Boumediene
I have to run to court this morning so I can't say anything. Rather I'm opening this up for discussions. Habeas for Gitmo detainees. At long last, the King may not make his subjects disappear.
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 9:23 AM
90 Comments:
King and Legislature combined took the hit on this one.
King and Legislature combined took the hit on this one.
Anyone think Prof. Yoo is taking this one hard?
It's really interesting how Bush et al. were very interested in expanding executive powers, but because of their extreme claims and positions taken, have substantially weakened executive power through decisions like this one. That's no more clear than in Boumediene. The court originally denied cert., wtih Kennedy and Stevens writing a statement saying they were denying it for procedural grounds that the DC Circuit should be first allowed to evaluate the procedures under the DTA's CSRT appeal provision. Stevens and Kennedy explicitly warned Bush, however that:
"If petitioners later seek to establish that the Government has unreasonably delayed proceedings under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, Tit. X, 119 Stat. 2739, or some other and ongoing injury, alternative means exist for us to consider our jurisdiction over the allegations made by petitioners before the Court of Appeals. See 28 U. S. C. §§1651(a), 2241. Were the Government to take additional steps to prejudice the position of petitioners in seeking review in this Court, 'courts of competent jurisdiction,' including this Court, 'should act promptly to ensure that the office and purposes of the writ of habeas corpus are not compromised.'"
Instead of heeding the advice, Bush et. al. had pushed forward by playing the game of telling the DC Circuit one thing, that is that DTA's appeal provision is very narrow (essentailly giving no substantial rights for review), and telling SCOTUS that DTA appeal provision is much broader and a sufficient substitute for habeas corpus. The subsequent decision to grant rehearing on the denial of cert in Boumediene indicates that Boumediene is primarily a a reprimand for the Bush administration's antics, rather than a particularly principled statement of constitutional law.
This is pretty clear from the focus on the intent of the DTA/MCA rather than the effective scope of review under the DTA appeal provisions (which is still uncertain under DC case law and which is being appealed to SCOTUS in another case), and the courts treatment of Gitmo as some kind of sui generis territory (further distinguished from the court's ruling today in Munaf v. Geren which limits the effectiveness of habeas review for persons captured in another state's sovereign territory and to be turned over to that state).
"His subjects"?
Don't give the guy too much credit. Petitioners are actually someone else's subjects.
I have time this week to read only the syllabus and not the opinion or dissents, but . . . am I crazy to be confused why, based on Scalia's Hamdi dissent, he didn't join the majority? The basic positon of that dissent -- either suspend the writ (properly) or charge those who are citizen-detainees criminally -- seems compatible with Boumediene.
Excellent timing by the Court. They've been coy on this issue for the entire Bush administration, cautious about a direct confrontation with the President, but keeping their options open for future action. And this is the very best time to take an assertive stance--Bush is on his way out, and the candidates for office in '09 are too weak to decry the Court's decision.
I haven't read the opinion yet, but I believe that Boumediene is not a citizen. And that is why Scalia would dissent - he wouldn't apply habeas to non-citizen detainees.
McCain isn't shy with his criticism:
“The United States Supreme Court rendered a decision yesterday that I think is one of the worst decisions in history,” he told about 1,500 people attending a town hall-style meeting.
(article)
Any guesses for when grades will show up? Tuesday would be the earliest, but my bet is Wednesday (profs turn in grades to registrar by Monday, grades don't get entered into system until Tuesday at the earliest, show up on Bearfacts by Wednesday a.m.)
Have any 3Ls been unable to log onto Bearfacts? I tried to log on and got this message:
You are not eligible to use this system. If you think this is an error and you are a student, please call (510) 642-5990.
I should have said "graduated 3L"
- 9:45AM
I just got that message too.
I'm a graduated 3L and had no problem logging on to bearfacts to see that I still have not gotten all of my grades, but I got some. Glass half full!
Now I can log on. Guess they were doing maintenance or something earlier.
One day after the deadline, 50% of grades still missing...
I think the deadline was for prof to have their grades into the registrar (or maybe inputted online?) by today. So that means that they wouldn't appear on Bearfacts until tomorrow.
