the chief justice and justice thomas have all in separate opinions and justice scalia before he passed urged the court to take a hard look at -- my firm will be filing a petition on that soon. we may find out more. again, i wouldn't read too much into it given the timing of when the petition reached conference. i do think in the short term, i don't think chevron is on the table, but i think we'll see a signal whether the court is genuinely interested in it or whether the court has decided to sort of let it go. >> anything else? >> i would just add the court did grant sert in a case where my firm is representing the petitioner. it presented the hour deference issue about -- we asked the court to overrule, to take certain on whether hours should be overruled. it granted sert on whether hour it was appropriately applied in that case to an opinion letter from the department of education. we were preparing for an argument when the new administration changed the regulatory guidance in the court vacating it to the fourth circuit. we would have heard something about hour deference, but we didn

four justices in an opinion , anden by justice alito, justice kennedy went a different way, and i will explain the way they went and why it is an interesting split. what did justice alito say? he walked through the case. the government had made a series of arguments as to why the different kinds of perceptions under the first amendment the statute was ok. the idea was that the trademark registration -- all justices agreed that -- was it a subsidy? was it a hybrid government program, a little bit of subsidy, but basically ours, not theirs. justice alito said, is it a limited public forum? you can discriminate because of the limited free speech -- justice alito said he did not know. he said is a commercial speech. he said we did not have decide that because if it is commercial speech, the arguments do not meet -- four ring narrowly brought. block by block, every argument taken on. it would have been an interesting majority opinion in it with have narrowed subsidy law in important ways, but what it never does is anchor the opinion explicitly to viewpoint determination. are opinions that -

four justices in an opinion written by justice alito, and joined by the chief justice, justice thomas, and justice willr, went one way, and i explain which way they went. justice kennedy joined by ginsburg, sotomayor, went a different way, and i will explain the way they went and why it is an interesting split given the two opinions. what did justice alito do? he walked through the case step-by-step. the government had made a series , almost an endless series of , arguments as to why the different kinds of perceptions under the first amendment the statute was ok. they argued it was government speech, that the trademark registration program was a form of speech. was it the subsidy? justice alito said no. was it a hybrid government program, a little bit of subsidy, but basically ours, not theirs? they said no there, too. then justice alito said, is it a limited public forum? such that we can discriminate because it is very limited free speech zone. again, justice alito said no. finally, justice alito said, is a commercial speech? he said we did not have decide that because if it is comm

justices. in this talk, i want to attempt to add something new to this considerable literature. however, i do want to begin by offering a brief summary of what i take from reading and re-reading virtually the entire corpus. the burger court is seen in most areas as a bridge from the warren court to the rehnquist court. and is credited with very few do doctrinal breakthroughs but it worked on the importance of women. t the burger court in many areas undertook the difficulties for giving life to the broad principles in the more difficult context of second generation and third generation cases. in some areas, there was truly entrenchment. but generally, chief justice burger himself was given high marks for caring far more than earl warren about the judiciary in the profession. devoting his own time and energy to the institute court of management, the institute for judicial administration and, of course, this society. his involvement with the state courts was unprecedented. his annual reports were

justice. marshall, as the chief said, has a connection to this court. he served here for four years before being appointed solicitor general by lyndon johnson in 1965 and later the supreme court in 1967. a great year for me. that was the year that i graduated from high school. makes me feel old now, to be honest with you. following the supreme court appointment, he became the circuit justice for the second serk k circuit justice. it's sort of a judicial godparent for the circuit in d.c. looking after us as the second circuit. it had been our intention to begin with a presentation by marshall's first clerk at the second circuit. our very own judge ralph winter. judge winter is recovering well from a recent medical procedure but regrettably is unable to be with us today. i speak -- i know that i speak for all of my colleagues when i say we look forward to having judge winter back with us again soon in good health. many of us have heard his delightful stories about his time with marshall. it's cl

