Hastings College of the Law in the News

JANUARY 2007

San Jose Mercury News Activist, lawyer was a champion of social justice and equal rights 1/31/2007
In the Bible, some believe David was created from God's heart. To those who loved him, Wester Sweet -- who marched for civil rights and did a lot of pro bono legal work over four decades -- was made from the same cloth. Sweet died Monday after suffering a heart attack, infection and a long battle with diabetes. He was 81. ``If he had any faults, I didn't know of any,'' said the Rev. Eddie Porter, 73, a friend of Sweet's for five decades and an outreach pastor at Antioch Baptist Church in San Jose, where memorial services are pending. If Sweet's anger ever flared up, Porter said, it was because he was working hard trying to change someone's life around. Porter said he and Sweet delivered boxes of food to homeless people for years. Porter witnessed his friend defend hundreds of clients in domestic issues, drug cases and property disputes, without charge if they couldn't afford legal fees. And 13 years ago, when Porter was beginning his recovery from alcoholism, Sweet gave him a place to stay for free. For a half century, Sweet lived and worked at Seventh and Julian streets in a bare bones, 1950s-era law office attached to a few apartments. ``He's such a giving man,'' Porter said. ``We had a great friendship. The world has lost a great man. As far as I'm concerned, he can't be replaced.'' ...His passion was to become a lawyer. When his Hastings College of the Law professors taught about a landmark Supreme Court segregation case, Plessy vs. Ferguson, and discussed the later ground-breaking civil rights legal work of Thurgood Marshall, Sweet was inspired. more

Houston Chronicle Commentary: From Personal Experience by George Bisharat 1/31/2007
One day in 1981, my late father, Maurice Hanna Bisharat, returned from a long day at his Sacramento, Calif., medical office with an extra bounce in his step, his eyes dancing with excitement. His friend, Michael Himovitz, the young owner of a local art gallery, had called, offering to hold a one-person show of my father's paintings - mostly California landscapes. My father had taken up painting after immigrating to this country from Palestine in the late 1940s, and although an amateur, had won a national art award within two years. But the demands of medical practice, raising a large family, and other avocations took their toll. It had been many years since my father's art had been publicly exhibited, and he was tickled. My father was not a politician, but like any Palestinian living in the United States, he felt obligated to relate his people's experience to American friends. Educated and articulate, he spoke publicly in defense of Palestinian rights, and was a frequent commentator on Middle East events in the local media. Michael, a Jew, was perfectly aware of this side of my father's life. It did nothing to diminish his appreciation of my father's art, nor to inhibit their friendship. more

New York Times Evidence From Bite Marks, It Turns Out, Is Not So Elementary 1/28/2007
FIFTEEN years ago, Roy Brown, a hard-drinking man with a criminal record, was convicted of stabbing, beating, biting and strangling a social worker in upstate New York. The case rested largely on one piece of forensic evidence: bite marks on the victim’s body that the prosecution’s witness, a local dentist, said matched Mr. Brown’s teeth. On Tuesday, Mr. Brown was released from prison, after DNA testing on the saliva left by the biter proved his innocence and implicated someone else in the crime. At the time of his conviction, Mr. Brown, 46, was missing two front teeth. The bite marks, meanwhile, had six tooth imprints...And there is also what David L. Faigman, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, calls the “context effect.” Because most forensic scientists learn a lot about the suspect before analyzing the bite mark, “it’s easy for them to see what they are expected to see,” Mr. Faigman said. Experts, he added, “can basically be prepped to see a match.” more

Tuscon Citizen Offender: Sex predator notification law flawed 1/27/2007
Ken Falcone had no problem agreeing to register as a sex offender to start a new life in Tucson. "I was observant of all the rules," said Falcone, 59, who was convicted of attempted child molestation in Phoenix before the state enacted laws that track sex offenders' lives after prison. He faced problems finding a job and home after prospective employers, landlords and neighbors were notified of his status as a sex offender after he came to Tucson. Falcone became self-employed and told authorities each of the five times he moved in Tucson. Seven years of registration and notification didn't keep Falcone from reoffending, however. Falcone will be sentenced Feb. 12 after being convicted last month of two charges of sexual conduct with a minor and one charge each of attempted sexual conduct with a minor and luring a minor for sexual exploitation. ...A University of California Hastings Law School study showed that from 1996 to 2005, nonsex offenders in California were more likely to have their parole revoked than sex offenders. Rapists were more likely to reoffend than child molesters. more