Sorry folks. I spoke with the registar and they've run out of grades. They just don't have anymore to give out. You'll have to try again next year.
I called the registrar today because I still don't have any of my grades. Was told it was a combination of late professors and main campus IT issues (huh?) and that I should see pretty much everything around mid-July.
Greeeaaaat.
Hey 7:54, is that a joke or are you serious? Because honestly it would make my day if they blamed main campus IT (again).
The Main Campus IT argument is the biggest load of shit that has ever been produced by the registrar's office, and that's really saying something.
7:54, I hope you're joking. The registrar's office would have alerted people to a 1-month delay. Also, you suck.
7:54 here, and I am completely serious. Completely annoyed and completely serious. I even asked them (as a graduated 3L) "Will the Bar at least get the necessary info on time?" Their response? "Oh, yeah. If we had to rely on BearFacts in order to get the Bar the information they need, we'd be in trouble." Wha--?
So basically, it's IT's fault (again) BUT the registrar has all our information (again).
I wish I was kidding. But I'm not kidding...just gradeless. Until July, apparently.
This makes no sense. I don't mean to sound like a Skeptical Sally, but (1) why would IT problems prevent only some grades from appearing (many of us do have some of our grades), and (2) who the hell would call the registrar on the day that grades are due and complain about not having their grades yet. Are you sure they weren't referring to when grades are posted to our transcripts?
7:54 here. Wow. I don't get a kick out of defending a lie on the blog, promise.
Maybe I should have waited, but I was concerned because one of my profs provided us with our grades individually and told us he had submitted them a week after finals, and his still isn't showing up. Even this morning, when I checked and had one grade finally posted, it wasn't his, which I think is really odd.
I don't know why they would blame IT--makes no sense to me either.
And I don't think that they thought I was asking about transcript availability; they stated that "everything should show up by mid-July." The fact that at least one of my grades has trickled in gives me some hope, though.
@11:14
If you believe the registrar, I got some great dot-com stock to sell you too!
I just got a grade today. Looks like they post as the Profs enter them in.
The story about registrar blaming main campus is way too believable though, they do it for everything.
all my grades, finally.
antitrust even!
Just spoke with the registrar. Unless your professor directly inputted grades into the system, then you will be waiting until mid-July for grades. Why? The gerbils are tired.
3Ls, they can tell you if you have "pass notification," which is their way of saying "You didn't fail, but we won't actually tell you what the grade is, even though we inputted it ourselves."
And for those still waiting on Dalhuisen's grades from March, keep waiting. Those won't be coming 'til July either.
Seriously? It's going to take a month to input grades? I can see a prof taking a long time to grade an essay exam, but a month to type in grades? Unbelievable. Does anybody know, is it somehow more complicated than it sounds?
Newsflash: the campus is kicking the treesitters out. I wonder if this has anything to do with a new UC President beginning his tenure yesterday?
I don't have the ability to regulate comments, but I have to flag 9:33-1 and 9:33-2. We can't reproduce an entire opinion piece from the WSJ without even a patina of commentary. It has to come down, and can instead be replaced with a link to the actual article.
And "anonymous," it's off to a semester of Intro to IP for you.
Re 11:40am. The University is expecting a ruling on the treesitter issue tomorrow. According to the Chron, they were hoping to keep an element of suprise.
My favorite quote: "Other sitters dropped excrement, but none scored a direct hit."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/17/BAEC11AJ2P.DTL&tsp=1
Thanks Tom, pretty important in light of the recent broohaha with the AP.
They have crossed the line by throwing urine and feces at the workers. Who knows what sorts of diseases they have? The police need to get them out of there.
Yes, those dirty hippies are most certainly disease infested.
Does shelanski send out an email every year saying how awesome the final exams were?
8:50, he said he doesn't. Why do you think he would lie about it?
Cause professors lie all the time about that stuff. It comes from a good place, though.
Any past or present 3Ls feel like giving us some general ideas of where the ranking cut-offs (i.e. top 5%, 10%, 15% etc.) are? I know a bit over 3.6 has been top 10% in the past.