supreme court chief justice. up next, new york university law professor john sexton talks about his legacy. he served as nyu's president and law school dean. the event was hosted in the supreme court chamber. gregory: good evening. welcome to our 42nd annual lecture. before we do anything else, i will ask everyone to take out their phones and turn them off. even on silent mode, they will interfere with the sound system here in the court. i am greg joseph, president of the society. welcome. we are delighted to have you here today. -- we are honored to have resident emeritus of nyu john sexton, whose topic tonight is warren burger, the founder of our society and of immense importance to us. there is no one more qualified than president sexton to deliver this lecture. he was a warren burger clerk, but he had a long history before that. president sexton earned his ba in history and ma and phd and religion, and taught religion in brooklyn before he went to harvard law school. he went to harvard law school, graduating

i read books on justices and what made them good justices. i did everything possible to inform myself and figure this job out. after three years, i am still learning. i can't tell you that i am a perfect justice, far from it. i don't think there is such a thing. one of my colleagues mentors, john paul stevens, who retired when he was 90 years old, one-day said to me when i was expressing my doubts, said, sonia, nobody is born a justice. you are born a person, and you learn and grow into everything you do. so, have i got in there? -- in their? no. i am working at getting there. every day in this job come i think about what i do. i reflect on what i am doing. every time i have a discussion with my colleagues and something does not go the way i wanted to, i go back and rethink it and figure out what i did wrong, and then i try a different approach the next time. and if i address something that people don't like and i have to make changes, i think about what they are telling me and what i did and i tried to go back and avoid that next time. it is

chief justice. to justice ginsburg's hypothetical, both of my friends on the other side have now said there's a bivens claim for the boy who shot next to the officer. take that position into this hypothetical. the officer shoots the gun. the bullet leaves the gun. there's constitutional consequences as the bullet travels all the way to the border. if there is a boy between the bullet -- i mean, the gun and sergio, and the bullet goes through that boy in the -- in the u.s., and then the same bullet hits sergio, their position is that there's a bivens claim and there's constitutional constraint as to the first boy who dies, but not the second boy that dies. the conduct occurring in the united states, 100% of it, if it gives a bivens claim, if it gives a normal, standard bivens claim to the boy who shot somewhere with the bullet and then does not give one to sergio hernandez ends up being anomalous. as to justice kennedy's question on the fourth amendment, boumediene decided that it is a functional tes

elements of the chief justice -- misses elements recordchief justice's and his role in society. the very first bench memo i produced for chief justice burger dealt with a california decision striking down as an equal protection violation a statutory rape law that applied only to males. two years before, the chief justice had publicly dissented from the denial in a similar case indicating that he would and summarily reversed. in the first paragraph of my memo, i noted his prior position, but went on to argue using much the logic of the court he would have summarily reversed. i remember his invitation to discuss the memo. why don't we talk about that case you say i got wrong? he drew my memo from the top drawer of his desk. on the front page, he had inscribed with a felt tip pen zeroseems to be a huge covering nearly the entire page. you see that, he asked. as i read these memos, i put it? -- i put a question mark near points where i just agree -- where i disagree. he revealed dozens of question marks and concluded, the more i disagree, the bigger the question mark. [laughter] he

, justices, thomas, alito and core such. justice kennedy did not join that opinion. but certainly i think it's fair to say that at least those three justices have signaled that they think the administration is on a stronger legal footing than certainly the lower courts have. >> so take a more general view of this. sally, what threat doss you see today to the rule of law in our nation? sally: neal alluded to some of president trump's comments about judges. it's not just that the president is making comments undermining the legitimacy of judges who issue opinions that he doesn't like, it's what kind of impact can that have beyond just his own -- espousing his own personal opinion and undermining confidence in the system more broadly? we've got a delicate balance there between the three branches of government. and you know, that balance has served us pretty darn well for many, many years now. and the idea that that balance is being thrown out of kilter by not just disagreing with what a court might do but attempting to delegiti

for that justice. in fact, the most recent such appointee david souter is not even on the court anymore. and that is not to say that the philosophicaln lockstep. there are lots of unanimous decisions. they are independent thinkers and they often go their different ways. but generally speaking, you can fairly condo we predict on a controversial constitutional issue how a justice will come down based on the party affiliation of the president that appointed that justice. and that is now permeating not just the u.s. supreme court, but the lower court decisions as well. one thing that struck me recently and i'm not allowed to talk about it, i don't intend to, it all on pending cases, but for example, the recent challenges to trump's immigration executive order, as i've been following it, almost all of the judges who voted to strike down those orders were appointed by democrats. almost all who voted to uphold them were republican. what that suggests to me is that presidents are taking the philosophy of judic

