Critics warn confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor could turn into a partisan battle.

Bill Mears
CNN Supreme Court Producer

These rulings or cases are from Sonia Sotomayor's service as a trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan), from 1992-98; and most prominently, an appeals judge on the U-S Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, from 1998. That New York City-based court handles appeals from New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.

Most federal appeals are heard by a three-judge panel that changes from case to case, from a larger pool of full-time judges, which in the 2nd Circuit numbers 12. A particular panel normally hears oral arguments, and has the option of issuing a full opinion. Sotomayor wrote opinions in many of the appeals listed below, but not all. In some bigger cases, the full circuit court will re-hear a case.

1. WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION – Ricci v. Stefano (2008)

• AT ISSUE: "Reverse" discrimination claim over a city's duty to carry out the results of employment tests even if they reduce job opportunities for minority workers. New Haven, CT officials used their discretion to decline certifying results of exams for promotions that would make disproportionately more whites eligible for promotions than minority applicants. City was concerned certifying them would lead to allegations of racial discrimination. Involves 20 firefighters led by white plaintiff Frank Ricci who sued after being denied promotion to lieutenant.
• HOW SHE RULED: Upheld rejection of the white firefighters' lawsuit, but the three-judge panel she was a part did not issue a full explanation of their decision, drawing criticism from other judges.
• QUOTE FROM ORAL ARGUMENT: "We're not suggesting that unqualified people be hired..." but "if your test is going to always put a certain group at the bottom of the pass rate so they're never, ever going to be promoted, and there is a fair test that could be devised that measures knowledge in a more substantive way, then why shouldn't the city have an opportunity to try to look and see if it can develop that?"
• IMPACT: Her ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court June 27, 2009.

2. ENVIRONMENT – Riverkeeper v. EPA (2007)

• AT ISSUE: Whether the Clean Water Act allows the EPA to use a cost-benefit analysis when approving the most environmentally friendly technology at cooling water intake structures. Her appeals court said companies must adopt the best technology available, a standard utility companies say would prove too costly.
• HOW SHE RULED: 2nd Circuit opinion was written by Sotomayor, who ruled for the environmental groups. Supreme Court reversed.
• QUOTE FROM HER RULING: "Congress has already specified the relationship between cost and benefits in requiring that the technology designated by the EPA be the best available."

3. FEDERAL LAWSUIT LIABILITY – Makeso v. Correctional Services Corp. (2000)

• AT ISSUE: Do lawsuits against the government extend to federal contractors. A federal prisoner sued a contractor running the facility because guards allegedly made him climb stairs, despite knowing he had a heart condition. He later had a heart attack when falling down stairs, also suffering other injuries. The man was in a halfway house for securities fraud.
• HOW SHE RULED: The appeals panel on which she sat ruled for the man. In her opinion, she concluded, under a 1971 Scotus precedent, companies performing government functions could be sued the same as federal employees. The high court reversed, saying only individual employees, not corporations, could be sued for any such violations.
• QUOTE FROM HER RULING: "Extending Bivens [previous high court precedent] liability to reach private corporations furthers [its] overriding purposes: providing redress for violations of constitutional rights."

4. DISABILITIES – Bartlett v. NY State Board of Law Examiners (1999)

• AT ISSUE: Workplace discrimination claim over whether a person with learning and reading disability deserved extra time to take her bar exams.
• HOW SHE RULED: Favored the woman and ordered the state to accommodate, saying test scores alone were not enough to determine a disability diagnosis. Supreme Court ordered the court to re-examine the issue, concluding that if someone is able to function like others with the help of glasses, medication, or otherwise compensating for their disabilities, they were not protected under the ADA. Upon reexamining the case, Sotomayor and her fellow judges again ruled for the woman.
• QUOTE FROM HER RULING: "By its very nature, diagnosing a learning disability requires clinical judgment."

5. STRIP SEARCHES – N.G. and S.G. v. Connecticut (2004)

• AT ISSUE: Did administrators have proper discretion to conduct a strip search on female students? Involves searches of girls at juvenile detention centers in Connecticut.
• HOW SHE RULED: She dissented from two male colleagues, who found some searches were legal, thereby shielding school officials from liability. The Supreme Court is currently deciding a similar case from Arizona involving a 13-year-old girl strip searched by officials looking for ibuprofen.
• QUOTES FROM HER DISSENT: Searches were "embarrassing and humiliating. The officials inspected the girls' naked bodies front and back, and had them lift their breasts and spread out folds of fat." Criticized the other judges who she said dismissed "the privacy interests of emotionally troubled children." "Our caselaw consistently has recognized the severely intrusive nature of strip searches and has placed strict limits on their use."

6. SECOND AMENDMENT – Maloney v. Cuomo (2009)

• AT ISSUE: Does a state ban on certain types of weapons violate the Second Amendment?
• HOW SHE RULED: She rejected a lawsuit from a man who wanted to possess a martial arts weapon called a nunchuka, made of two sticks joined by chain or rope. Sotomayor said the Second Amendment "right of the people to keep and bear arms" applied only to the federal government, and had not yet been applied to states.
• QUOTE FROM HER RULING: "The Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right."
• IMPACT: In a separate 2004 ruling (U.S. v. Sanchez Villar) that rejected a challenge to New York state's pistol licensing law, Sotomayor and her fellow judges concluded in a footnote, "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right."