Do professors email you before they sub-P you? Or does it just show up on bear facts (in mid-July)? Anyone have experience with this?
How about AmJurs & Prossers?
@ 8:50--Shelanski did not email the Spring 2007 antitrust class that our exams were totally awesome. So congrats to your class. I think Shelanski is a pretty straight shooter, so I'm not surprised he didn't lie.
@ 11:51--AmJurs and Prossers come later and don't show up on BearFacts. You'll get a letter and it'll be on your paper transcript. Maybe mid/end July.
Not exactly 12:05. They show up on bear facts when you select the all grades tab.
I second the rankings cut off request...but I'm more interested in the cut off for the median, bottom 45%, and bottom 40%.
The Boalt website suggests the cutoff for Order of the Coif has been in the 3.4 to 3.6 range, so that seems like a good estimate of the 10% cutoff. Although, I'd be interested in knowing if 8:39 is correct that the 10% cutoff has recently been a bit higher.
Last year, top 20% was ~ 3.45 and top 15% was around 3.55
That doesn't make sense.
Wait. Nevermind.
--6:36
AmJurs & Prossers also appear on the "all grade" tab under a section labeled "memoranda."
Once your grades move over to the all grades tab, awards will also appear.
I'm more interested in the cut off for the median, bottom 45%, and bottom 40%.
Wouldn't revealing that information go directly against our whole no rankings/gpa policy?
If you assume a normal distribution (probably an imperfect but not ridiculous model), you know the approximate average gpa (5*.1 + 3*.3 +2*.6 = 2.6), you know approximate the 10% cutoff (say about 3.55). You then have enough data to estimate your approximate percentile given your gpa.
Well that assumes the curve from 1L year applies throughout (it doesn't) and that it applies to all classes (it doesn't).
More fundamentally, the cutoff ends at 50th percentile. Below that, your guess is as good as any one else's, but probably best not to guess.
And it can't be a normal distribution, at least not with a mean of 2.6, because no one will have a GPA below 2 (0.6 below the mean) but many people have GPAs above 3.2 (0.6 above the mean).
There is still a curve for 2nd and 3rd year courses, and although more flexible, it is still approximately 10 30 60, up to 15 30 60.
The point about the distribution is true, a beta distribution would be better.
2 and 3Ls can also do independent study/writing, which is not graded on a curve.
HH=4 grade points; H=4 grade points; P=3 grade points. Right? How can we get lower than a 3.0?
HH = 5
H = 3
P = 2
lol@8:55. Why would an HH be the same as an H?
From the Student Services Website
Academic Rules 3.04
Reporting of Grades to the Office of the Registrar
(i) honors (H and HH) will be reported as A; (ii) pass grades (P) will be reported as B, except that pass grades designated as Substandard will be reported as C and (iii) No Credit grades will be reported as F.
So. . . We have 2 grade point averages? (And, yes, according to this rule, H and HH are the same).
That's with respect to the main campus registrar. If you order a transcript from main UCB registrar, your grades will be reported as A, B, etc. according to that rule. However, that has nothing to do with rankings, order of the coif, firms, etc. The grade points used for that is 5, 3, 2. Make sense? Sometimes, it helps to step away and think about things.
I'm a little disappointed in the administration about this grade fiasco. I'm still missing half of my grades at the end of the week following the deadline. My best source of information regarding why is anonymous posts on an unofficial student blog saying that the rest of the grades won't be available until the middle of July. I probably couldn't come up with a better model for incompetence. The only plausible explanations are completely unacceptable:
1) The school lacks the discipline of faculty necessary to enforce an entirely reasonable deadline
2) The main campus is causing a problem, but the law school lacks a reasonably creative capacity to get our grades to us by other means (individual emails, website, posting by exam #)
3) The main campus is not to blame at all, the law school has all of the grades, but is some how screwing things up.
On top of all of this, there hasn't been a word from the administration. Regardless of what the problem is, it wouldn't be that hard to send out a quick email.
