Sterling Terrance Hospedales Org

Author: Sterling

  • LAW SCHOOL RANKINGS FALL FROM GRACE

    It has been a tough year for U.S. News college rankings. In September, Columbia University dropped from #2 to #18 in the country after misreporting data, allowing Cornell to rise to the number one school in New York. Not complaining about this one, but how this blunder could have happened in the first place called into question the integrity and validity of the rankings. Now, just a few months later, several of the T14 law schools (the 14 highest ranked law schools in the country according to U.S News) have elected to drop out of the rankings altogether. 

    On Wednesday, Yale Law School announced that it would no longer be taking part in the U.S News law school rankings. Shortly after that same day, Harvard Law said the same, and the next day, Berkeley Law followed. Later in the week, Stanford, Columbia and Georgetown law schools also shared their withdrawals from participation in the rankings as well.  

    The schools that have opted to drop from the rankings all cite fundamental problems with the way the rankings are determined. Among many of the issues voiced by the law schools’ deans, there are a few especially salient points. They explain that the rankings incentivize law schools to admit high-income students over low-income ones in order to reduce the schools’ average student debt upon graduation. The rankings also discourage law schools from dedicating resources to students who will go into public interest law or obtain additional degrees after graduation. U.S. News does not consider these students to be employed (or fully employed), therefore hurting schools that encourage students to pursue these options.  

    To add to the whirlwind that is currently law school admissions. The American Bar Association also announced Friday that LSAT scores will no longer be a required part of application materials starting in the 2025 cycle. Law schools themselves can still require test scores, but they will no longer be mandated by the ABA. 

    As a current junior at Cornell, I am just starting my law school application journey. I have started to seriously consider the schools I will apply to and have begun studying for the LSAT. To say that I did not use the U.S. News rankings when considering which schools I want to apply to would be false. In fact, I’ve referred to it a lot. As a first-generation student, I am proud of the upward mobility that has gotten me to Cornell, and it would be misleading for me to say that I’m not looking to maintain that upward mobility in terms of where I go to law school. It’s blunt, but it’s the truth. I came to Cornell to open doors for further opportunities, and those doors are labeled with the names of the T14 law schools. The same is true for many of my peers. The fact of the matter is, the law schools within the T14 rankings come with unparalleled name recognition that put you ahead of the game. Now that these schools have opted to drop from the rankings, what does that mean for students like me?

    To start, U.S. News shared in a statement that the law schools will continue to be ranked. A lot of the information used in the rankings is public information regardless of whether the schools submit directly to U.S. News. The schools’ announcements to drop from the rankings is more symbolic in nature, with a deeper meaning behind it that says they will no longer cater their admissions process and other functions towards maintaining or improving their rank. For a student like me, this speaks volumes. 

    Let’s be frank, regardless of what happens now, the T14 schools still have a solid reputation backing them up, and they won’t be hurting for qualified applicants anytime soon. While the U.S. News rankings certainly helped to guide my law school search, it wasn’t the only factor. One of my biggest considerations has been the quality of resources the schools provide for first-generation students. Often, law schools will flaunt the percentage of students in their class profiles who are the first to college, without actually offering any substantive information on the means through which they support those students. Watching these law schools put words to action and value their students over their rankings will have a huge impact on students like me who are in search of a law school that will support them and help facilitate their growth. The law schools that have not taken this step — Cornell, I’m looking at you — are sending a message to their students, whether intentional or not, that they value their prestige over their students.

    Still, as U.S. News argued in their statement, there is value in students being able to compare law schools throughout the application process. During the Obama administration, a scorecard system was created to give students applying to undergraduate programs a resource to compare information on the colleges. The scorecard system makes a point to not rank the colleges, but instead provide what students need to make an informed decision. It includes information on cost, graduation rates, demographics and more. The same should be done for law schools to ensure students are well-informed about their options without law schools feeling compelled to structure their admissions around improving their rank.

