Author Archives

Stuart Taylor, Jr.

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Opening Argument – Bush’s Immigration Plan: A Step In the Right Direction

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

"Metaphorically each rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat…. In the ocean outside each lifeboat swim the poor of the world…. What should the lifeboat passengers do? … Suppose the 50 of us in the lifeboat see 100 others swimming in the water outside, begging for admission to our boat…. We could take them all into our boat, making a total of 150 in a boat designed for 60. The boat swamps, everyone drowns. Complete justice, complete catastrophe."

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Opening Argument – The Supreme Court Needs To Rule on’Enemy Combatants’

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

What power has the government to detain and interrogate American citizens and others whom it suspects of links to foreign enemies but cannot criminally prosecute without harming its ability to gather intelligence? And what rights have such people to challenge the government’s claims that they are "enemy combatants"?

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Opening Argument – Asbestos Litigation: EvidenceOf Massive Corruption?

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

"Asbestos litigation has become a malignant enterprise which mostly consists of a massive client-recruitment effort that accounts for as much as 90 percent of all claims currently being generated, supported by baseless medical evidence which is not generated by good-faith medical practice, but rather is primarily a function of the compensation paid, and by claimant testimony scripted by lawyers to identify exposure to certain defendants’ products."

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Opening Argument – Should the Supreme Court Clean Up Its Own Mess?

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

Overshadowed by the December 10 decision upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law was an important oral argument that morning over whether the Supreme Court should arrogate to itself vast new powers to redraw every congressional district in the nation. The goal would be to clean up the incumbent-entrenching, polarizing, gerrymandered mess that redistricting has become, or at least to strike down partisan gerrymanders so extreme as to mock majority rule.

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Civil Wars

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

Newsweek

The Rev. Ron Singleton’s door is always open. That way, when the Methodist minister of a small congregation in Inman, S.C., is counseling a parishioner, his secretary across the hall is a witness in case Singleton is accused of inappropriate behavior. (When his secretary is not around, the reverend does his counseling at the local Burger King.) Singleton has a policy of no hugging from the front; just a chaste arm around the shoulders from the side. And he’s developed a lame little hand pat to

The Rev. Ron Singleton’s door is always open. That way, when the Methodist minister of a small congregation in Inman, S.C., is counseling a parishioner, his secretary across the hall is a witness in case Singleton is accused of inappropriate behavior. (When his secretary is not around, the reverend does his counseling at the local Burger King.) Singleton has a policy of no hugging from the front; just a chaste arm around the shoulders from the side. And he’s developed a lame little hand pat to console the lost and the grieving. The dearth of hugging is "really sad," he says, but what is he going to do? He could ill afford a lawsuit.

Dr. Sandra R. Scott of Brooklyn, N.Y., has never been sued for malpractice, but that doesn’t keep her from worrying. As an emergency-room doctor, she often hears her patients threaten lawsuits–even while she’s treating them. "They’ll come in, having bumped their heads on the kitchen cabinet, and meanwhile I’ll be dealing with two car crashes," she says. "And if they don’t have the test they think they should have in a timely fashion, they’ll get very angry. All of a sudden, it’s ‘You’re not treating me, this hospital is horrible, I’m going to sue you’."

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Opening Argument – December 10:A Worrisome Day for the Freedom of Speech

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

The Supreme Court was probably right to uphold the two most publicized provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. The first bans large, potentially corrupting gifts of soft money to the major political parties at the behest of members of Congress and other federal officials. The second bans any use of business corporation or labor union money to buy broadcast ads naming federal candidates close to the time of a federal election.

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Opening Argument – Moussaoui May Deserve to Die, but Not Without a Fair Trial

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

It would be no loss to humanity if we dragged Zacarias Moussaoui in front of a firing squad tomorrow and shot him. He has boasted in open court of being a "member of Al Qaeda" and loyal to Osama bin Laden, and of knowing "exactly who" committed the 9/11 mass murders. He has declared, "I, Zacarias Moussaoui, urge, incite, encourage, solicit Muslim to kill Americans, civilian or military, anywhere around the world." He is crazy and evil.

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Rights, Liberties, and Security: Recalibrating the Balance after September 11

by Stuart Taylor, Jr

Brooking Institution

How can we avert catastrophe and hold down the number of lesser mass murders? Our best hope is to prevent al-Qaida from getting nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons and smuglling them into this country. But we need be unlucky only once to fail in that. Ultimately we can hold down our casualities only by finding and locking up (or killing) as many as possible of the hundreds or thousands of possible al-Qaida terrorists whose strategy is to infiltrate our society and avoid attention until they strike.

The urgency of penetrating secret terrorist cells makes it imperative for Congress—and the nation—to undertake a candid, searching, and systematic reassessment of the civil liberties rules that restrict the government’s core investigative and detention powers. Robust national debate and deliberate congressional action should replace what has so far been largely ad hoc presidential improvisation. While the USA-PATRIOT Act—no model of careful deliberation—changed many rules for the better (and some for the worse), it did not touch some others that should be changed.

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Opening Argument – How Courts and Congress Wrecked School Discipline

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

Outside Anacostia Senior High School, three miles southeast of the Capitol, a football player was killed on October 30 by a stray bullet meant for someone else. Not far away, at Ballou Senior High, a gang fight involving 15 or 20 students broke out in the cafeteria on November 10. School officials "have no control," one Ballou mother complained to The Washington Post.