George Tiller

George Tiller was a Kansas doctor nationally known as one of three Americans physicians at the time offering abortions after the 21st week of pregnancy. He was shot and killed in 2009 by an anti-abortion activist.

Under Kansas state law at the time, anyone who wished to receive an abortion was required to receive an opinion from two separate physicians who could not be financially affiliated. In 2003, George Tiller faced charges that 19 patients had received second opinions from Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus in appointments scheduled through his office.

 In court, George Tiller said that this scheduling arrangement had been established on the basis of his attorney. Each charge carried a potential sentence of up to a year. However, the only witness presented by the prosecution was Dr. Neuhaus, weakening their case. George Tiller was acquitted of all the charges against him, pending an administrative review of his license by the state Board of Healing Arts.

 In May 2009, George Tiller was killed by Scott Roeder, who shot him in the head. Roeder had previously been arrested and convicted when he was discovered transporting explosives in his car in 1996. Initially unidentified as the shooter, Roeder escaped from the scene of the crime but was found and arrested within three hours. He was arraigned on June 2, 2009. At this time, Roeder declined to enter a plea regarding the murder of George Tiller and requested that he be assigned a public defender. A preliminary hearing concerning charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault was held on July 28.

 In January of 2010, Roeder's arguments successfully argued that he could be charged with "voluntary manslaughter," in which a fatality is committed by someone who honestly believes it to be justifiable. The actual trial began on January 22. During the course of argument, Roeder's lawyers attempted to call two judicial officials who had attempted to convict George Tiller on other charges at earlier dates to testify about his abortion activities. However, the court ruled that this testimony regarding legal abortions was irrelevant and likely to prejudice jurors and disallowed it.

 Scott Roeder took the stand as a witness in the trial of the murder of George Tiller on January 28. During the course of his testimony, Roeder defended himself by saying homicide was justifiable to save the lives of unborn children. However, his attempts to provide graphic descriptions of the abortion process practiced by George Tiller were successfully objected to by the prosecution. At the conclusion of his testimony, the judge reversed the earlier standing and prohibited the jury from convicting Scott Roeder on charges of voluntary manslaughter.

 The day following Roeder's testimony, the jury found him guilty of the murder of George Tiller as well as the two aggravated assault charges. His sentencing occurred on April 1. At this time he was given a sentence of 50 years of incarceration without the possibility of parole.

Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf is a legal scholar specializing in issues of constitutional law. His work has frequently been cited by courts when rendering verdicts. One of the most prominent cases he was involved in recently was the 2010 Supreme Court case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.

The case involved a dispute between the Christian Legal Society and Hastings College of Law, a division of the University of California. Hastings College of Law has an official non-discrimination policy which forbids denying admission to any student on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The school took the position that any student organization which wished to receive official recognition from the school, which would include funding and support, was similarly prohibited from such discriminatory practices in admitting members.

Hastings accordingly denied official recognition to the Christian Legal Society, which denied admission to homosexuals. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, where the Christian Legal Society argued that its right to freedom of speech and free practice of religion was being violated. Michael C. Dorf was the primary author of an amicus curiae brief filed by the Association of American Law Schools on behalf of Hastings.

In this brief, Michael C. Dorf argued that Hastings was not violating the constitutional rights of the Christian Legal Society by enforcing an "all-comers" rule requiring that any student group seeking official recognition offer admission to any students who wished to join. The brief further argued that the school had the right to use this rule in deciding how to allocate funding. The Supreme Court agreed with the reasoning made by Michael C. Dorf and ruled 5 to 4 in favor of Hastings.

Stephen Low served as an American diplomat to Zambia and Nigeria throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. His work as a diplomat led him to establish new schools to help codify and prepare aspirants for the profession. While Stephen Low did not possess a law degree, his work as a diplomat required him to frequently interact with lawyers to help handle many different situations.

When he was posted to Zambia in August of 1976, Stephen Low was eventually drawn into turmoil in Rhodesia, a neighboring country then under the leadership of Ian Smith. Smith, who was white, led a government whose policies discriminated against black citizens on the basis of their color. The opposition to Smith's campaign was led by Robert Mugabe, a black politician. As an American ambassador, Stephen Low attempted to lead negotiations between Smith and Mugabe.