, not just justice thomas or justice gorsuch. they both wrote separate concurring opinions in which each joined the others. very briefly what the meaning of this case? i think the theme of this case is that an agreement across seven justices about how the free exercise clause will apply to other kinds of public benefits. the basic briefing of cases that when a law targets those for special disabilities based on religious status, strict scrutiny applies. such laws are targeted disabilities on religious status such as the law in the santa clarita case. the missouri policy discriminated against applicants based on the religious character and so therefore subject to scrutiny. couple other notable things about the case, they argued this isn't really a burden on religious exercise. instead it's only the denial of a subsidy. you can see this argument has some plausibility. missouri is not telling the church what it has to believe, it's not telling the church how it worships, is not even telling the church a can have a playground, simply

yes, sir. >> justice i would like to find out your thoughts about justice thomas.he one-on-one he is very open and outgoing and very personal and very well-liked but he's unusual in until recently the position asking no questions whatsoever. could you speculate because it's hard to know why he was doing it. >> i have met him and i've talked with him and i've heard him speak and i totally agree with you. he is personable and he's outgoing. he's a very interesting man and in the book my grandfather's son which he describes up until he was appoint to the court he calls himself an ordinary man to home extraordinary things happen. he came from a dirt poor terribly disadvantaged background. he was discriminated against unquestionably. he hated law school. he thought law school was awful because he denied he was the product of affirmative action. he couldn't get a job when he graduated from the a law school. he was a friend of jack danforth had became attorney general of missouri who gave him a job. he has always been angry. he has always been resentful and i think even m

as the justice department will ced last week, they roll back some efforts by the obama justice department to civil asset forfeiture, they said they would rights, ndividual deputy attorney general rob they will said include safe guard to prevent problems that have been the past, some hings include the adoption of authorizing federal adoption of assets seized by state and local conduct that led to the seizure violates federal law. rosens rosenstein said when property is owners will receive notice of their rights within 45 which is the quickest under law. does that make you more comfortable? whatsoever. it is window addressing. serious reform, hundreds, if not documented abuses. ere officials, including department of justice officials disciplined in any way? s far as i know, the answer is no. they are serious about protecting innocent peep when e will they start disciplining people who commit the abuses. the number of officials civil ined for abusing forfeiture is close to zero. you been setting this and why did you get into this? studying civil n asset forfeiture for five years. me angry wh

i'll see you next week. [ woman vocalizing ] ♪ >> social justice -- >> social justice -- >> social justicejohn: social justice, something leftists talk about. >> social justice is code for good things no one needs to argue for, and no one dare be against. >> save the whales. >> gays in the military now! >> free nelson mandela. >> they freed him already. john: what's the enemy of social justice? >> capitalism is really what is the oppressive force. john: so what must people do? >> spread those resources. john: when that's tried, people have to wait in endless lines for their social justice. >> [inaudible] john: social justice -- >> if we don't get it -- john: that's our show tonight. ♪ ♪ >> and now, john stossel. john: are you for social justice? i want to say i am because if i'm not, wouldn't that mean i'm for social injustice? that sounds terrible. it's why social justice is such a powerful slogan. it usually means, well, i'm not clear exactly what it means. it can mean so many things. jonah goldberg explains that in this video for prager university. >> ask ten lib calls to tell you -- li