7. FREE SPEECH – Pappas v. Giuliani (2002)

• AT ISSUE: Was it proper to fire a government worker for engaging in allegedly racist acts on the job, but unrelated to his job? NYPD desk employee was sent packing for mailing back solicitations for charitable contributions with racist and bigoted materials.
• HOW SHE RULED: The appeals court concluded the city had the right to terminate the man without violating his free speech rights. But Sotomayor dissented, saying the employee's speech was anonymous, and that he was neither a policymaker nor worked a beat.
• QUOTE FROM HER DISSENT: While the speech was "patently offensive, hateful, and insulting," she cautioned the majority against "gloss[ing] over three decades of jurisprudence and the centrality of First Amendment freedoms in our lives just because it is confronted with speech is does not like." The NYPD's race relations concerns "are so removed from the effective functioning of the public employer that they cannot prevail over the free speech rights of the public employee."

Lanny Davis
The Washington Post

Suppose a black female nurse is seriously injured during her work at a hospital and is forced to take a medical leave of absence. When she returns almost a year later, she reapplies for new jobs but doesn't get any offers of comparable salary and seniority. For one of the jobs for which she was turned down, two white women with disabilities are chosen. For another job for which she was rejected, a younger white male is hired.

So how did Judge Sonia Sotomayor rule? The ultra-right talk-show hosts who spent all last week attacking the judge as a "liberal activist" or even a "racist" would surely predict that she would have ruled in favor of this sympathetic black female with a severe disability.

They would have been wrong.

Read Judge Sotomayor's 11-page published opinion, on behalf of a unanimous three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in the case of Norville v. Staten Island University Hospital. The case, decided Nov. 3, 1999, can be found in the published federal court decision reports at 196 F.3d 89.

She found no race or age discrimination and voted for a new trial on the disability claim because of legally erroneous jury instructions.

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Jami Floyd
In Session

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Voting Rights Act became law 44 years ago; but it has been repeatedly challenged and repeatedly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Today, it’s back before the justices with a case focused on the usual suspects: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, states with a long and ugly history of discrimination at the voting booth. But Section 5, the section of the law specifically at issue, also covers Alaska and parts of California and New York. In fact, there are a total of 16 states that are required to get approval from the Justice Department before they can change any of their statutory voting procedures.

Some of these states are actually asking the justices to uphold the law as a model of civil rights integrity and enforcement.

But, God love ‘em, Georgia and Alabama, states with the most notorious of histories, are fighting the case tooth and nail. They argue that there is no need for a law rooted in the past, a law passed 25 years ago; and they’re pointing to Barack Obama as proof.

But with all due respect to the president, his election is not proof that racial discrimination is a thing of the past, at the polls or anywhere else. In Alabama, for example, voting is still polarized along racial lines; fewer than 11 percent of white voters there supported Obama. Beyond that, there are hundreds of examples — across the country — of elaborate schemes to suppress the black vote, schemes undone by the requirements of the VRA.

All of this will play out once again in the Supreme Court. But this time the arguments will be held before a new, more conservative Court, including a chief who has long expressed his opposition to the VRA.

Let’s hope the majority can help the Court see its way to justice.

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Editor’s Note: In a federal courtroom yesterday, a furious judge dismissed the charges against former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens and launched a criminal investigation of the prosecutors who bungled the case. That’s the headline; here are the details, as reported by CNN’s Terry Frieden

Stevens and his wife, Catherine, arrive Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Washington.

Terry Frieden
CNN Justice Producer

This was a truly extraordinary hearing, and very dark day for the entire Justice Department. Those in the courtroom were treated to high drama, yet tragically no cameras were allowed.

Judge Emmett Sullivan, and then defense attorney Brendan Sullivan, Stevens’s chief counsel and no relation to the judge, each gave a very lengthy, emotional, blistering, truly devastating summary of the government's very serious failures in the Stevens case. Paul O’Brien, leader of the new prosecution team that replaced the original members after problems in the case surfaced, stood briefly to apologize totally and did not disagree with any of the criticism.

Stevens then gave a fairly straight forward, not particularly emotional statement:

To the judge: "Your dedication to public service is an inspiration to me, and without your experience and vigilance, the truth would never have been known.”

To his former constituents: "I would also like to thank the countless Alaskans who have offered me their prayers and encouragement. I am blessed and honored to have served them as their Senator for the last 40 years.”

To the original prosecution team: "Until recently, my faith in the criminal justice system was unwavering. But what some members of this prosecution team did nearly destroyed my faith. Their conduct has consequences they must know can never be reversed. But today, Your Honor, through your leadership and commitment to the rule of law, my faith has been restored, and for that I can never thank you enough. Your actions give me new hope that others may be spared from similar miscarriages of justice.”