Due to violent conditions as a result of political turmoil, the goal of Stephen Low and his fellow diplomats was to create a cease fire agreement. Initially, Mugabe and fellow opposition leaders were reluctant to accept the assistance of Stephen Low, since they believed that the primary responsibility for transitioning from Ian Smith's government to an independent Rhodesia lay with the British, who were formerly in charge of the colony. However, Stephen Low helped create an Anglo-American Resolution that laid the foundations for a government transition.

As part of his diplomatic efforts, Stephen Low was the liaison between a number of different state governments. During his time supervising Rhodesia's transition, Stephen Low was responsible for keeping government officials in South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Botswana about the progress being made. At the same time, Stephen Low was also responsible for coordinating American and British participation in the negotiations.

From 1979 to 1981, Stephen Low served as an ambassador to Nigeria. While he continued to monitor negotiations in Rhodesia, Stephen Low also observed the election of Shehu Shagari, who was elected to serve as the country's president following the termination of its military regime. Under the new laws of Nigeria, the winning candidate had to receive both a majority of the popular national vote and two-thirds of states' votes. However, in 1979 the question of how to measure states' votes had been resolved. Stephen Low observed as the case was decided by the Supreme Court of Nigeria, which determined that Shagari had garnered sufficient votes to legitimately attain the presidency.

In 1980, negotiations concerning Rhodesia were impeded by newly elected Senator Jesse Helms, who supported the Ian Smith administration. As a result, Stephen Low learned that he was shortly to be withdrawn from diplomatic service. When this occurred in 1981, he returned to California. The following year, he was appointed director of the State Department Foreign Service Institute, which handles the training of the diplomatic corps. Throughout the remainder of his career, Stephen Low served in a number of academic and diplomacy-related capacities.

Donald Gaines Murray

Donald Gaines Murray was the plaintiff in the 1936 case of Murray v. Pearson, an important case in the history of legal desegregation. The case began in January of 1935, when Donald Gaines Murray filed an application to be admitted to the University of Maryland School of Law, which was the only law school in the state. At the time, the institution was segregated and attendantly rejected the application of Donald Gaines Murray. The letter explaining this rejection went on to offer assistance in obtaining admission to a law school in another state, citing the "separate but equal" doctrine established in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which found that segregation of blacks and whites was legal provided both were provided with access to substantively equal institutions.

Donald Gaines Murray declined this offer and appealed his rejection to the school's Board of Regents, which did not reconsider the school's decision. Donald Gaines Murray was then approached by the African-American fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, which retained lawyers to represent him at no cost in Baltimore City Court. The legal strategy prepared by attorneys Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston began by pointing out that there was no law school for African-Americans in Maryland. Furthermore, they pointed out that the law in every state is different, and that training in another state would not aid Donald Gaines Murray in obtaining legal employment in the state of Maryland.

The legal strategy was also designed to question the legality of "separate but equal." By arguing that Donald Gaines Murray was being denied access to education that would allow him to practice in Maryland, the attorneys charged that the "equal protection clause" of the 14th Amendment had been violated. The attorneys of Donald Gaines Murray therefore filed for a writ of mandamus which would compel the University of Maryland to admit him into the law school. The court agreed with the argument and issued this writ.

Their decision was subsequently appealed by the University of Maryland. The state Court of Appeals then heard the case and concurred with the ruling issued by the lower court in 1936. As a result, Donald Gaines Murray was admitted to the educational facility.

The significance of the case was limited to the state of Maryland, since the ruling was only valid on a state rather than federal level. However, the case was one of several desegregation efforts which laid the foundations for the 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education, which put an end to legal segregation.

Following his admission to and graduation from law school, Donald Gaines Murray became a practicing lawyer. Many of his cases were concerned with winning similar desegregation rulings related to graduate schools operated by the University of Maryland. In addition to his work as a private practitioner, Donald Gaines Murray also served on Maryland state boards regulating liquor and movie censorship.

Carl Levin

Carl Levin has been a senator representing Michigan since 1979. In legal circles, Carl Levin is best known for his role in the authorship of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA), which includes a controversial clause authorizing the indefinite detention of those suspected in aiding and abetting terrorist activities.

Carl Levin was one of several senators to work on the bill, which was passed in December 2011. Its critics charged that section 1021(b)(2) and is too vague in establishing the criteria for indefinite detention. In January of 2012, a coalition of interested parties filed suit over this bill against both the administration of President Barack Obama and members of Congress involved in its creation and passage.