    As for the ABA’s recent decision regarding the LSAT requirements: I’m ambivalent. The decision was made in part to level the playing field for students who can’t afford private tutors or expensive LSAT prep courses. As one of those students, I respect the attempt, but I’m not convinced the result will be as intended. The LSAT has the potential to highlight the capabilities of intelligent, hard-working students whose resumes are slightly less sparkly because they didn’t have certain opportunities, like fancy internships through their parents’ connections. Additionally, without the LSAT, law schools will place a higher weight on students’ GPAs, which can vary greatly among majors and colleges for a variety of reasons. That said, I am excited to see the ABA take steps towards acknowledging the disparities in LSAT prep options, but perhaps a better solution would be to create more free LSAT resources than the limited options currently available. 

    There is a better world of law school admissions out there. One that is more equitable and ensures a legal education is available to all students who are intellectually (not just financially) capable. One in which rankings accurately reflect what a school can do for its students. This is an exciting and dynamic time for law schools and applicants alike, and I look forward to a future where law school is a genuinely attainable option for anyone whose passion drives them to it. 

  • Let’s Put an End to Prosecutorial Immunity

    JABBAR COLLINS LANGUISHED in jail for over 16 years for a murder he apparently never committed. He was only freed a few years ago when it was revealed at a post-conviction hearing that the main witness at his trial had told the prosecutor that he was pressured by police to lie about Collins’ involvement in the murder.

    The prosecutor, representing the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, never shared that information with Collins’ lawyer—an egregious violation of the law, which requires the government to inform the defense of any exculpatory evidence. At the hearing, the judge who tossed out Collins’ conviction called the conduct of the prosecutor and the DA’s office “shameful” and a “tragedy.”

    I have been a federal district judge for the past 23 years sitting in the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. I have sentenced murderers, rapists, gangsters, drug lords, stock cheats, and just about every other type of criminal, but they were all clearly guilty of their crimes and I was able to sleep at night knowing that they deserved to be sitting in jail—some for the rest of their lives. I do lose sleep, however, over the Collins case and the rash of wrongful convictions that are continuing to be uncovered to this date in Brooklyn.

    The Collins case turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. Soon many other wrongful convictions, orchestrated by other Brooklyn prosecutors, began to surface. It became a huge scandal and a black mark against the criminal justice system in Brooklyn. It also animated a crusading civil rights lawyer named Ken Thompson to campaign against and defeat a 20-plus-year incumbent, making Thompson the first African-American district attorney in Brooklyn’s history.

    When Thompson took over a few years ago, he appointed a blue-ribbon committee to investigate all the alleged wrongful convictions the DA’s office had obtained throughout the years. So far, over 20 cases have been unearthed—almost all against poor African Americans.Many others are still being investigated. The phony cases have run the gamut from prosecutors not turning over exculpatory evidence (as in Collins’ case), to using false testimony from the same supposed eye-witness in at least three unrelated cases.

    After Collins was released, he brought a civil case seeking monetary damages against his prosecutor, the district attorney, and the City of New York. I was the judge who drew that case. I held that the City could be held liable for its misdeeds but I had to dismiss the case against the prosecutor and district attorney on the grounds of prosecutorial immunity. In my decision, I quoted the binding circuit court precedent I was duty-bound to follow.

    According to Taylor v. Kavanagh, based upon Supreme Court law, “The falsification of evidence and the coercion of witnesses…have been held to be prosecutorial activities for which absolute immunity applies. Similarly, because a prosecutor is acting as an advocate in a judicial proceeding, the solicitation and subornation of perjured testimony, the withholding of evidence, or the introduction of illegally-seized evidence at trial does not create liability in damages.”

    The law goes on to say that the rationale for this approach is “sound, for these protected activities, while deplorable, involve decisions of judgment affecting the course of a prosecution.”

    I question the soundness of this rationale, however. The “solicitation and subornation of perjured testimony, the withholding of evidence, or the introduction of illegally-seized evidence at trial” are not “decisions of judgment;” they are truly “deplorable” intentional acts—the antithesis of the exercise of judgment. Professional prosecutors, charged with the awesome responsibility of faithfully applying the law to guard against innocent people being convicted of crimes they did not commit, should be held accountable for such conduct.