"It is my hope that when the dust settles, I will encourage the enactment of legislation to reform laws relating to the responsibilities and duties of those entrusted with the solemn task of enforcing federal criminal laws.

Thank you.”

But it will be the words of Brendan Sullivan, and words and actions of Judge Emmet Sullivan that will be remembered.

Judge Sullivan complained that the Justice Department's internal investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) which disciplines federal prosecutors had been going on for six months and he had not heard anything about it, other than two references in court in October and December. In those cases the original trial team said basically you don't need to worry about any errors we may have committed because OPR is thoroughly investigating.

Judge Sullivan, outraged that there had been nothing released publicly from the Justice investigation, declared, "The silence is deafening".

"In nearly 25 years on the bench, I've never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I've seen in this case."

"It (to get to the truth) should not depend on a new Administration, a new attorney general, a new trial team, but on the government's commitment to pursue prosecutions fairly."

"This court has an independent obligation to see that any misconduct is addressed, so I will initiate an investigation, criminal contempt proceedings....I have not pre-judged the prosecutors. I hope we find no intentional obstruction of justice. I expect the government will fully cooperate with this investigation."

The judge then said, "This court has an independent obligation to see that any misconduct is addressed." He announced he would initiate criminal contempt proceedings against SIX members of the original prosecution team, and named them: William Welch, Brenda Morris, Joseph Botini, Nicholas Marsh, Jim Goeke, and Edward Sullivan (no relation to the judge or Stevens’s lead attorney).

Judge Sullivan did not explain why he named these attorneys while not mentioning others who perhaps he might have been expected to include. Of the six, William Welch is the current Section Chief of the Office of Public Integrity - as he was during the time that the original prosecution team was handling the case. And a second individual on that list, Brenda Morris, we are told is still the Deputy Section Chief under Welch. The other four are line attorneys. All are career prosecutors. The Office of Public Integrity, which handles all public corruption cases, reports to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division (now Acting Asst. A.G. Rita Glavin, who appointed the new team) and then up to the Attorney General and Dep. Attorney General.

Judge Sullivan said he has already selected Henry Schuelke III to lead the investigation and fully expects the Justice Department to provide all the materials Schuelke will need. He added, "I have not pre-judged the prosecutors. I hope he finds no intentional obstruction of justice."

Yesterday, a Department of Justice spokesperson said, “we will review the order regarding an investigation of prosectuors’ conduct and will continue to cooperate with the court on this matter.”

In the courtroom, the government prosecutor, Paul O'Brien said, "We deeply regret this occurred. We apologize to the court this occurred."

He did not try in any way to justify the conduct by the previous prosecution team. O'Brien was the only prosecutor to speak; he was joined in the courtroom by two other members of the new prosecution team–David Jaffe and William Stuckwich. All three men were greatly praised by both the judge and the defense for having found and turned over within a matter of about five weeks what the previous team had failed to disclose in more than a year.

And in an extraordinarily rare moment, Senator Stevens, when he entered the courtroom, walked over to the prosecution table. The three members of the new prosecution team stood, and Stevens shook hands with each of them.

Mark Hugo Lopez
Pew Hispanic Center

At a time when Latinos are interacting more than ever with police, courts and prisons, their confidence in the U.S. criminal justice system is closer to the low levels expressed by blacks than to the high levels expressed by whites, according to a pair of nationwide surveys by the Pew Research Center.

Six-in-ten (61%) Hispanics say they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that the police in their local communities will do a good job enforcing the law, compared with 78% of whites and 55% of blacks. Just under half (46%) of Hispanics say they have confidence that police officers will not use excessive force on suspects, compared with 73% of whites and 38% of blacks. Similarly, just under half of Hispanics say they are confident that police officers will treat Hispanics fairly (45%) and that courts will treat Hispanics fairly (49%). In comparison, 74% of whites and 37% of blacks say they have confidence that the police will treat blacks and whites equally.

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Sen. Patrick Leahy's comments are likely to re-ignite a simmering debate about how actively to focus on past political and legal policy disputes.

Terry Frieden
CNN Justice Department Producer

The FBI has now launched 38 major corporate fraud investigations stemming from the nation's financial crisis, and that number could grow sharply, a top FBI official testified Wednesday.

The disclosure by FBI Deputy Director John Pistole (Pis-tul) reveals an increase of at least a dozen newly-opened investigations of large financial institutions since the FBI last year reported it was looking into about two dozen major firms. And the scope of the criminal probes is certain to grow.

"It could potentially rise into the hundreds. It is an exponential potential," Pistole told a Senate panel.

The undisclosed targets of the investigation were described as "significantly large" and "businesses we all know about".

Pistole said the total number of corporate fraud investigations nationwide, including some apparently unrelated to the current economic crisis, already totals 530.

Pistole's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee accompanied a warning from the panel of top federal law enforcement officials that the massive government expenditures being approved by Congress will make inviting targets for perpetrators of financial fraud.