The case was initially heard by the federal district court located in the southern district of New York. After hearing the case, the presiding judge issued an injunction nullifying this part of the NDAA bill. In her opinion, the judge noted that this part of the legislation could lead to violations of both the First Amendment right to free speech and the Fifth Amendment right to due process. The ruling went on to note that the government did not present a convincing case that the language on which Carl Levin had worked could not lead to abuses of authority and improper detention of journalists and others involved in investigations.

The Obama administration requested that this legislation by Carl Levin and others have the injunction against it lifted, claiming that this injunction would severely impeded the executive branch and the efficaciousness of the prosecution of the war on terror. However, the judge declined to lift the injunction. An appeal was then filed by the Manhattan US Attorney in federal appeals court.

Subsequently, an appeal hearing was held and a ruling issued against the Obama administration. In her opinion, the presiding judge wrote that the powers of the executive branch did not supercede the protection of citizens' constitutional rights, compelling her to find this part of the legislation authored by Carl Levin unconstitutional. The judge further wrote that no detentions could be made using this section of the law as justification and urged Congress to consider alternative legislation for the same purposes which would not violate constitutional rights.

The Obama administration again filed an appeal against this permanent injunction. The case was then transferred to the Second District Court of Appeals. In October of 2012, the Court made the decision that this law would remain in effect until the appeal had been investigated and a ruling issued. In its preliminary findings justifying this stay of the suspension of the injunction against the clause, the Court noted that it did not seem to affect the rights of domestic American citizens. The appeals court also noted that it believed the District Court had exceeded its authority in its previous injunction.

Charles Nesson

Charles Nesson is an American attorney who has been associated with many prominent legal cases. He is known for his specialized focus on issues of intellectual property law. One of the most famous of his cases was his successful 1971 defense of Daniel Ellsberg.

The roots of the case date back to 1967, when then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara convened a task force composed of 36 analysts to create a history of the Vietnam War up to that point. The study was completed in 1969 and totaled 7,000 pages. Of these, 3,000 were original analysis, while the remainder contained government documents related to the Vietnam War. 15 copies of this report were made, two of which were sent to the RAND Corp., which employed Daniel Ellsberg as a military analyst. With assistance from others, Daniel Ellsberg made copies of the report, which came to be known as the "Pentagon Papers."

Two years later, excerpts from these papers were made public for the first time in a series of articles published by the newspaper "The New York Times." A court order requested by the White House temporarily restricted publication, but this order was quickly reversed by the Supreme Court. The publication of this information embarrassed the Nixon White House.

On June 28, 1971, Daniel Ellsberg voluntarily turned himself in to the authorities, stating that he felt it was his responsibility to make the information public and that he was willing to accept any legal consequences. In August of that year, while his case was making its way through the legal system, a group of individuals acting at the behest of the White House burgled the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist in a failed attempt to gather information discrediting him. However, they were unable to locate his file.

Charles Nesson acted as co-counsel for the defense in the trial, which began in January of 1973. In April of that year, the attempted burglary of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office was made known to the judge in a memo. Shortly thereafter, the presiding judge, William Byrne, disclosed that he had been approached by the White House about being appointed director of the FBI. Shortly thereafter, more evidence emerged of legal misconduct against Ellsberg. Specifically, it was learned that the FBI had illegally wire-tapped conversations Ellsberg had conducted, information which the prosecution was aware of and had failed to share with Charles Nesson and his co-counsel as required by the law.

In response to the increasing evidence of government impropriety, Charles Nesson and his co-counsel were successful in obtaining a mistrial ruling from William Byrne, thereby exonerating Ellsberg.

Another prominent case in which Charles Nesson was involved was Anderson v. Cryovac, a prominent trial concerning six children who developed leukemia as the result of contamination of water wells by two companies. Charles Nesson served as one of the counselors working on behalf of the families of the children.

Froilan Tenorio

Froilan Tenorio is the former president of the Northern Mariana Islands. During and after his presidency, which lasted from 1994 to 1998, Froilan Tenorio was associated with several legal controversies. In legal history, the most notable is the case of Sonoda v. Cabrera, in which litigation continued past the end of his presidency.