they talked about impeaching justice douglas is no justice has ever been impeached.i don't know what he's likely to do. i think that he is a good enough lawyer to find the legal support he will be an ideologue even though he has a tremendous basis on what that advocates did to his mother and the democrats did to him to be a partisan justice. they take an extraordinary human being to ignore those experiences. >> i would like to find out your thoughts on justice thomas. he is unusual in that until recently asking no questions whatsoever. could you speculate. he is personable and outgoing. in the book my grandfather's son, which he describes his life up until he is appointed in the course, he calls himself an ordinary man to whom extraordinary things happen and he came from a typically disadvantaged background. he hated yale law school at the night he was the product of affirmative action and couldn't get a job when he graduated from law school they became attorney general of missouri. he's always been angry and has always been resentful after the anita hill episode. it

if the justice department thought mr. blumenthal's activities on behalf of foreign interests did not require registration, it should simply say so. particularly, when the trump administration has required lieutenant general michael flynn to retroactively register under the law and in large part because he wrote an op-ed for the hill newspaper. the administration also required paul manafort, the podesta rule, mercury llc, to register for their work on behalf of ukrainian government. recently, there's been a lot of reporting about other unregistered foreign agents attempting to influence u.s. policy. for example, a group of unregistered russian agents allegedly worked to undermine the magnitsky act. that 2012 act was passed in honor of sergei magnitsky, who uncovered massive financial fraud in russia involving corrupt russian government officials and organized crime. he was then arrested by the same corrupt officials and later died in russian prison under suspicious circumstances. the magnitsky act allows the president to s

criminal justice system. we will hear about the state of the justice system for people of color, the disparities and judicial outcomes based by black citizens compared to their white counterparts, and what changes need to be made to close such gaps. that event starts at 9:00 eastern, also on c-span. q&a, he talks about his book. one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the vietnam war. >> that battle shocked me because the saigon military withnd was so out of touch the reality of what was happening in the streets. they got a lot of young americans killed because what the general denied is that the city had been taken. it was affected he continued to deny it for the whole time the battle was fought. as a consequence, would never concede the sheer number of enemy forces that were in the city. so, small units of marines and troopers were being ordered to attack positions that were held by overwhelmingly superior enemy forces in entrenched positions could >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. sunday

justice thomas and justice gorsuch wanted to take that case.hat's is the kind of area where scalia might have had a little bit of doubt. he aligned himself with justice thomas on what bill was talking about, a more forceful, vigorous defense of the free expression of religion. so i think he is going to be solidly there with justice thomas and probably justice alito on everything. paul: it was 4-4 for much of it there was a big cases on free speech, james. >> yes. this was the case involving the slants, asian american rock band. they had been denied a trademark on the grounds that it was disparaging and they challenged this. and the supreme court struck down the patented trademark's office disparagement clause. which means the washington redskins will continue to be around. what was really important about this case is the cultural statement the court made, two opinions one by justice alitani toe and one by justice kennedy kennedy. both affirmed in strong terms, no separate category of hate speech protected by the first amendment. a common misund

it's not just about social justice. it's about economic justice, inclusion, economic equality, bringing about a better police force, bringing about better communities. bringing about better neighborhoods, working together, lifting our political power, showing a political power and working together. i know that while you all are here that you will work on an agenda that is forward thinking, that we must look at what we're doing in terms of drug treatment in our neighborhoods and making sure our seniors can stay in their homes. but more importantly how we collectively, collectively raise up our community. we've got to build businesses in our neighborhoods. we've got to strip the neighborhoods so they can be economically viable. we understand that education is the equalizer and that's why we are grateful for the senate delegation, our congressional delegation but we need more federal dollars to improve our school system, and proof our neighborhoods, improve housing. .. >> called the petitions iran. i want to make an announ

and then, finally, the criminal justice reform means we need to reform the criminal justice system that is often unjust to us. when other people -- when we look away from what they do, when we overlook what they do, when we give them a second, third, fourth chance, when they have affluenza, my child is too rich to go to jail, so please let him out, whereas the people in the hood in baltimore are not seen as affluenza and as a result of that they go to jail for three and four and five and six and seven years. when we think about the fact that a white woman is killed by the police in minnesota, what happens? the police chief has to resign. what happens when philando castile announces to the police person that he has a gun on his person? he is killed in seven seconds. the reform of the criminal justice system suggest the inputs we make, the data they derive from looking at the number of times we're stopped, philando castile 50 or 60 times over the past ten years. so we see a reform of the criminal justice system and we have to find a way to make sure judges are not bound by mandatory minim