    Because of the present status of the law, the prosecutors responsible for the wrongful convictions have neither been held criminally nor civilly responsible for their shameful conduct. Also troubling, taxpayers have had to foot the bill for millions of dollars in settlements from New York City and the State of New York, which are on the hook for the prosecutors’ misdeeds, and more are undoubtedly in the hopper. Collins settled his case for $13 million. Ron Kuby, the civil rights lawyer who represented a number of the wrongfully convicted in Brooklyn, recently told me that he believes the government has so far paid out between $300 million and $400 million.

    And the problem of wrongful convictions is not endemic to Brooklyn. For example, just a few years ago Senator Ted Stevens’ conviction was overturned because of egregious behavior by two overzealous prosecutors for the Justice Department. And there have been many recently reported in other parts of the country.

    It seems to me that the time has come to create some level of accountability for prosecutors.

    First, the cloak of absolute immunity should judicially or legislatively be lifted. Police officers do not have it and they are held accountable in courts of law for their egregious behavior. We wisely do not give our law enforcement officers, or even the President, carte blanche to do as they please; bad prosecutors should similarly be accountable.

    Second, steps can be taken by the legal establishment to punish such behavior. All prosecutors are lawyers and their licenses to practice law require them to abide by legally prescribed canons of ethics enforceable by the bar and the courts. Admirably, just a few months ago, the Indiana Supreme Court suspended the chief deputy prosecutor of LaPorte County, Indiana from the practice of law for a minimum of four years with no automatic right of reinstatement for eavesdropping on an attorney-client conversation. As in Collins’ case, the court described this conduct as “deplorable.” Other states should follow this lead.

    Third, prosecutors who intentionally withhold exculpatory evidence resulting in a wrongful conviction should be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. The good ones need not be concerned, but the bad “deplorable” ones should know that there might be civil, and even criminal, consequences for misconduct.

    We all hold dear to the time-honored notion that “no one is above the law.” Truly horrendous prosecutors who have put innocent people in jail should not be an exception.

  • Honest Mistake? I Think Not!

    By Sterling Hospedales

    130 federal judges broke the law and violated ethics by hearing cases involving companies they had a financial interest in over 11 years

    • An investigation found that more than 130 judges violated US law by overseeing cases involving companies in which they or their family held direct stock
    • The report found that these judges have improperly failed to recuse themselves from 685 US court cases since 2010
    • The jurists were appointed by presidents whose terms have spanned seven decades, from Lyndon B. Johnson to Donald J. Trump
    • Roughly two-thirds of the 131 jurists’ rulings ended up being in favor of their or their family’s financial interests
    • Of the two-thirds of judges who disclosed stock holdings, about a fifth of them presided over at least one case that involved their stock, the report showed

    An investigation found that 131 federal judges violated US law by overseeing cases involving companies in which they or their family held direct stock, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

    The judges failed to recuse themselves from 685 cases across the nation in which they held financial interest since 2010, the investigation revealed.  

    What’s more, when the judges participated in these cases, roughly two-thirds of their rulings ended up being in favor of their or their family’s financial interests.

    While there are no laws that prohibit judges from owning stocks, the federal jurists’ code of conduct demands judges recuse themselves in the event that they hold any semblance of financial interest in a case – or, the ‘ownership of a legal or equitable interest, however small,’ as the set of regulations defines it.

    The cases in question were all held between the years 2010 and 2020 – and of the two-thirds of federal judges who disclosed individual stock holdings, roughly a fifth of them presided over at least one case that involved their stock, the investigation showed. 

    After the Journal notified the judges of the findings of their sprawling study, 56 of the lawmen began to alert parties involved in 329 of the lawsuits, of their conflict of interest.

    Judges offered multiple explanations for their infringements when confronted by the paper.

    Most deflected the blame, citing administrative errors and arguing yjay their recusal lists contained misspellings that caused cases to slip through the cracks of their conflict-screening software. 

    Other judges called attention to rulings they made that resulted in their own financial losses. 

    With that said, the majority of jurists named in the study benefited greatly from the inside information.

    In New York, for instance, Judge Edgardo Ramos presided over a lawsuit between an Exxon Mobil Corp. unit and TIG Insurance Co. over a pollution concern – while owning between $15,001 and $50,000 of Exxon stock.  

    Ramos eventually ruled that TIG should pay Exxon $25 million, and even added $8 million of interest to the judgment.