"We're going to see the demand on law enforcement resources increase," said Rita Glavin,(GLAY-vun) Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department Criminal Division. Glavin cited the glut of fraud cases that followed government expenditures designed to help Katrina victims, which involved far less federal money. She said she welcomed Congressional offers to increase resources to help battle financial fraud.

Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General for the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program), echoed the need for resources, but praised the FBI for its level of assistance in pursuing potential fraud with TARP funds.

Pistole promised the panel that if more funds were directed to the FBI to combat white collar crimes, they would be used only for that purpose. He said currently the FBI is trying to decide whether it can afford to move some of the 2,000 FBI agents and analysts who were shifted to counterterrorism following 9/11 to help fight fraudsters without harming national security.

On mortgage fraud investigations, Pistole said the FBI has 240 agents working cases along with roughly an equal number of task force members. But the FBI has opened more than 1,800 mortgage investigations, and is swamped as the number of mortgage-related probes continues to rise.

Glavin said the Justice Department was considering whether to form a National Mortgage Fraud Task Force. Her division already oversees the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force and the National Procurement Fraud Task Force.

The officials said they are focusing mortgage-related investigative efforts almost entirely on licensed professionals because that provides the greatest deterrent.

"They have the most to lose, they're the most likely to flip and they make the best examples," Barofsky said.

Senators from both political parties expressed unanimous support for current efforts to fight white collar crime, and vowed to push proposed bipartisan legislation to curtail financial and mortgage fraudsters.

"Frankly, I want to see them go to jail," said Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, as he concluded the hearing.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session.”

Jami Floyd
AC360° contributor and In Session anchor

I’ve predicted quite publicly, including on national television, that President Barack Obama will make his first Supreme Court appointment within his first 100 days. But I wouldn’t have predicted one this soon. And while it is true that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is undergoing cancer treatment here in New York, has no immediate plan to retire, news of her hospitalization has sparked a flurry of speculation about who might replace her, were she to do so.

It’s all very morbid, I know, but statistics alone suggest that President Obama will name at least three justices in the coming months and years. Justice Stevens may be sharp as a tack; but he will turn 89 in April. Justices Kennedy and Scalia are both 72, and the latter has indicated that he would rather not live out his days on the Court, as has Justice Souter (he is a sprightly 69).

So there will be openings, no doubt. Whoever he appoints, President Obama will shift the dynamic of the court at a time of dynamic change in our country. These will be among the most important decisions of his presidency in a presidency that will be chock full of them.

Still, the appointments are for life, and at least for now, there is no vacancy. For her part, Justice Ginsburg has never missed a day of work due to illness since her appointment in 1993, including when she was battling colon cancer 10 years ago. I have met Justice Ginsburg. She is a tiny woman, but she is tough. And I will pray for her a speedy recovery.

Anderson talks with Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin about how Justice Ginsburg's cancer may affect the Supreme Court.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session.”

Jami Floyd
AC360° contributor and In Session anchor

We hear from our friends at the Innocence Project that a big report is coming down on forensic science. Apparently, the National Academy of Sciences has spent the last two years studying the use of forensics in criminal cases. Their conclusion: Forensic evidence presented in court is often based on shoddy science practices in the lab.

That includes fingerprinting, ballistics, blood spatter and bite marks, hair and handwriting analysis, all of which have been used to convict thousands of defendants for the better part of the last hundred years.

It is worth noting that the National Academy of Sciences is the country’s top scientific research group. So forget what you’ve seen on CSI. In reality, forensic science is not foolproof. In my view, forensics suffers, most fundamentally, from a lack of independence. After all, this branch of “science” was developed by police and prosecutors to close cases. The inherent bias is compounded by poorly trained technicians who exaggerate the accuracy of their methods in court.

Bottom line: We are convicting people in this country based on outdated and/or untested theories presented by analysts who very often have no background in science or statistics. But there is a simple solution: Oversight.

Congress should establish a federal agency to guarantee accuracy and independence. As the forthcoming report concludes, such oversight is the only way to promote universal standards in a branch of science that incorporates anthropology, biology, chemistry, medicine, physics and the law. I hope our lawmakers will take notice. They all talk a good game of believe in our constitutional system of justice. Let’s see them take this important step to protect it.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session.”

A performer rides an elephant during a live performance of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Jami Floyd
AC360° contributor and In Session anchor

I met my first elephant at the Central Park Zoo, when I was a very little girl and I was smitten. Over the years, I read all about them and went to the circus whenever it came to town. So imagine the thrill when, as an adult, I had the good fortune to see elephants in the wild.

I have seen them feed. I’ve seen their burial rituals. I have even been charged by a mother elephant protecting her calf.

Through it all, here is what I have learned: Elephants are a lot like people. They have emotions of a sort. They remember things like we do. And they are social animals; they like the company of other elephants and of people too. But when all is said and done, they are not people. They are still elephants.

So we need to ask ourselves some hard questions about our relationship with them.

Of course, no animal should be abused. But as we put Ringling Bros. on trial, let’s keep in mind that most kids in this country will never see an elephant in the wild. The only real elephants they will ever see will be in the zoo or at a parade — or at the circus. After all, that’s where my love of these graceful creatures was born.