finally, the criminal justice reform means we need to reform the criminal justice system that is often unjust to us. when we look away for what we do, we overlook what they do, when we give them a second, third, fourth chance, when they have affluence of. my child is too rich to go to jail so please let him out. whereas, the people in the in baltimore are not seen as affluenza and as a result they go to jail. when we think about the fact that a white woman is skilled at the police in minnesota, what happened? the police chief has to resign. what happens with linda casteel announces to the police person that he has a gun on this person, he is skilled within seven seconds. the reform of the criminal justice system suggest the inputs we make, the data they devry from looking at the number of times we're stopped, lando castille, 50 or 60 times over the past ten years, so we see a reform of criminal justice and we have to find a way to make sure judges are not bound by mandatory minimum sentences. people of color are not subject to arbitrary forms of reprisal in a system that doesn't pay at

the justice department do not require them to register as foreign agents. is glenn simpson, founder of using gps. -- fusion gps. i have been asking about the russians who were working with fusion gps to smear him and undermine the act. is thepson's company same firm that oversaw the creation of the unverified trump dossier. around the same time fusion helped orchestrate a campaign to --eal the magnet ski act magnitski act. there are reports the fbi used the dossier to kickstart the investigation. did they know that fusion pitched propaganda for the russians even as it pushed the dossier? what would they say about its reliability? if it was represented to any court, should this fact have been disclosed? two individuals has been in the news a lot. the first is a russian lawyer -- natalia read -- -- her asefer to him russian agent xyz. [laughter] a russian company received millions of dollars connected to crime for his uncovering. the other person is a russian-american lobbyist with reported ties to russian intelligence. the new york times described him arts.a

browder filed a complaint with the justice department's fara enforcement unit. he alleged that a group of unregistered agents were working on behalf of the russian government to get rid of the law named after his late friend. he said these unregistered agents lobbied congress. he said they organized a screening of a propaganda video with hill staffers and state department officials. the propaganda video smeared mr. magnitsky and mr. browder. what this video represents is a pretty cute operation, the foreign agents also published propaganda to news outlets trying to get bogus stories published by respectable organizations, as we learned after this hearing was scheduled, they apparently lobbied the trump campaign and the trump family. yet the justice department didn't require any of them to register as foreign agents. one individual identified as mr. browder's complaint is glen simpson, founder of fusion gps. since march 2017 i've been asking about the russians who were working with fusion gps to smear mr. browder and undermine the magnitsky act. mr. simpson's com

i think it was kofi annan who said that there is no peace without justice. justice is important.nce 2012 but, in 15 years of the icc‘s existence, it has cost $1 billion and there have been four convictions. that's very expensive, slowjustice. first of all, i want to say that, when you compare justice, as you call it, being expensive, when you compare that to the suffering of victims, and you compare that to conflicts, you compare that to the budget that is given, for instance, for defence, i think that justice is very small, when you compare all of these. that's not even the issue. the issue here is the impact that the court has had so far. what is the shadow of the court? what has the court been able to do? i want to ask you that, the final question, because you are very interested in women and children and the terrible things they have to go through in conflict, rape as a tool of war and so on. have you made them any safer? have the icc made them any safer? i believe the icc have made it safer by, first and foremost, highlighting the issue of the vulnerability of both women and

look at justice. you all knew justice right away. did you know that was liberty? this is what we think of today as liberty. none of the iconography there. what is that? cap.s the liberty what is the liberty cap? when a roman times, slave was emancipated, the slave was given a cap. so in emancipation, you see there liberty with the liberty cap. the liberty bowl. very much that liberty cap is crucial iconography. cap there. but what do we have on top of the capital? on top of the capitol? right, right. it is freedom triumphant, which also is liberty armed. when this was first proposed and --was proposed in the 1850's notice what is on me arm there -- the liberty cap. the person who had veto power on top of the congress was jefferson davis, secretary of war. this is actually what we get. knew this was highly publicized. one figure he gives is the and that is absolutely crucial for him. for bateman, emancipation follows the devotion to liberty. what is the alternative to bateman's vision of justice and liberty? -- liberty in the was now going to be threatened by milit

