The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice

Commentator and author Jeffrey Toobin interviewed Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, for The New York Times--here is the final question and answer: 

Toobin: Final question, Bryan. True or false: The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice?

Stevenson: I think it’s true. Of course, it depends on people’s willingness to prioritize justice and refuse to tolerate injustice. But when I look at human history, it’s hard for me to say that it isn’t true. The fact that you and I are having this conversation in a space occupied by The New York Times is, in itself, evidence of that. I think about this all the time. The people who came before me would put on their Sunday best, go out to protest for the right to vote, get bloodied and beaten, then go home, wipe the blood off, change their clothes and go back out again.

My generation has not had to do that in the same way. Future generations, hopefully, won’t have to either. That just means the struggle for justice will take on a new form. So yes, I am persuaded of the truth of that — despite the moment we’re in. I guess one good thing about getting older is that you gain a broader perspective.

For example, in 1995, if you had told me we’d reach a point where the execution rate would drop dramatically, where very few people would be sentenced to death, where 11 states would abolish the death penalty, and where more and more states would choose not to use it — I couldn’t see that. I had to believe it. Or another example: Fifteen years ago, if you had told me I’d be operating a museum, a memorial and a park dealing with slavery, lynching and segregation — and that hundreds of thousands of people would come, that I’d even have to open restaurants and a hotel to accommodate them — I would’ve said that was crazy. And yet, here I am.

So I think that quote is really about whether we believe that truth has the power to be resurrected, even in the face of lies, and triumph. And I believe that, in every aspect of my being: culturally, socially, politically, spiritually. That’s what I’ve experienced. And the fact that there are difficult days, dark days, doesn’t dissuade me of that.

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Trump turns on Federalist Society for recommending SCOTUS justices that won't fall in line with administration

The Federalist Society was the force behind Trump’s third of the Supreme Court. Now, MAGA wants to see the group’s demise, reported Politico.

Late Thursday evening, Trump attacked the conservative legal giant and Federalist Society’s former executive vice president Leonard Leo — a key figure in his judicial selections during his first term — calling him a “real ‘sleazebag’” in a Truth Social post. “I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,” he wrote.

It was a remarkable souring on the nonprofit that supported Trump’s push to install hundreds of judges across the federal judiciary and tilt courts in conservatives’ favor.

But the president’s allies had been sowing discontent with Leo’s operation long before Trump publicly turned on his onetime adviser. Frustration had been growing among Trump and MAGA loyalists as a series of court rulings have hampered elements of Trump’s second term agenda — including by the Supreme Court, appellate courts and district courts — and by judges Trump installed on the bench during his first term with Leo and the Federalist Society’s guidance.

Now conflict is openly breaking out among the constellation of conservative judicial leaders that used to operate alongside one another.

“Nobody knew who Leonard Leo was before President Trump gave him a key role picking judges,” Mike Davis, a key Trump ally on judicial nominations who now runs the conservative advocacy group the Article III Project, said in an interview. “Leonard Leo took too much credit from President Trump and he got filthy rich then he abandoned President Trump, especially during the lawfare against Trump.”

On Friday, conservative activist Laura Loomer posted on X that she’s been warning for weeks that anyone from the Federalist Society shouldn’t be in Trump’s inner circle, arguing that the organization has sought to undermine him.

The Federalist Society did not respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Leo said in a statement, “I’m very grateful for President Trump transforming the Federal Courts, and it was a privilege being involved. There’s more work to be done, for sure, but the Federal Judiciary is better than it’s ever been in modern history, and that will be President Trump’s most important legacy.”

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Trump’s judicial picks are “America First judges” who respect the President’s authority as opposed to “unelected politicians in robes.”

Founded in 1982 during Ronald Reagan’s first term, the Federalist Society has long been the preeminent conservative legal organization in the country. Members of the society can be found at all levels of government and the group has been widely credited with helping Republican lawmakers install conservative-minded jurists across the federal judiciary.

Leo and the Federalist Society have been boxed out of the judicial nomination process as the second Trump White House has begun to name jurists for vacancies. But the Federalist Society had already been making moves in anticipation of some tension with Trump, given his recent rhetoric on the judiciary, said one person in conservative legal circles granted anonymity because of the sensitive dynamics.

Whereas the former leadership was averse to involving the organization in politics, the new CEO Sheldon Gilbert has realized that the Federalist Society cannot be on the wrong side of a Republican White House and has been strengthening his connections around the administration, the person said.

Separate from his work with the Federalist Society, Leo also chairs conservative public relations firm CRC Advisors. CRC touts close ties to Trump — the firm’s clients are involved in White House policy discussions and several of the firm’s employees have left in recent months to join the administration with Leo’s “blessing and support,” said a person familiar with Leo’s operation, granted anonymity to discuss private dynamics.