If we want our children to learn to love them too, we will need to make our peace with animals in captivity and with those who choose to work with them there.

Terry Frieden
CNN Justice Producer

Only minutes into his reign at the Justice Department the new Attorney General displayed the casual, affable style for which he was known—and widely appreciated—by career employees from legal scholars to rookie secretaries during his stint as Deputy Attorney General during President Clinton’s second term. So, the huge ovation he received upon his arrival was not surprising. Holder was a popular choice within the Justice Department community when he was nominated, including the important backing of both former FBI Director Louis Freeh and current FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Holder took lots of time to shake every hand, take every picture, greet every employee who attended the swearing in. Then without hesitation he waded into the bevy of Justice-based journalists and comfortably began to chat and joke. He provided no important news, but the accessibility was a remarkable change from eight years during which Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and Michael Mukasey had largely kept the press at arm’s length.

As if to accentuate the difference in style, hours later Holder wandered unannounced into the Justice Department press room and plopped down for more give and take. As we watched the CNN monitors with the news that Tom Daschle had resigned, the Attorney General said he’d been too busy to watch any TV news on his first day and he wasn’t quite up to speed on the day’s events. Holder wasn’t sure whether he liked the formal full-length picture of himself which a reporter had torn from a magazine and posted in the press room. But he was at ease with the journalists—both newcomers to the beat, as well as a couple of us old-timers who had been here during his first go-around. This time he’s the boss, and he won’t have to worry that Janet Reno is on the fifth floor wondering why her deputy was chatting with the press.

Holder had begun his day boldly declaring “a new day,” and vowing to “remake the Department of Justice.”

“It was a bit over the top,” a Holder friend admitted. And Holder himself acknowledged that departing Attorney General Mike Mukasey and his deputy Mark Filip who are both well respected had quietly worked effectively for more than a year to restore a sense of unity and purpose in the Department. Democrats on Capitol Hill in particular tend to whip Gonzales for ruining the Justice Department, but ignore Mukasey and Filip’s rebuilding efforts. “They just didn’t have the luxury of time”, Holder said. The Attorney General knows his department well, and knows most of it is not “broken”. He also knows there will be many long, hard days starting Wednesday. But Day One, was a day to kick back, embrace his many new employees, get re-acquainted former colleagues, and enjoy his new view from the pinnacle of the world of federal law enforcement.

Robert Baer
Time

The last thing the CIA needs right now is another scandal, let alone two.

Allegations that the CIA chief in Algiers (identified in the press, though not by the government, as Andrew Warren) drugged and raped two women is going to badly hurt. The accusations that Harold Nicholson, a former CIA operative in federal prison convicted of spying for the KGB, continued his work from behind bars isn't nearly as serious, but it won't exactly help the agency's reputation. Nicholson, who allegedly enlisted his son to collect his KGB "pension" and to pass on whatever secrets dad still knows, is pretty much stale history. But even so, the news is an unwanted reminder that the KGB was eating the CIA's lunch in the '90s — along with the National Security Agency's and the Department of Defense's. (See the top 10 Secret Service code names.)

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Drew Peterson's behavior after his wife disappeared deepened suspicion, but he says she ran off.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Lisa Bloom blogs on “In Session”

Lisa Bloom
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Last week Chrissy Raines made news by leaving Drew Peterson, the man who is a suspect in the murders of his third and fourth wives. Twenty-four year old Chrissy Raines and her two children, ages 4 and 5, had been living with Peterson for three weeks. Her father, Ernest Raines, was distraught that his daughter and grandchildren were living with a man many people consider to be a dangerous double murderer. I had the privilege of meeting Ernest when we both appeared on the Dr. Phil show last Wednesday. During and after the show, Dr. Phil and I advised Ernie to stop making threats to Drew Peterson – “I’ll drive my Cadillac through his house!” – and to instead keep a friendly, close relationship with his daughter. Drew Peterson would win if he succeeded in isolating Chrissy from her family, which is what abusers always try to do. Don’t let that happen, I told Ernie. Keep the lines of communication open with your daughter. Let her know that while you don’t like your choice, you love her and are there for her, and will help her in any way you can.

The very next night, Thursday, Ernie called me to thank me for my advice to him, excited that it had worked – Chrissy had moved out! His beautiful daughter had reached out to his outstretched hand, and Friday morning, he arrived at Drew’s home, cameraman in tow, to help Chrissy retrieve her belongings. Drew refused, Ernie called the police, and Chrissy was able to get her belongings out without violence.

I was so pleased that my advice made a difference, and I never expected it to work so quickly.

Ernie has expressed his gratitude to Dr. Phil and to me repeatedly. He deserves the credit for courageously standing by his daughter in a difficult, stressful, emotional situation.

I had the privilege of interviewing Chrissy and Ernie this morning. It’s not often I am speechless on the air, but at one point, that’s exactly what happened.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session.”

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted at his impeachment trial shortly after delivering closing argument.

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Like a Shakespearean tragedy, the Blagojevich debacle just keeps getting better and better. Narcissism. Corruption. Colorful characters. And farce.

But it’s not funny. Not really. Because whatever really went down in this case, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. And Denmark isn’t the Prairie State. Rather, it’s a political state of mind in which entitlement and corruption have become the order of the day.

Blagojevich follows a long line of governors gone wild. Blagojevich’s predecessor, George Ryan, is in prison. We lost Eliot Spitzer to his own devices here in New York and Jim McGreevey in New Jersey before that. But their alleged crimes pale in comparison to Bernie Madoff and the larger scandals of Wall Street.

Add to that a Bush administration that has thus far escaped accountability for the lies it told: Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez. The Bush notion of accountability? “It is what it is.” Our last president passed the buck for his failures — including all that bad intelligence about WMD.

Now a new president is talking about a new accountability. But we won’t get it if we just pat ourselves on the back about Blagojevich and call it a day.

The archdiocese said it has been contacted by the U.S. attorney's office for information on individual priests.

Federal prosecutors have launched an investigation into whether leaders of the Los Angeles archdiocese committed fraud by failing to properly deal with charges of priests molesting children, two law-enforcement sources told CNN.

The Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal on Wednesday reported that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony is specifically targeted in a grand jury investigation - citing unnamed government sources.

U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien is personally involved in the probe, according to the reports.

In a written statement, the Catholic archdiocese on Wednesday defended its actions. It said the archdiocese has been contacted by the U.S. attorneys office for "information about a number of individual priests" - two who are dead and none of whom are active in the clergy.

"The Archdiocese is not aware of any fact or set of facts that would support a responsible federal investigation of the Archdiocese or of Cardinal Roger Mahony," said the statement.

While calling the Catholic church's history of sex-abuse "regrettable," the statement said abuse reports have served as a catalyst for reforms in the L.A. archdiocese.

"Under Cardinal Mahony's leadership, the Archdiocese has become a model for organizations nationwide in the education, training and detection of every aspect of abuse," it said.

Advocates for victims of clergy abuse, however, were welcoming news of a possible probe.

Esther Miller, spokeswoman for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called an investigation long overdue.

"Cardinal Mahony's cover up record was well documented; there is a lot of evidence out there ... ," she said. "People thought they were getting good priests, and indeed they were not. Cardinal Mahony knew this.

"Something has to change in order to protect kids at all costs."

For years, the Los Angeles district attorney's office has had an open investigation looking into sex abuse against children by members of the clergy.

But Sandi Gibbons, of the district attorney's office, told CNN that the office has run into "statutory problems and corroboration issues," because many of the alleged crimes happened so long ago.

The archdiocese, with 288 parishes in 120 cities throughout southern California, serves more than 4 million Catholics, according to its Web site.

Mahony has dealt with accusations he covered up sex-abuse cases for years. Two years ago, the archdiocese agreed to pay $660 million to 508 people who claimed they were victims of abuse by priests.

The archdiocese criticized unnamed government sources for apparently leaking news of an investigation to the media.

"The leak by the government is unprofessional and violates Department of Justice guidelines concerning on-going investigations," Michael Hennigan, an attorney for the archdiocese, said in a written statement.

The archdiocese is calling for an investigation "to determine the extent and depth of misconduct by those who were responsible for the leak," according to the statement.

Editor's Note: CNN's Drew Griffin contributed to this report.

Gov. Blagojevich appeared on CNN's Larry King Live Monday night.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Lisa Bloom blogs on “In Session”

Lisa Bloom
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Blago continues to misstate the law.

He’s a lawyer. He should know better.

Blago has steadfastly refused to answer specific questions from Larry King, CBS’s Maggie Rodriguez and others, including Jami Floyd today on In Session (is that you on the tapes? Did you say that? If it’s out of context, what was the context?) on the grounds that he is legally barred from commenting on a pending legal matter. No. Incorrect.

Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct 3.6 bar attorneys in pending litigations from making certain extrajudicial comments. They do not bar defendants from speaking out in their own cases. Defendants, parties, and witnesses are always free to speak, under the First Amendment, unless there is a gag order in effect. There is no gag order in this case. I have also read the Senate Impeachment rules in their entirety, and nothing therein bars Blago from speaking publicly about the allegations against him.

Blago also maintains that “we” felt it was more advisable to do a media tour rather than assert his legal rights in the Senate hearing. As Mark Twain said, "Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'." Blago is trying to sweep his lawyers into his defensive view that appearing at the hearing would be futile.

Yet his attorney, Ed Gensen, would surely like nothing more than a high profile fight for Blago’s constitutional rights played out before the Illinois Senate. A claim under the Illinois and federal constitutions that the limits on witnesses violate Blago’s due process rights would be highly likely to prevail, in my view. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs Illinois, has so ruled in a similar case in 2004. This is the type of juicy claim any criminal defense attorney would enjoy asserting.

Gensen has publicly given one reason for withdrawing from Blago representation: because Blago is not listening to his advice. He must be stewing over Blago’s continued suggestions that Gensen condones this media tour and his failure to appear before the Senate. In fact, it may be the sole reason why he resigned.

Blago knows his attorney can’t say more publicly without violating attorney-client confidentiality. It’s a perfect media strategy: claim the lawyer, who can’t publicly contradict him, is advising him to behave this way.

What is clear is that Blago stands alone in asserting that it is better for him to boycott a proceeding where his job is in real jeopardy and appear instead on television (where he then doesn’t answer any specific questions about whether he’s corrupt).

If he really had answers to the corruption allegations, wouldn’t a media tour be the time to offer them?

Former President George W. Bush helicopters for the last time to Andrews Air Force Base on Tuesday.

Josh Meyer
The L.A. Times

President George W. Bush, on his last full day in office, formally struck down the petitions for clemency of some high-profile politicians and businessmen, including former lawmakers Randall "Duke" Cunningham, Edwin Edwards and Mario Biaggi and "junk bond" financier Michael Milken, the Justice Department said today.

The chief of the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney, Ronald Rodgers, confirmed the pardon rejections through a spokeswoman, in response to queries from The Times' Washington Bureau.

The Justice Department said Bush also denied petitions for clemency for two men who became highly polarizing symbols of their eras. One of them was John Walker Lindh, the young American serving 20 years in prison for aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan at a time when it was fighting U.S. military forces just after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Read More...

Suzanne Simons
CNN Executive Producer

When it comes to the war on terror, President Barack Obama is wasting no time changing the way the war is waged, in fact he isn't even using the term "war on terror" anymore. By signing four executive orders that deal with the way the U.S. confronts terrorism, or even the suspicion of it, he is beginning to unravel much of what was put into place by the Bush Administration in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

One of the four executive orders specifically bans torture and will bring an end to the "enhanced methods" made available to the CIA under Mr. Bush. Those enhanced methods include water boarding, the practice of strapping a suspect to a board, gagging them, and pouring water over his face in an effort to simulate drowning. A ban on the act that some see as torture and others deem effective, is welcomed by some intelligence sources who insist the Agency never asked for those powers, but says they were pushed on them by an administration eager to show strength under threat. Just last week, CIA Director Michael Hayden, in parting comments to reporters, said "The Agency did none of this out of enthusiasm. It did it out of duty. It did it with the best legal advice it had." Some inside the Agency, including Hayden, still insist the methods were effective and one former official points to information gleaned from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that led to the detention of other top-ranking members of al Qaeda as proof. The Agency has made progress against al Qaeda namely by taking out many of its top operatives. It's no longer the same terror network that it was in the days after 9/11. Clearly the mindset in fighting terrorism has changed, too.

Closing secret detention facilities overseas is a move applauded by human rights advocates but criticized by Republicans who say the measures taken under the Bush Administration have helped keep America from being attacked. Secret facilities under Bush were legally sanctioned, and keeping detainees there for long periods of time often yielded results, but the problem was that everyone was looking for the "big score". But intelligence sources also valued the rich detail that was gleaned from detainees as critical to gaining a better understanding of al Qaeda's network and how it operated. They found out who handled the money and the travel, both key points if your goal is to unravel a network, not just a plot.

How might closing secret facilities change the game?

Imagine a suspect is plucked from some dusty road in a remote part of the world and taken to a secret holding facility where there was no transparent legal process. Imagine they are interrogated for weeks or months on end using some of those enhanced methods. The problem before was what to do with them once the methods had been exhausted. There was no end game. The choice was to keep them indefinitely or release them back into the population, where they could unleash a rage of retribution. Neither ideal options. The move to ban secret facilities may bring more transparency to the process, but former Agency leaders expect that those holding facilities will still exist because they are critical to the process of information gathering. Suspects who wake up in cells with no windows, who have no idea where they are or how long they will be there are more likely to talk, according to one former Agency official. Keeping a suspect guessing is seen as an advantage for interrogators who try to get as much information from a detainee as possible before a legal process kicks in. The difference now would be that those facilities would become stops on the road to an organized legal structure either back in the U.S. or elsewhere, and no longer the final destination for many detainees.

Pres. Obama has retaken the oath of office after lines were flubbed Tuesday. CNN's Ed Henry and Jeffrey Toobin report.

David Gewirtz | BIO
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

Magistrate Judge John Facciola issued an emergency order Thursday for the preservation of White House emails. In his groundbreaking opinion, he definitively affirms that White House email messages are documents of major historical importance:

"I have always begun with the premise that, as just indicated, the emails that are said to be missing are the very heart of this lawsuit and there is a profound societal interest in their preservation. They are, after all, the most fundamental and useful contemporary records of the recent history of the President's office. If Napoleon was right when he said that he did not care who wrote France's laws if he could write its history, then the importance of preserving the emails cannot be exaggerated."

The lawsuit he's talking about has been going on for a few years now, with the Executive Office of the President as defendant. This is the lawsuit that originally brought out the story of missing email messages at the White House and the claim that there were at least 5 million missing.

Two organizations, the Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive of George Washington University sued the White House in an attempt to force the EOP to preserve White House email records and turn them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.

It's been a bizarre experience, resulting in Congressional hearings last spring. The issue that's making both the plaintiffs and the judge nuts is the White House has responded with wildly inconsistent answers to each order on the part of the judge, at one time claiming there are missing messages, later claiming no messages are missing, and still later claiming that all the hard drives used to store them were destroyed as a matter of practice, and so on.

This claim of missing messages is what inspired me to begin the forensic analysis that led to the book, "Where Have All The Emails Gone?" which goes into the messaging at the White House in depth, and has led to multiple other reports with more revelations.

The thing is, because the time to transition between Presidents is running down to zero, this topic is getting very hot. Every President since Reagan, in the last days of his administration, has fought the courts to prevent turning over email messages to NARA, some down to midnight on the 19th of January.

This time, it's District Judge Henry Kennedy and Magistrate Judge John Facciola who are trying to compel the White House to turn over email records before the clock runs out. But what's making everyone nuts is that it's extremely hard to tell exactly what can be turned over to NARA and what might be missing, because the various responses by the EOP to Congress and the courts have been so inconsistent.

Between White House opposition filings, orders from various senior judges, complaints from plaintiffs, and yada yada yada, the technical and legal mumbo-jumbo is enough to make your head spin. At the core, however, is a simple need: to preserve the historical record.

The White House had a nearly instant opposition motion, a detailed 13-page document. In it, Justice Department attorney Helen C. Hong argues that the White House had all the email messages all along, it's just that due to a technical snafu, the counting process implied messages were missing.

What's particularly strange about this is it appears to be in direct contradiction of testimony by White House Chief Information Officer Theresa Payton where she variously claimed that the White House didn't have asset management in place to track the disposition of hard drives containing email messages and that they had a practice in place to destroy or recycle hard drives every three years.

Hong claims, however, that at the cost of $10 million, they were able to recover messages from backups. This is certainly technically possible, there was no discussion of the process or methodology. Of more import, Ms. Hong didn't identify whether the 14 million messages she claims were recovered were from the time frame that the White House previously identified as missing.

It's all enough to make you slightly crazy.

What's fascinating is you can start to see the frustration level of a United States Magistrate Judge if you read his opinion. He states:

The issues that have now arisen are now confronted in true emergency conditions. As this is being written, there are two business days before the new President takes office and this case deals with the records created by the administration that is leaving office.

When you see a magistrate judge, whose role is to advise a presidentially appointed district court judge on judicial matters, get frustrated, it's not a pretty sight:

To further complicate the matter, the records at issue are not paper records that can be stored but electronically stored information that can be deleted with a keystroke. Additionally, I have no way of knowing what happens to computers and to hard drives in them when one administration replaces another.

Who's emailing whom?

Part of the question here is what email messages fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Records Act (FRA) and what fall under the Presidential Records Act (PRA). Both require records to be kept, but the different laws require different actions. Even this discrepancy appears to be giving Magistrate Judge Facciola heartburn:

Moreover, at this point I am between a rock and a hard place. If, despite the defendants' representations, emails were transmitted from PRA to FRA agencies and back but I preclude a search for them in the PRA agencies, I will be honoring a representation without having any opportunity to test its correctness. I may therefore fail miserably to preserve the res of this lawsuit based on an untested assertion.

If, on the other hand, I do not honor the representation and order all computers to be searched, I am at least doing all I can to preserve the res in the only way possible. The importance of doing so easily trumps the costs involved.

Therefore, defendants must appreciate that the Order I am issuing requires them to search for emails in the specified period in both PRA and FRA agencies.

So, what's it all mean?

Let's not lose track of the key issues. First, the Bush Administration leaves the White House at 11:59AM on Tuesday. All the Presidential records need to be turned over to the National Archives before then.

The gotcha is that we're running out of time. The Bush Administration now claims they've recovered all the records (expect to see Judges Facciola and Kennedy comment on that in the next day!) and the district court has ordered a massive records search - all which must occur before Tuesday.

As I said yesterday, this isn't technically practical, except now it's one day less practical. We're talking about searching terabytes and terabytes of computer files for email messages, all stored in Outlook files not known for their ease of management.

Simply the time necessary to transfer thousands of multi-gigabyte files between computers and hard drives will take longer than the hundred or so hours we have left before President-elect Obama is sworn in.

At the risk of repeating myself, what I said yesterday still holds, even more so. The only way to preserve these records now is to put all the computer gear onto trucks and send everything to the National Archives for later processing.

There's precedent here, at least if you watch crime shows. How many times have we seen the feds go into a home or an office and simply cart everything away? If it works on TV, certainly it'll work in real life. Right?

Editor’s note: David Gewirtz is Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Magazines, including OutlookPower Magazine. He is a leading Presidential scholar specializing in White House email. He is a member of FBI InfraGard, the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals, a columnist for The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, and has been a guest commentator for the Nieman Watchdog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He is a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley extension, a recipient of the Sigma Xi Research Award in Engineering and was a candidate for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Letters.