he replaced a very conservative justice.it >> he did replace a veryry conservative justice, but justice scalia, every once in a while had something that surprised people, like he thought burning the american flag was a protected form of expression. i doubt that this will come up again, but i also doubt that he would've been a supporter of that idea. the president has a list of another 19 people that he wants on the supreme court or in a federal appeals court. they are just as conservative as neil. one of the reasons the religious right voted 81% voted for donald trump in spite of his indiscreet comments about all kinds of people is they knew he would get appointments to the united states supreme court. the only good thing that happened when this case was decided to take two other cases involving religious is that justice kennedy did not announce his retirement.een a ba if justice kennedy had retired, there would've been a battle royale about his replacement and his replacement nomination wouldld be likely to come from the list that donald trump put out last summer, all vetted by the her

guest: he did replace a conservative justice, but justice scalia did surprise people. i doubt that neil gorsuch would have been a supporter of the idea of burning the american flag being a protected free speech. the president has a list of 19 more people who he wants in a supreme court or a federal appeals court and they are just as conservative, to a person, as neil gorsuch. one of the reason the religious right voted 81% for donald trump in spite of his, shall we say, indiscreet comments about all kinds of people is that they knew he would get appointments to the united states supreme court. the only good thing that happened on the monday that this case was decided, that they decided to take two other cases involving religion is that justice kennedy did not announce his retirement. if he had retired, there would have been a battle royale over the summer about his replacement and his replacement nomination, at least, would be likely to come from that list that donald ,rump put out about last summer all vetted by the heritage foundation, all vetted by the most conserva

comey when you have extensive experience working within the department of justic justice. i would like to ask you, we are an unusual moment in american history where mr. comey was fired from his job and characterized by the president of the united states is a nut job and was fired for the reason by the president because the russian investigation was underway and the president believed it was a cloud on his presidency. mr. comey told us a little bit of hud's direct dealings with the president of the united states. two things really stood out. i think it may be fairly unique in the history of the united states. on one hand, you said that he, having been caught alone in the oval office with the president of the united states spoke to the attorney general inside, i don't want that to happen again. i want to witness -- a witness when i'm meeting with the president of the united states. that is an extraordinary statement by the head of the fbi. if you are asked me privately with no one else with the president of the united states as director of the fbi, what would be you or appr

secondly, whether or not this is an obstruction of justice, i don't think it's obstruction of justice. i think were mueller to be fired, it would be an abuse of office, an abuse of power that would lead to consideration of article of impeachment. i don't think legal indictment before a grand jury says you are going to get obstruction of justice out of that. what is obstruction of justice or abuse of power is much the same. >> if someone you are looking at, investigating says, don't look at my finances, they are absolutely fine -- >> don't look under this rock. >> there's no problem. what rational investigator wouldn't start looking at their finances? the thing about the president, like all the emotions are out there in front. you know, it can be a problem. >> ken, what is your take on this one? >> first of all the president didn't, you know, make a threat as you characterized it. he answered a question. in and of itself, on paper, the question, the answer to the question were correct, accurate and appropriate. we don't have an independent council law because on a bipartisan basis, rep

pursuit of justice, free and independent of any favor or influence. from counterterrorism and counter espionage to the then rapidly escalating threat of cyber crime, from human trafficking to public corruption and financial fraud, i worked with and learned from the men and women of the fbi who put it all on the line to make our streets safer and our lives better. if aim gii am given the honor o leading this agency, you will never allow the fbi's work to be driven by anything other than the facts, the law and the impartial pursuit of justice, period, full stop. my loyalty is to the constitution and to the rule of law. those have been my guide posts throughout my career and i will continue to adhere to them no matter the test. there is no doubt, as this committee knows, that our country faces grave threats. as lots of other people have noticed, america's law enforcement and intelligence agencies have essentially to pitch a perfect game every day while those who would inflict harm on us just to hit once to advance their aims. i consider the fbi director'