Dear Law School Community:
I am writing to follow up on President Gabel’s message about the recent killing of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota resident Daunte Wright, yet another unarmed Black man killed by the police. I’m saddened and angry that our community must yet again endure this incredible personal pain.
Manuel Cervantes ‘80, who served twice as a Minnesota Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals judge, died on March 31, 2021 at the age of 70 after a long battle with cancer.
After graduating from Minnesota Law, he served as an attorney at the AFL-CIO. In 1986, he was appointed to be a judge on the Minnesota Workers' Compensation. From 1992-2002 he was a referee in Ramsey County District Court, presiding over cases in family, juvenile, domestic abuse court. He was named as St. Paul City Attorney and state administrative law judge.
In his conversation with Bloomberg Law’s June Grasso about the first nine days of testimony in the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd (begins at 19:45), Prof. Richard Frase states that “the prosecution has done a very good job of laying out its key themes… anticipating where the defense is going to attack most forcefully, particularly on the issues of causation of death by Derek Chauvin and justified use of force. I think they’ve made as strong a case as they can.” Prof. Frase also discussed specific strategies used thus far by the prosecution and the defense.
Professor Caleb Smith was published in the TaxNotes discussing how pro bono and other free legal representation can be a way to both assist individuals and bring about systemic legal change, with state tax collection issues as a case study. Professor Smith's article is part of the TaxNotes series "The Search for Tax Justice," that focuses on examining inequities inherent in state and federal taxes.
Professor Michael Tonry has been awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.
The highly competitive, annual national fellowship was awarded to 174 American and Canadian scholars, writers, and artists selected from among more nearly 3,000 applicants. The foundation awarded fellowships this year to 184 American and Canadian scientists, scholars in the social sciences and humanities, and writers and artists of all kinds, selected from a field of almost 3,000 applicants.
President Biden today nominated Robert (Bob) Anderson '83 to serve as solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Anderson has served as Interior’s principal deputy solicitor since January 20.
James R. Cho '99 has been appointed a U.S. magistrate judge in the Eastern District of New York.
Professor Jill Hasday discussed a recent decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court that reveals the need to revise the state’s rape laws to better protect people who were too incapacitated to consent.
Court Overturns Sex Crime Conviction Because Victim Was ‘Voluntarily Intoxicated’ (New York Times)
Minnesota Law 1s Tony Sanchez, Emanual Williams, and Mica Standing Soldier were recently hired for three newly created public-interest clerkships at the Legal Rights Center. Now and through the summer they will coordinate public education and civic engagement efforts relating to the trials of Derek Chauvin and the other three former Minneapolis police officers charged in the killing of George Floyd. The clerkships are part of a unique collaboration between the LRC and Minnesota Law.
Paul Feinman ‘85, the first openly LGBT judge to serve on New York's highest court, has died.
Feinman, 61, had a judicial career that spanned 25 years before stepping down from the New York Court of Appeals on March 23, 2021, due to his health. Before joining the N.Y Court of Appeals bench in 2017, Feinman sat on the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court’s First Department in Manhattan.