Investor's Business Daily Opt-Out Generation Turns Back To Work 1/26/2007
What happens when women on the "mommy" track want to return to the career track? Are companies recruiting or rejecting these former professionals who exit their careers to raise kids? It's still a mixed bag. Experts say some smart firms are coming up with strategies to attract these "opt-out generation" women. They're aiming to boost their competitiveness by recruiting talented staff. ... Joan Williams, a law professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, says there are other issues. She says a 2005 Gender Equity Project conducted by Pamela Stone at New York City's Hunter College says that 86% of women who are highly qualified professionals blamed their career departure on workplace inflexibility and bias. Only 16% of women left work because they wanted to stay at home. more

Metropolitan News-Enterprise S.C. Names Judge Katherine Feinstein to Commission on Judicial Performance 1/25/2007
The California Supreme Court yesterday appointed San Francisco Superior Court Judge Katherine Feinstein to the Commission on Judicial Performance for a four-year term beginning March 1. Feinstein, 49, will succeed Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Rise Jones Pichon, who must leave the commission due to term limits. Feinstein was appointed to the bench in June 2000 by then-Gov. Gray Davis. She has served primarily in the family and juvenile courts and is chair of the court’s Personnel Committee. The jurist is the daughter of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a graduate of Hastings College of the Law. She is a former San Francisco police commissioner and served on the San Francisco Mayor’s Criminal Justice Council from 1994 to 1996. MORE

BBS News Christian Student Group Challenges University's Anti-discrimination Policy 1/22/2007
A public university is right to deny funding to a student group that discriminates on the basis of religion and sexual orientation, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Americans United argues that Hastings College of Law, a part of the University of California system, does not have to officially recognize and support a student organization that excludes law students who do not subscribe to a certain type of Christianity or are gay. "Public universities are under no obligation to subsidize student religious organizations that discriminate," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "In fact, state schools have a duty to ensure that they do not aid the mission of religious organizations. Hastings Law School is on the right legal track, and the federal courts ought to say so." more

Concord Monitor (NH) Swett plans campaign for U.S. Senate 1/19/2007
Democrat Katrina Swett of Bow formally entered the 2008 race for U.S. Senate yesterday, filing papers to establish a campaign committee. The creation of the committee will allow her to raise and spend money as she prepares to challenge incumbent Sen. John Sununu, a first-term Republican. Swett, 51, is the daughter of 13-term U.S. Rep Tom Lantos of California and the wife of former congressman and ambassador Dick Swett. She cited Sununu's support of the president on Iraq and his inability - along with other Republicans in Congress - to keep the country's "fiscal house in order," among other reasons for running. ...Swett and her husband have seven children, who range in age from 11 to 23. She is a graduate of Yale University and the University of California's Hastings College of Law; she also recently completed a PhD on human rights and U.S. foreign policy from the University of Southern Denmark. more

San Francisco Chronicle Law firm boycott call raises ethical issues: Experts differ on whether defense official broke rules 1/19/2007
The Defense Department official who called for a business boycott of law firms representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is potentially subject to discipline by the State Bar of California, of which he is a member. But although Charles Stimson's comments have been condemned by the American Bar Association and other legal organizations as an assault on lawyers' moral obligation to represent unpopular clients, interviews with several California legal ethics experts found only one who thought he had broken the rules governing attorney conduct. Violations of those rules carry penalties that range from reprimands to disbarment. San Francisco attorney Richard Zitrin, who teaches ethics at UC Hastings College of the Law and formerly chaired the State Bar's ethics committee, said one of several rules that Stimson appears to have violated dates from the O.J. Simpson murder trial. It prohibits lawyers from making out-of-court statements that are likely to prejudice a court proceeding. more

San Francisco Chronicle Spank a little kid, go to jail, if bill becomes law 1/19/2007
Bay Area lawmaker said Thursday she will introduce a bill next week that seeks to make California the first state in the nation to ban spanking children who are 3 years old and younger. The legislation would make the violation a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail or a fine of up to $1,000. "I think we ought to have a law against beating children," said Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View. ...Lois Weithorn, who teaches family law at UC's Hastings College of the Law, said while there are both civil and criminal statutes addressing child abuse, there is room for subjectivity on what constitutes abuse. "There are laws on the books, but corporal punishment has always been a challenge to deal with," she said. "Most jurisdictions do not sanction parents (for) corporal punishment that doesn't result in physical injury." more

Defamer (blog) 'Apprentice' Entertainment Lawyers Seek Out An Even Darker Master 1/18/2007
When Donald Trump decided to try and revive his flagging Apprentice franchise by relocating it to Los Angeles, it guaranteed that he'd have access to local talent pre-degraded by jobs in the entertainment industry, for whom a potential Trump Organization imprisonment in a supply closet on an unfinished golf course would seem an appealing career option. But since employers here might not be so eager to lend their personnel to a weeks-long, televised job interview, contestants like entertainment lawyers Derek Arteta (of New Line) and Kristine Lefebvre (fret not, "The Lawyer in Me" section of her personal site is just a professional bio, not work in some legal-themed pornography) had to sneak off under the cover of "personal time" to do the show....Arteta, 34, a Hastings College of the Law grad who already has appeared on a number of game shows, confided his secret only in Funk before leaving for what the rest of New Line thought was South America. more

SF Recorder HP Investigator Accepts Plea Deal 1/17/2006
TV cameramen fixed their lenses on the entrance of downtown San Jose, Calif.'s federal courthouse Friday morning, a sure sign that someone famous, perhaps infamous, was about to have a bad day. This time it was only Bryan Wagner, whose sole notoriety stems from his role as a lowly private investigator in the Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandal...."Some people were speculating that maybe the feds had washed their hands of this," said Rory Little, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Hastings College of the Law. "This suggests that no, it's an active investigation." more

Philadelphia Inquirer Arson science - to the rescue? 1/14/2007
The fire swept quickly through the red brick rowhouse. It consumed the sofa and love seat and caught the curtains, burning so brightly that an orange glow filled narrow Carver Street in Northeast Philadelphia's Summerdale section. Daniel Dougherty, a 26-year-old mechanic with a drinking problem, ran out of the fiery home, cried for help, and grabbed a garden hose to try to douse the flames. But it was no use. The fire was relentless, and its choking smoke soon reached his two sons, Danny Jr., 4, and John, 3, upstairs in their beds. Nearly 22 years later, from a cell on Pennsylvania's death row, Dougherty is fighting to prove he did not set the blaze that took the boys' lives - and is counting on an evolving science to save his own. ..."There's still a lot of old wisdom that turns out not to be so wise being employed," said David L. Faigman, a professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco who has written extensively on the role of scientific research in legal decisions. more

Contra Costa Times Advocates oppose PUC confirmation 1/11/2007
Rachelle Chong is the California Public Utilities Commission member who consumer advocates love to hate, and they oppose her confirmation, which will be considered today by a state Senate committee. Some consumer groups say the Republican attorney doesn't care enough about the impact of telecommunications and other companies on consumers' lives. They also accuse Chong of being too close to the companies she is supposed to regulate. "Her track record in the past year shows she will not (side) with consumers," Ignacio Hernandez, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of California, told the Senate Rules Committee last week. The full Senate will hold a hearing on Chong's confirmation this morning after the Rules Committee voted 5-0 Wednesday to move the matter on. ...hong edited the Lincoln High School newspaper in her Stockton hometown, graduated in 1981 from UC Berkeley with degrees in journalism and political science, and edited the Comm/Ent Law Journal at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. more

San Francisco Chronicle O Googlers, where art thou? 1/7/2007
Who in their right mind would leave a job at Google Inc., a company legendary for pampering workers with free annual ski trips and gourmet food? Well, it turns out plenty of people do. And many of them are some of the Web giant's earliest employees. Extremely wealthy from stock options that soared in value, 100 of Google's first 300 workers have quietly resigned to go to law school, help poor shopkeepers get loans or simply to live the good life. ...To grow up, Ron Dolin felt he needed to make a big change. After six years as an engineer at Google, the 45-year-old enrolled in law school, where earning a degree would depend on hard work and propel him into adulthood....Much like he did at Google, Dolin said he sometimes pulls all-nighters at UC Hastings College of the Law. He hopes to specialize in intellectual property law after graduating in 2009. more

San Jose Mercury News Amid state appeals stands `Dr. Death' 1/6/2007
When Dane Gillette goes to work each morning in the California attorney general's office, he is greeted by death. For decades, he has been known as ``Dr. Death,'' a nickname coined by his adversaries. Gillette is California's leading defender of the death penalty, the man most responsible in the state for making sure death sentences are upheld in the courts and carried out at San Quentin. ...Gillette joined the attorney general's office in 1975, fresh out of Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. With Jerry Brown about to take over the office in January, Gillette will soon be working for a sixth attorney general. more

Washington Post Lucy Cohen; Helped Write Law Treatise 1/5/2007
Lucy Kramer Cohen, 99, who helped draft and revise her husband's seminal Handbook of Federal Indian Law and who worked for decades for the federal government, sometimes without pay, died Jan. 2 at her home in Washington after a stroke. Mrs. Cohen came to Washington in 1933 and joined the Interior Department, as did her husband, Felix S. Cohen, a lawyer. Because a federal rule prohibited two family members from both earning paychecks during the Depression, she was often uncompensated for her work. Trained as an anthropologist, Mrs. Cohen helped her husband with the drafting of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. She drew up questionnaires for tribes on their education and housing needs, then tabulated the results. The couple's next task was the herculean job of compiling and organizing a century and a half of treaties, statutes, judicial opinions and administrative rulings on Indian law, which were published in six volumes in 1942 as the Handbook of Federal Indian Law, under her husband's name. In 1948, he was awarded the Interior Department's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, and remained a strong advocate for Indian rights throughout his life. "When Felix was detailed to Justice, Lucy helped draft the original edition of the Handbook, writing the chapters on treaties and on government services to Indians," Nell Newton, now dean of the University of California's Hastings College of Law, said in 2005, when a revised edition of the handbook was dedicated to Mrs. Cohen for her substantial contribution. more

San Francisco Chronicle A question of justice, Commentary by George Bisharat 1/4/2007
Justice in Iraq has not been served by Saddam Hussein's execution, and more, not less violence, is the likely outcome of this vengeful and unwise act. Hussein was a cruel tyrant, and no doubt was culpable for many heinous crimes -- including, possibly, those for which he was convicted and hanged. But he was rushed to trial well before the Iraqi legal system, which had crumbled through years of Baath party rule, had regained the capacity to fairly and effectively administer a complex international criminal trial. more

Philadelphia Inquirer Truth at last, while breaking a U.S. taboo of criticizing Israel, Commentary by George Bisharat 1/2/2007
Americans owe a debt to former President Jimmy Carter for speaking long hidden but vital truths. His book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid breaks the taboo barring criticism in the United States of Israel's discriminatory treatment of Palestinians. Our government's tacit acceptance of Israel's unfair policies causes global hostility against us. Israel's friends have attacked Carter, a Nobel laureate who has worked tirelessly for Middle East peace, even raising the specter of anti-Semitism. Genuine anti-Semitism is abhorrent. But exploiting the term to quash legitimate criticism of another system of racial oppression, and to tarnish a principled man, is indefensible. Criticizing Israeli government policies - a staple in Israeli newspapers - is no more anti-Semitic than criticizing the Bush administration is anti-American. more

Ms Magazine Scaling the Maternal Wall 1/1/2007
AFTER YEARS OF HARD WORK, Elena (a composite of several women) was up for a long-deserved promotion. But when she returned to work following the birth of her second child, her supervisor began to question whether the new position was "really the kind of job for someone with two little ones at home." Now that she was a mom, he suggested, her "priorities have changed and she appeared less committed to her job." ...Although the term is new, "family responsibilities discrimination" (FRD) has long interfered with the progress of millions of working women who care for children, or elderly or ill family members. As Joan Williams, a leading expert in the field of women and work, and director of the Center for WorkLife Law at University of California Hastings College of the Law, explains, "Family responsibilities discrimination, especially against mothers, is pervasive. While the glass ceiling still exists, most women hit the 'maternal wall' long before they ever hit the glass ceiling."

Hastings News is assembled by Chuck Marcus Access to articles on newspaper web sites often requires registration and/or a fee.

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