Sonoda v. Cabrera had its roots in an executive order drafted by Froilan Tenorio in 1994, numbered Executive Order 94-3. This proposed law stated that anyone working for the government capacity at a level of authority greater than that of division director would work "at the pleasure of" the Governor. This meant that any such government workers could be hired and fired at the discretion of Froilan Tenorio. The legislature did not object to or alter the wording of Executive Order 94-3, allowing it to take effect.

In 1995, Jose A. Sonoda was chosen by Froilan Tenorio to a position within the government's Department of Finance. As part of his hiring, Sonoda signed a two-year contract, as well as an agreement stipulating the terms of his employment. These terms noted that the governor had hiring and firing authority. In March of 1996, Sonoda had testified before a legislative committee and expressed views of the political party opposing Froilan Tenorio. When he was fired shortly thereafter, Sonoda concluded that he had been fired in retaliation for his testimony and filed suit against Froilan Tenorio as well as the Secretary of Finance, Antonio R. Cabrera.

The district court in which Sonoda filed suit passed the case along to the Supreme Court of the Northern Mariana Islands. In April of 1997, the court ruled that the actions taken by Froilan Tenorio had exceeded his legal authority. The court also found that Executive Order 94-3 was itself in violation of the constitution of the Northern Mariana Islands, since it claimed the authority to deem government jobs as exempt from the regulations of the civil service system. Under the Constitution of the Northern Mariana Islands, such distinctions can only be made by the legislature. Therefore, Executive Order 94-3 was struck down.

This verdict was appealed by Froilan Tenorio and Antonio Cabrera. In 1999, the appeals court processing their request declined to issue a ruling on grounds that the court did not have the authority to consider issues which do not involve federal laws and rights. Sonoda then filed a motion seeking a summary judgment against Froilan Tenorio and Antonio Cabrera. This motion was dismissed in 2000 on grounds that Froilan Tenorio and Antonio Cabrera were immune from judgment against them because they had acted on the reasonable assumption that their actions were legal.

In 2001, an appeals court reversed this ruling, noting that even if Froilan Tenorio and Antonio Cabrera had acted on the assumption that Executive Order 94-3 was legal, they should have been aware that firing an employee in retaliation for his testimony was a violation of his free speech rights.

Robert Torricelli

Robert Torricelli is a former Senator from New Jersey who only served a single term. He withdrew from the election race after allegations that he had accepted bribes from a businessman were made public.

Robert Torricelli was an elected member of the US House of Representatives from 1983 to 1997, serving as the representative of the 9th district of New Jersey. In 1996, he ran for the United States Senate and was elected. He began his term in January 1997 and served until January of 2003.

In the weeks prior to the election, a businessman named David Chang publicly stated allegations about bribing Robert Torricelli. Chang stated that he had sought the cooperation of the office of Robert Torricelli in helping him obtain payment from North Korea which he had sold to that nation. To that end, David Chang alleged that he had bribed Robert Torricelli with gifts such as Italian suits, a new Rolex watch, and a 52-inch television set. Though Robert Torricelli denied all the allegations, he decided to drop out of the race regardless.

David Chang's statements were made following his agreement with federal prosecutors to receive a reduced sentence for illegal campaign contributions within the state in return for testimony about corruption in the state's political system. However, prosecutor decided not to prosecute Robert Torricelli because Chang's testimony as a convicted felon would lack credibility, making it difficult to obtain a guilty verdict.

However, the state's Democratic Party had difficulty replacing Robert Torricelli's name on the ballot. State law stipulates that the names of candidates in an election cannot be changed any closer than 51 days after the election. However, Robert Torricelli exited from the race 35 days before the election. Therefore, legally Democrats were prohibited from replacing his name on the ballot with that of his replacement candidate, Frank Lautenberg.

Democrats argued before the State Supreme Court that despite the law, they should be allowed to replace Robert Torricelli's name in the public interest of the voters. Republicans argued before the Supreme Court that because the language of the legislation in question is clear and unambiguous, the Democratic request for an exception to the rules should not be argued. In its unanimous ruling, the New Jersey Supreme Court stated that it had decided it was in the public interest to grant the Democratic status, allowing for the replacement of Robert Torricelli's name on all ballots.

Following the end of his political career, Robert Torricelli became a lobbyist. In 2010, he again attracted attention when it was reported that he had used funds which were raised in the course of his aborted Senate re-election race and donating them to the campaigns of other politicians. While these donations did not violate federal law, the contributions attracted media attention and were cited as evidence of the need to create new laws regarding the legal use of money raised during political campaigns.