wing legal theory as not being truly conservative.
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"Of the 18 former directors who were defendants in the Enron
case, only 10 have to pay under the settlement. More important, according to
the complaint against them, these 10 sold Enron shares worth more than $250
million during the period in which Enron was misreporting its financial
affairs. According to the lawyer for the lead plaintiffs, the settlement
requires each of these 10 to pay an amount equal to 10 percent of his or her
pretax profits. They will be able to keep the other 90 percent--which amounts
to $117 million--while investors who held their Enron stock lost their
shirts."
Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. '80 S.J.D. '84, in a Jan. 17 op-ed in The New York Times, criticizing the legal and financial settlement of an Enron civil suit.
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"Compromises are inevitable on a
multi-justice court, but they should be clearly articulated and easily
understood by the public, or at least by the legal profession. This decision,
and many others over the past decade, can be explained only by means of
patchwork pragmatism, vote-swapping and other considerations inappropriate for
high court decision-making.
"Ours is the most powerful Supreme Court on Earth. Its job is to interpret the
Constitution by reference to principle and precedent. If it cannot explain and
justify its decisions, it will deservedly lose much of its authority."
Professor Alan Dershowitz, in a Jan. 17 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court for reaching a seemingly contradictory two-part decision on sentencing guidelines.
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"The United States has never opposed ICC [International
Criminal Court] prosecutions across the board. Rather, it has maintained that
ICC prosecutions of non-treaty parties would be politically accountable and
thus legitimate if they received the imprimatur of the Security Council. The
Darfur case allows the United States to argue that Security Council referrals
are the only valid route to ICC prosecutions and that countries that are not
parties to the ICC (such as the United States) remain immune from ICC control
in the absence of such a referral.
"This course of action would signal U.S. support not only for the United
Nations but for international human rights as well, at a time when Washington
is perceived by some as opposing both."
Professor Jack L. Goldsmith, in a Jan. 24 op-ed in The Washington Post, suggesting that the Bush administration's opposition to the International Criminal Court should not stop the administration from backing a U.N. Security Council referral to investigate human rights abuses in the Sudan.
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