I'm highly skeptical of the "blame it on main campus" theory since as far as I've been informed, Haas meets its deadlines for grades availability. Any Berkeley grads care to confirm whether their grades were delayed during their undergrad years?
Blame it on the professors - all my grades are up just because I'm lucky enough to have professors who abide by the rules. And I saw one of my professors turning in his grades on Monday, which in turn showed up on bear facts on Wednesday - this means the registrar did its job.
For once, this really isn't a thing that the registrar or administration can be blamed for.
They tell professors to have grades completed by June 15. Some professors (particularly those with tenure) miss/ignore the deadline. What exactly does anyone expect Mindi or Mary Kelleher-Jones to do?
I expect them to send them daily (at a minimum) reminders to get their damn grades in. If the professors don't have tenure, their failure to adhere to grading deadlines should be considered in the decision to grant or deny tenure.
Also, they should let students submit class evals throughout the summer, so that students can withhold their eval until the professor turns the grade in.
Is anyone seriously going to refrain from taking a class because the professor takes until July to get grades in? What if it was Swift's evidence class?
Maybe not a prof like Swift with her amazing reputation. It would influence me if I am only somewhat interested in taking the class. Having to wait 7 weeks for grade is really annoying and it shows a lack of respect on the part of the professor, I think.
Bullshit it's not the registrar's fault. They still have grades that they're still not reporting. They always do this, and the administration doesn't give damn.
I think it's pretty ridiculous for anyone to suggest that Berkeley is going to make tenure or hiring decisions based on whether someone takes an extra two weeks to grade exams.
It sucks when your grades are delayed. Still, I don't think I'm going to take classes or professors that I like less, only because I have to be a little more patient during the vacation.
And I don't see on what basis anyone can say that the registrar is just sitting on grades. Why the hell would they do that with students emailing and calling all day? Whenever I've heard a professor indicate to the class that he/she has sent the grades to the registrar, the grades always show up on Bearfacts a day or two later. (With the exception of the IT snafu in Fall 2006.)
That I'm still missing grades is only part of my annoyance. I want to know WHY. If professors are late, tell us that professors are late so we can appropriately focus our resentment. If it is main campus's fault, tell me so I can stop checking bearfacts until it is fixed.
Carbolic, it's nice for you and everyone else who's gotten their grades. Cheers! But among the calls to the registrar you mention have been those that got the following response: "Yes, we have the grades for that course, and no, you're not going to get them until mid-July."
Why? Good question. Incompetence, laziness, and seemingly utter unaccountability come to mind ...
Is it appropriate to list amjurs and prossers on one's resume? How about a firm bio?
Well that's a douchy question, but a valid one. Yes for resumes, no for bios. It's meaningful in distinguishing yourself from your classmates. But from co-workers, not really.
As long as we're on this, I still think Boalt should create a whole slate of BS awards like Columbia's Harlan Fikse Stone Scholars. Top 10% of the class after 1L year? Congrats, you're an Earl Warren Scholar. Top 40%? A Cisco Systems Scholar (tongue in cheek).
A) There aren't that many AmJurs and Prossers given out.
B) The award system is a much better way of setting people up for clerkships (and less competitive) than the current rankings method. As discussed ad nauseam on these pages before, most other top schools don't rank like we do. Meh.
Back to the ranking discussion, can anyone who is/was in the top 10% provide their GPA? (and what year you are) thanks!
Sure. I'm a 2L. Mine is 5.0.
Actually no, don't. Your ranking is to be used for clerkships and academic positions. Not for online d*** measuring contests. This has been an issue in the past. And I'm more than happy to quash the dreams of hyper-competitive super-eager die hards. The grades are what they are. Your rank is what it is. Go volunteer for Obama now. Yeesh.
Actually, Armen, I was asking because I am applying to clerkships and am trying to gauge whether I have a chance at moving up to top 10%, or whether I should go ahead and send my applications out now. But thanks for being your usual assholish self.
FWIW, I had a 3.55 GPA last semester and was in the top 15% (Class of 2008).