Yet Davis, who says he advises the White House on judicial nominations, contended that Leo and his allies have sought to undercut Trump. He pointed to the recent nomination of Emil Bove, a top Justice Department aide, to sit on the Third Circuit as a flashpoint in the MAGA judicial wars.

The nomination has divided conservative legal circles between those cheering the potential elevation of Trump’s fiercest enforcer at the Justice Department and those concerned that the nomination forecasts Trump’s intent to nominate judges loyal to him during his second term. Prominent conservative legal commentator Ed Whelan, who has spoken at more than 200 Federalist Society events by his own count, vocally opposed Bove’s nomination, prompting social media pushback from administration officials and Davis allies.

 The groups that used to all share the same goal in Trump’s first term — getting conservative jurists on the bench — are now riven by the split that Trump widened even further with his Thursday comments.

“There’s a lot of people who voted for this president and followed him because they felt they could finally have judges who would read words and not make up what those words meant,” said John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance and longtime member of the Federalist Society. “And those people are on his side all this time, and they are often a useful resource, and why chase them away? Makes no sense to me.”

The New Civil Liberties Alliance is a libertarian non-profit that has challenged the president’s tariffs in court. The organization has taken funding from groups linked to Leo in the past, but Vecchione denies Leo having any involvement in the group’s tariff lawsuit.

For Trump’s allies, the Federalist Society now represents the old guard that “hide[s] behind a philosophy” instead of supporting the Republican cause, said one conservative consultant, who was granted anonymity in order to speak freely about dynamics in the Republican legal world. They want more people like Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and fewer people like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the person said.

Barrett, whom Trump nominated in 2020 to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has come under fire among the President’s allies in recent months after she sided with the court’s liberals and Chief Justice John Roberts in rebuffing a bid by the Trump administration to quickly block a court order requiring the administration to pay out $2 billion for past foreign aid work.

Barrett again faced a barrage of attacks when she joined the court’s Democratic appointees in dissenting from a decision that complicated efforts to mount a broad legal challenge to Trump’s bid to deport Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act. Her reputation among Trump’s allies has transformed from being known as a bonafide conservative to a so-called member of the liberal resistance to the president.

“They don’t want someone who’s just going to be like, ‘We’re going to follow the law and do the originalistic thing, and whatever the result is, so may be it,’” said the consultant. “They want someone [who] can figure out how to get the result that they want.”

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The dysfunctional Maverick County, TX court system, a failure of American justice

 Read about the dysfunctional Maverick County court system, where basic tenets of American justice often do not apply, according to the Texas Tribune and The New York Times.

Officials here openly acknowledge that poor defendants accused of minor crimes are rarely provided lawyers. And people regularly spend months behind bars without charges filed against them, much longer than state law allows. Last year alone, at least a dozen people were held too long uncharged after arrests for minor nonviolent crimes, interviews and records reviewed by The New York Times show.

Some defendants seem to have been forgotten in jail. Two men were released after The Times asked about them, half a year after their sentences had been completed.

“The county is not at the level that it should have been for years,” conceded Maverick County Judge Ramsey English Cantú, who oversees misdemeanor court. He said he had been trying to “revamp” and “rebuild” the local justice system since he was elected in 2022.

“It’s been a challenge for me,” he added. “But at the end of the day it is unjust.”

Under the U.S. Constitution, people facing jail time are entitled to a lawyer — paid for by the government if they cannot afford their own — and a fair and efficient court process. But these protections are tenuous, especially in rural parts of America, studies have shown. In Texas, one of the states that spend the least on indigent defense, The Times found recent examples of people held beyond deadlines without charges or lawyers in six rural counties.

Maverick County stood out. It is in one of the state’s poorest regions, and many defendants cannot afford a lawyer; some spend months in jail because they cannot pay a bail bondsman $500 or less. Yet over the past two decades, state auditors have repeatedly noted the county was failing to adequately provide indigent counsel. In 2023, when more than 240 misdemeanor defendants requested representation, the county judge appointed lawyers in only a handful of cases, records show. Nonetheless, the state has imposed no consequences.

With no one to guide them, defendants enter a disjointed justice system where it can be perplexingly difficult to figure out why someone is in jail, if there even is a reason. Misdemeanor court files are almost always missing key documents. Felony court files are often not available until more than a year after a defendant’s arrest. The jail sometimes reported having no record of people despite recently holding them for months.

Defense lawyers and constitutional law scholars, responding to The Times’s reporting, called the county’s practices “atrocious,” “Kafkaesque” and “not a criminal system at all.”

“The lack of transparency and the lack of public defenders in this jurisdiction has allowed this completely inept system to persist,” said Rachel Kincaid, an associate law professor at Baylor University in Waco and former federal prosecutor. “There’s no pressure on them to do anything differently.”

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On this July 4th, consider the wisdom of a founding father

The wise know their weakness too well to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.

-Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson's admonition is as apt today as it was in 1776.  Those who are certain that their values and their vision for the future should be thrust upon us all--without consideration and deliberation--are neither wise nor enlightened.