Pitt Law Faculty

The judges in the Luzerne County corruption case are probably immune from civil liability, Professor Arthur Hellman told the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. The account begins:

We checked in with Pitt law professor and expert on the judiciary Arthur Hellman to talk about this strange notion of judicial immunity.

Hellman indeed backed the notion that the plaintiffs might end up high and dry. He said that while the immunity isn’t absolute, it extends to actions taken while judges were engaged in a judicial function.

Hellman explained that the Supreme Court in 1978 upheld the notion of judicial immunity in a case in which an Indiana judge ordered the forced sterilization of a woman, a naked breach of state law. Because the judge was acting under his stautorily granted jurisdiction, he was covered by the immunity. The rule does not, Hellman continued, apply to judges working in official but non-judicial capacities. For example, a judge would not be immune from suit if he or she fired an employee for discriminatory reasons.

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On Friday, October 16, 2009, Pitt Law hosted a day-long symposium titled “The Past, Present, and Future of the SEC,” planned and hosted by Professors Douglas Branson and Peter Oh. The event was co-sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Law Review and the SEC Historical Society. Scholars from Boston College, Georgetown University, Vanderbilt University, University of Indiana, the College of William and Mary and the University of Minnesota, among others, presented papers. Also presenting papers were the recently retired Secretary of the SEC as well as three former Chief Economists of the SEC and the General Counsel for NASDAQ. Commissioner Troy Parades of the SEC delivered the Keynote Address. Chancellor Mark Nordenberg attended portions of the program and introduced Commissioner Paredes. Approximately 200 academics, area lawyers and law students attended the program.

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On October 16, 2009, Professor Douglas Branson presented a paper at a conference hosted by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law (“The Past, Present, and Future of the SEC”). The title of his paper was “Trekking Toward an Uber Regulator: Meaningful Change for SEC Enforcement?’ The paper will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Law Review, along with other papers presented at the conference.

Professor John Burkoff was quoted recently in the Tarentum (PA) Valley News Dispatch on tactical questions facing criminal defense attorneys whose clients are called to testify before grand juries. The context is a corruption investigation aimed at the Pennsylvania legislature.

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On October 23, 2009, Professor Ronald Brand co-chaired a panel on “Federalism Issues in the Implementation of Private International Law Treaties at the International Law Weekend held in New York City concurrent with the 88th Annual Meeting of the American Branch of the International Law Association. The panel included Rex Blackburn, General Counsel, Idaho Power, and Chair of the NCCUSL Drafting Committee for the Uniform Choice of Court Agreement Act; Avril Haines, Assistant Legal Adviser for Treaty Affairs at the U.S. Department of State; The Honorable Sydney Stein, Federal District Judge, Southern District of New York; Richard Van Duizend, Principal Court Management Consultant, National Center for State Courts; and Janet Whittaker, an attorney with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York. Professor David Stewart of the Georgetown University Law Center was the other co-chair for the panel. The panel considered the often conflicting desire to retain certain matters as state law when treaties include rules in areas such as domestic relations, commercial law, judicial cooperation, choice of court agreements, and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.

Professor Brand also participated in annual meeting of the Executive Committee of the American Branch on October 24.

Pitt Law’s Center for International Legal Education (CILE) and its engagement with the United Arab Emirates University is featured as a “success story” at the website of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Commercial Law Development Program.

As the site notes, CILE “prepared faculty advisors and selected students to participate in the Willem C. Vis Commercial Arbitration Moot Competition set to be held in Vienna, Austria in March 2010. The Vis Commercial Arbitration Moot team, which will likely become a permanent part of the curriculum of UAE University, is the third such team on the Arabian Peninsula to begin participating in the moot, following the University of Bahrain and Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. In February 2010, all three Gulf region teams will meet at UAE University – Al Ain for pre-moot practice arguments with the assistance of University of Pittsburgh Professor Ronald Brand and three student coaches, Kerry Ann Stare, Rick Grubb, and Marc Coda.”

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Professor David Harris was quoted in an article in The Nation on a program by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under which local police departments enforce immigration law. The program has resulted in abuses and civil rights violations all over the country, and the great majority of police departments have resisted joining it. Professor Harris told The Nation that “any police agency in a city or town with an Hispanic population of any size understands that being involved in immigration is the last thing they want.”

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Professor Michael Madison presented a paper titled “Do Amateurs Matter? Law and Knowledge in the 21st Century” at a Vanderbilt University Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law Symposium on Friday, October 23.

The Symposium was titled “Drawing Lines in the Digital Age: Copyright, Fair Use, and Derivative Works.”

Professor John Burkoff was quoted recently by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in connection with allegations that the Allegheny County jail improperly recorded telephone conversations between inmates and their attorneys.

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The newest update to Pitt Law’s SSRN Research Paper Series includes the following:

The Export of Legal Education: Its Promise and Impact in Transition Countries; Chapter 1, Introduction
Ronald A. Brand, University of Pittsburgh – School of Law

Selected Issues Relating to the CISG’s Scope of Application
Harry M. Flechtner, University of Pittsburgh – School of Law

The Disabled in Debt to Social Security: Can Fairness Be Guaranteed?
Stella L. Smetanka, University of Pittsburgh – School of Law

View the entire contents of Pitt Law’s Research Paper Series here.

Professor William Luneburg, Jr.,  chair of the American Bar Association Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, appeared on a panel with Norman Eisen, President Obama’s Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Regulation, at a luncheon on Thursday, October 22 sponsored by that ABA Section.

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Professor Charles C. Jalloh presented a paper: “The International Criminal Court and Africa: Collision Course or Cooperation?” at the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Section, Department of Justice (Ottawa, Canada) on October 15, 2009. The presentation, which assessed prospects for continued cooperation by the 30 African States Party to the Rome Statute, built on his recently published research exposing the current tension between the Hague-based International Criminal Court (“ICC”) and countries in Africa. The continent is important to the future success of the new court because it is the only region in the world where the ICC was formally invited to investigate international crimes. Federal prosecutors and lawyers responsible for Canadian policy on international criminal justice issues were among those attending the lecture.

During his visit, Professor Jalloh also served as an expert panelist for the Canadian Council on International Law’s 38th Annual Conference. He, and Robert Petit, the first International Co-Prosecutor of the Cambodia Tribunal, commented on an award winning paper on the definition of genocide under the jurisprudence of the Rwanda Tribunal.

On October 16-17, Professor Ronald Brand participated as an invited Observer in the Chicago meeting of the Drafting Committee appointed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws to prepare a Uniform International Choice of Court Agreements Act. The purpose of the Act would be to use state law to implement the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, for which Brand served as a member of the U.S. delegation in the negotiations at the Hague Conference on Private International Law.

On October 18, Brand was a member of a panel discussing federalism issues in the implementation of the Hague Choice of Court Convention at the meeting in Washington, D.C. of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law. The panel considered the question of how federal and state law should be used in a manner most appropriate to the implementation of the treaty given the needs of those likely to benefit from the treaty and the political divide on questions of federalism.

Professor David Harris commented in USA Today that a new trend has emerged in a small number of leading police departments: leaders have opened the departments’ doors, and data, to researchers examining questions like racial profiling and the use of force. This “is shattering officers’ tradition of resisting outside scrutiny,” especially on race issues. “The history of openness in American policing has not been good,” said Harris.

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