    An federal court official argued that Ramos was unaware of the legal infracting he committed taking the case, as his ‘recusal list’ included only the parent company Exxon, and not the unit – and therefore was overlooked by court conflict-screening software, which worked only through exact matches.

    The unit, however, had previously informed the court at the outset of the case that it was a subsidiary of Exxon, so that Ramos – who was appointed by Barack Obama  -could ‘evaluate possible disqualification or recusal,’ court filings indicated. 

    In Colorado, Judge Lewis Babcock oversaw particularly troubling proceedings involving a Comcast Corp. subsidiary, in which he ruled in the telecommunications company’s favor after several of their employees were accused of harassing a family in Colorado. 

    In the case, a couple accused the telephone service company’s employees of threatening them, intimidating their 10-year-old daughter, and physically injuring their dog. 

    The pair asked Babcock to issue a judicial order barring the company from accessing their property to install fiber-optic cables. 

    Babcock – who was appointed by Ronald Reagan – ruled that the couple had ‘continually blocked Comcast’s access to the easement,’ and sent the case back to state court, which was what Comcast wanted.

    All the while, the judge or his family reportedly held between $15,001 and $50,000 in Comcast stock, the report revealed. 

    ‘I dropped the ball,’ Babcock attested when asked about his conflict of interest in the case. 

    The jurist went on to blame the infraction on internal administrative mishaps, and thanked the Journal for ‘helping me stay on my toes the way I’m supposed to.’

    Meanwhile, at an Ohio-based appeals court, Judge Julia Smith Gibbons authored an opinion that favored Ford Motor Co. in one particular court proceeding in 2014 – while her husband, Bill Gibbons, owned stock in the automaker. 

    Prior to Gibbons’ ruling, her husband’s financial advisor promptly purchased even more Ford stock, for his retirement account. 

    Gibbons – appointed by George W. Bush – claimed she had mistakenly assumed that a holding in her husband’s retirement account did not constitute a conflict of interest, and therefore require her recusal.

    ‘I regret my misunderstanding, but I assure you it was an honest one,’ Gibbons attested.

    A slew of judges who failed to disqualify themselves from cases that could potentially benefit them financially were named in the bombshell report – with jurists being appointed by presidents spanning seven decades, from Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump.

    The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts responded to the Journal’s exposé Tuesday, stating, ‘The Wall Street Journal’s report on instances where conflicts inadvertently were not identified before a case was resolved or transferred is troubling, and the Administrative Office is carefully reviewing the matter.’

    The office added that the federal judiciary branch of the US government ‘takes very seriously its obligations to preclude any financial conflicts of interest,’ and has since enacted measures – such as more advanced conflict-screening software and vigorous ethics training – to prevent such violations in the future.

  • How to Become an Attorney After a Felony Conviction

    By Sterling Hospedales

    As of 2017, three states – Kansas, Mississippi and Texas – and one U.S. territory, The Northern Mariana Islands, ban a felon from practicing law in their jurisdictions. In all other jurisdictions, there is no absolute ban, but the candidate must demonstrate his moral fitness. The means to do this vary from one jurisdiction to another. Becoming licensed will be difficult and often seemingly arbitrary.

    The General Requirement

    The preface to the “2017 Code of Recommended Standards for Bar Examiners” notes that the lawyer licensing process must go beyond competence and evaluate character and fitness_._ It further notes that “revelation or discovery” of “unlawful conduct should be treated as cause for further inquiry before the bar decides whether the applicant possesses the character and fitness to practice law.”

    Commission of a felony is categorically the most serious kind of unlawful conduct. However, the bar examiners do not ban you from taking the exam if you have a felony conviction. Once you have passed the bar exam, you must pass a state licensing board background check and be determined to be of good character before becoming licensed to practice.

    The Moral Character Exam

    After passing the bar exam, every new lawyer, not just those with criminal convictions, must submit to a moral character examination in the state where she intends to practice. You will be required to provide extensive documentation of several aspects of your past life, including where you have lived, where you have gone to school and your criminal background_._

    As a felon, the onus is then on you to convince your state’s licensing authority that you are now a person of good moral character. It is not for them to somehow “prove” you are not. What you must do to convince them varies in detail from state-to-state. In a few states, a certain length of time up to five years must pass from the date of the felony conviction before you can apply. And as histories of applicants who have passed or failed the moral character exam in their states show, there is a regrettable lack of consistency from one applicant to the next.

