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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Courts - "Justice Ginsburg reflects on term, leadership role"

Joan Biskupic of USA Today has a nice interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg - a sample:

Ginsburg's new status on the court coincided with the death of her husband of 56 years, Martin, from cancer and with the historic addition of the court's third sitting female justice.

"It has felt distinctly different," she said about three women, who now include Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Observing that their varying seniority means the three women's seats are not clustered together, Ginsburg said, "I like the idea that we're all over the bench. It says women are here to stay."

Another:
Twice in the past term, Ginsburg took the uncommon step of reading portions of a dissenting opinion from the bench.

In her most passionate protest, she objected when the conservative bloc threw out a $14 million verdict won by a former Louisiana Death Row prisoner in a civil rights claim against prosecutors who had failed to turn over blood evidence that might have helped show his innocence.

"It was an instance of extreme injustice. I thought that the court was not just wrong but egregiously so," she said. She said she decided not simply to let the written statement speak for itself, as is the usual practice, to bring attention to a criminal justice system that "had misfired."

"I was doing it to influence my colleagues and (lower court) judges who could stop this kind of thing," she said of prosecutors' concealing exculpatory evidence.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 30, 2011 04:29 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts