96-year-old judge loses challenge over suspension, charges after lawyer checks stolen, white student's discrimination case survives, and more ??
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?? 96-year-old US federal judge loses challenge over suspension
Judge Pauline Newman lost a bid to persuade the federal court system's governing body to review her suspension from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit amid an unusually public internal investigation into the 96-year-old jurist's fitness to serve.
The Judicial Conference of the United States' Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability said in a written decision that Newman did not have good cause to refuse to cooperate with the appeals court's investigation and that the court's other judges did not abuse their discretion by suspending her.
Newman was appointed to the patent-focused U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. She is known as a highly respected figure in patent law and a prominent dissenter at the court.
The Federal Circuit's chief judge, Kimberly Moore, said in orders made public last April that Newman had shown signs of cognitive and physical impairment and accused her of refusing to cooperate with inquiries into her mental health.
Newman has defended her mental fitness and made several public appearances since her suspension, including as an observer at a Federal Circuit hearing on Feb. 5.
?? US brings first charges over theft of checks for court-appointed lawyers
Federal prosecutors in New York announced the arrest of the first five people to face criminal charges arising out of an ongoing investigation into the widespread theft of $1 million worth of checks intended for court-appointed lawyers.
The five individuals were charged in a pair of indictments unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn that accused them of depositing stolen checks meant to reimburse private attorneys appointed by the court to represent indigent defendants.
The checks were intended to pay private attorneys who serve on the Criminal Justice Act panel in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York and are available to be appointed to represent defendants who cannot afford an attorney.
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?? White student's discrimination case against Howard law school survives
A white law student who was expelled from Howard University School of Law — a historically Black institution — may pursue his discrimination lawsuit against the school, albeit on narrow grounds, a federal judge ruled.
Judge Trevor McFadden of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the bulk of plaintiff Michael Newman’s claims against Howard Law and various administrators but allowed limited claims of defamation, breach of contract and race discrimination related to his scholarship to move forward.
Newman, who is representing himself, sued, the law school in January 2023, alleging that he was subjected to racist abuse and wrongfully expelled from the school in 2022 after clashing repeatedly with classmates and administrators — often over his comments they deemed inflammatory or offensive.
The judge dismissed most of Newman's contract and discrimination claims, as well as his claims of retaliation, conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
?? Lawsuit over UC Hastings name change is tossed
The University of California College of the Law, San Francisco has beaten a lawsuit seeking to reverse its 2023 name change, which followed a probe into whether the school's former namesake Serranus Hastings orchestrated the deaths of Native Americans on land he owned.
A San Francisco judge dismissed the suit, finding the 1878 legislation that established the University of California Hastings College of the Law was not a contract, as the family of Serranus Hastings had claimed in their lawsuit. In addition, the 2022 legislation that codified the new name did not violate the California Constitution, Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer ruled.
Serranus Hastings was a former California Supreme Court justice who founded the law school in 1878 with a $100,000 donation. The law school announced in 2022 that it would drop the Hastings name following an extensive review of Serranus Hastings' legacy, which was launched after historians said he orchestrated killings of Native Americans in order to remove them from ranch land he purchased in Northern California.
A group of law school alumni and six Hastings descendants sued the state and school officials in October 2022, claiming the name change breached the 1878 agreement California made with Hastings when he gave money to start a law school that bore his name.
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