    For instance, in two different applications in Ohio that finally reached that state’s Supreme Court, one applicant with a felony conviction for sexual misconduct with minors was denied entry, while another applicant with a murder conviction was allowed to practice law.

    Reginald Betts

    Often, the “moral character” requirement seems particularly difficult for former felons to pass. In 2017, the Connecticut licensing board admitted Reginald Betts to practice law only after a feature in The New York Times protested the delay.

    Betts was sentenced for hi-jacking a car when he was 16, spent a year in solitary confinement and seven more years in prison. Following his release in 2005, he published two critically acclaimed books of poetry, received his BA, then an MFA, became a Radcliffe fellow at Harvard, graduated from Yale Law School and worked for a year in the public defender’s office in New Haven, where he lives with his wife and two children. Even so, the board’s initial response was that Betts’s record “manifesting a significant deficiency in (his) honesty, trustworthiness, diligence or reliability” could be grounds for denial.

    Following the Times article, Betts was admitted. However, from the date of his teenage felony conviction to his admission to the bar in Connecticut took 18 years and a feature article in The New York Times.

    A felon may be admitted to the bar in most states, but, as Betts’s admission shows, it will not be easy.

  • The Invention of Mass Incarceration

    By Sterling Hospedales

    Free Online Event from Annual Reviews, Knowable Magazine & JSTOR Daily

    Wednesday, March 23, 2022: 9AM Honolulu / 12PM San Francisco PST / 3PM New York EST

    Register Now.

    In the US today, prisons are considered an entrenched part of the criminal justice system, yet they are a relatively modern way of dealing with crime. How have society’s attitudes toward punishment shifted over time and why does it matter?

    Prisons were once considered a sign of progress, a victory for public health that was more humane than disease-ridden, overcrowded jails and the harsh physical punishments meted out on the town green. Yet today, prisons face a legitimacy crisis, and are considered by many policymakers and reformers as bloated, inhumane institutions. Even as scholarly work suggests that they are ineffective at making us safer, society has come to take the need for prisons and mass incarceration for granted. How did we get here? How have our attitudes toward prison, which some scholars date to around the time of the American Revolution, changed over time? Are prisons intended to punish to rehabilitate, or both? What’s reasonable to ask of prisons and do they ever work as intended? How is incarceration experienced by those who are imprisoned?

    Watch this discussion between a formerly incarcerated writer and a sociologist to learn how the history of prisons can inform our understanding of mass incarceration today.

    Register Now.

    Speakers:

    Ashley Rubin, University of Hawai‘i at M?noa
    Dr. Ashley Rubin’s research sits at the intersections of criminology, history, sociology, and sociolegal studies and focuses on the dynamics of penal change throughout US history. She seeks to understand why societies punish in different ways at different times and places in history and how penal change is possible — what causes a society to adopt new penal practices or abandon old ones. Rubin is the author of two books, including The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary and the Origins of America’s Modern Penal System, 1829-1913, and she is currently writing a book on the history of American prisons.

    Morgan Godvin, JSTOR Daily
    Morgan Godvin is an engagement editor with JSTOR Daily, assigned to the American Prison Newspapers collection. This primary source archive contains centuries worth of digitized newspapers produced by and for incarcerated people. Godvin is formerly incarcerated and now dedicates herself to the intersection of journalism, history, and mass incarceration. She is a 2022 Bard Prison Initiative Public Health Fellow and recent graduate of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health.

    Moderator: Emily Underwood, Science Content Producer, Virtual Events, Knowable Magazine
    Emily has been covering science for over a decade, including as a staff neuroscience reporter for science. She has a bachelor’s degree in Science and Technology Studies from Brown University and a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University. In 2016-17 Emily was a Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism, and her reporting has won national awards, including a 2018 National Academies Keck Futures Initiatives Communication Award for magazine writing.

    This was a reposted article, and the original can be found at https://daily.jstor.org/behind-bars-the-invention-of-mass-incarceration/