- 3:37PM
I'm happy that you're applying for clerkships, and I hope you have a very successful run at it. That still doesn't change the fact that asking others to post their rankings and grades here is:
a) for your own personal ego, competitive curiosity, and satisfaction because frankly how will knowing where others in different years rank affect your application process? And if it does, might we assume your intelligence doesn't extend to the practical?; and
b) if not clearly prohibited by the honor code, discussing grades with classmates is at least discouraged (something of a personal crusade for me). The school limits your use of that information for two very limited purposes in the faint hope of discourage intra- and inter-class competition (see, e.g., Hastings). But in an Orwellian, Bushism sort of way, comparing yourself to your classmates becomes acceptable as long as the ultimate goal is a clerkship (or academic position).
Hope the anxiety winds down. You can stop competing. School's out. Your sense of self-worth will be completely validated soon once grades come out. And no, there are no amjurs on the bar exam.
Signed,
"A"AA
a) I might be more inclined to go ahead and send out my applications if it is revealed that others from the class of '08 with higher GPAs than mine are not in the top 10%. If, on the other hand, someone with a similar GPA to mine is in the top 10%, I might wait for the official rankings to come out. Does that help?
b) Anonymous discussion of GPAs for clerkship purposes falls clearly outside the ambit of the honor code's prohibition of class rank disclosure.
even if people want to know for personal curiosity, is that such a bad thing?
Well even more "clearly" I'm going to respect the admins wishes and not allow anonymous rankings discussions on this forum. But feel free to ask around however else you please. Be sure to tell them your GPA and rank too.
4:38, I think it's a horrible thing. I think it easily captures the worst tendencies of law schools. I hate that with a passion. Now, I've come a long way in putting aside my own personal preferences in some regard. For example, I didn't want to do the OCIP threads about firm offers, but since those are seen as overwhelmingly popular/useful, I caved.
I think discussion clerkship app process, what grades ranks go where, etc. are useful and quite helpful. But anything that reeks of comparing yourself to others makes me want to vomit.
Folks are free to discuss grades, class rank, and clerkships at Berkeley law blog.
My god.
Is this thread a window to the inner workings of the "chill" boaltie mind? I can't believe I go to school with you people.
Speaking of non-chill Boalties, I had one of those "oh my god I'm so naive" moments the other day during a bathroom break of bar bri. I heard people discussing how they had already heard Franzeze for a 1L bar bri lecture. Ummm...1L bar bri lectures? What??? Did people get HHs or Hs by taking 1L bar bri classes? If so, I feel as dumb as I felt when I found out that people take SAT prep courses (yes, I'm from a small town in the middle of nowhere, and I and took he SAT cold way back then, having no idea that you were supposed to prepare for it).
7:39, were these Boalties or not? If so then it's really bizarre. If not then it's nothing to worry about. Essentially, if you go to like Millard Filmore School of Law, there's this thing called "the baby bar" that you have to take after your 1L year. And like any good test prep company, Bar/Bri offers courses/lectures for the baby bar.
to switch topics a bit. I know its a bit early but what are some good places (besides vault) to research firms for OCIP? I need something at least somewhat productive to do during my "working" hours.
Switching topics! Thank goodness.
Try Chambers and Partners
Yes, it was a Boaltie making the Bar Bri comment - though it was someone who is that rare breed of Boaltie who is best summed up as "repulsive". It's good to know that 1L Bar Bri is not normal, if nothing else just so I don't feel like a dumbass again.
The Boalties who've done the 1L Barbri classes are probably referring to the review classes Barbri offers if you sign up for Barbir 1L year to lock in the low, low rate. Along with getting review books, Barbri offers review classes for the 1L classes and other major 2L/3L classes.
I didn't attend any of them, but I really can't see how hearing one lecture more than two years ago could even possibly be helpful for bar prep. Other than getting extra time with Franzese's musical talents, perhaps.
Deep breaths, 10:51, deep breaths. Remember that if you have to tell people how smart you are, you aren't; if you have to tell people how much you've studied, you haven't; and if you have to tell people how many MBE questions you're getting right, you're probably thinking Sakai's essay predictions are legit.
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