Faculty in the News by Date | By Name

In a July 21 USA Today article about a South Carolina woman charged with criminal neglect after her 14-year-old son's weight reached 555 pounds, Richard Balnave noted that state criminal charges require that the child's health is in imminent danger and that the parent is capable of helping the child but hasn't taken the necessary action. Supreme Court rulings have recognized the right of parents to raise their children how they see fit, he said, but not to the point that a child's health is endangered.

In a July 8 Philadelphia Inquirer article about a program designed to identify parolees likely to commit violent crimes, Richard Bonnie warned of the hazard that the system would influence how people are treated. "The main ethical concern is the possible unfairness to the 'selected' offenders," he said.

Jonathan Cannon was quoted in a July 4 New York Times article about the Supreme Court's decisions against environmental interests during the past term. "You might be able to tell whether the court is pro-business or pro-government," he said, if the Obama administration takes a more adversarial stance toward business. In a July 13 Greenwire story on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's record on environmental issues, Cannon noted that her opinion in a 2007 Clean Water Act case demonstrated her fact-based and detail-oriented approach to questions of law.

George Cohen discussed the role of lawyers in the financial crisis in a July 19 New York Times article. "You can't have a financial calamity without lawyers," he said. "You need them to issue an opinion that a certain trading strategy is O.K., even if it might be really questionable. . . . The lawyers say, 'This is all right; everybody is doing it.' And you're off to the races."

In a July 17 Virginian-Pilot article about a commonwealth attorney's decision not to prosecute a store owner for shooting a burglar, even though he had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10, Anne Coughlin said that the fact that the man had been drinking "would raise some additional alarms. You would worry that perhaps the store owner wasn't thinking clearly, wasn't able to evaluate the situation in a reasonable manner." Still, she said, "you wouldn't want to deny him the right to defend himself. He wasn't out drinking looking for trouble. He was behaving in a perfectly law-abiding way and this emergency arose and it was necessary for him to respond to it."

In a July 28 Medill Reports story about the Sotomayor confirmation, John Harrison noted that Judge Robert Bork's candor before the committee served as a warning to future nominees to keep their views to themselves.

A. E. Dick Howard was quoted in an Aug. 27 Richmond Times-Dispatch article about his classmate Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's time at the law school. "It was hard to miss him," he said, noting that Kennedy was outgoing and friendly. Howard added that ability to reach across party lines was one of Kennedy's great strengths. "He really is part of an age of bipartisanship that seems to have now faded in Washington," he said.

In a July 5 Associated Press Financial Wire story about the low bankruptcy rates in states that don't allow debt collectors to seize consumers' wages, Rich Hynes said that garnishment does play a role in bankruptcy rates but that plenty of other factors are also involved. Bankruptcy rates may be influenced by a variety of state laws that protect consumers, he noted, including rules on how foreclosures can proceed and regulations on attorney advertising.

Edmund Kitch was quoted in a July 25 Roanoke Times article about an FTC antitrust complaint seeking to force Carilion Clinic to sell two outpatient centers it bought last year, even though the sale was too small to trigger an automatic antitrust review. He noted that an investigation in such a case usually means that someone has brought it to the FTC's attention. "There is usually a back story in these cases where there is someone who has waved the flag," he said.

Paul Mahoney was quoted in an Aug. 27 Charlottesville Daily Progress article about Ted Kennedy's UVA Law roots. "I certainly believe that he retained throughout a deep affection for the law school, the same deep affection that so many of our graduates have," he said.

Frederick Schauer was quoted in a July 16 Politico story about the Sotomayor confirmation process. "Unfortunately, the hearings have revealed little other than that both Judge Sotomayor and the members of the Judiciary Committee prepared very carefully for what is a remarkably unhelpful and misleading process," he said. "It is substantive policy attitudes that the research has shown will most determine a justice's views, but the process is designed to conceal this."

Richard Schragger was quoted in an Aug. 30 Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star article about a county supervisor in the site-work business who disqualified himself from voting nineteen times on construction projects. "It seems quite proper for the supervisor to recuse himself if he might have a potential conflict of interests," he said. If the supervisor bid on a job after he had voted to approve it, he added, this "would invite suspicions of collusion or corruption."

Micah Schwartzman cowrote a commentary for the July 17 New Republic discussing the fact that President Obama's first several federal court appointments have had an average age of 55. "For years, Republicans have been nominating sharp young conservatives to the lower federal courts." he and his coauthor wrote. "Now, rather than looking for young legal talent of its own, a Democratic administration seems to be favoring older nominees. In our view, this is a major mistake." The predominance of young Republican appointees has also meant that "the lower federal courts have had a sustained and substantial conservative presence well beyond the tenure of Republican presidents. . . If the early trend in this administration's circuit-court nominations continues, the danger to its judicial legacy should be obvious."

Lois Shepherd was quoted in an Aug. 16 Boston Globe article about an American Academy of Religion conference panel examining perspectives on the Harry Potter books. She said she found in the series an argument against prolonging physical life at all costs. "Death, in the philosophy of the series, is not to be feared," she said. "It is in fact those who fear death the most -- Voldemort being the supreme example -- who engage in unspeakable acts of evil."

Christopher Sprigman was quoted in a July 28 Roanoke Times story about the FTC's inquiry into Carilion Clinic's acquisition of other clinics and physician practices. In order for these companies to return to the marketplace as independent centers, other practices acquired by Carilion also may have to be divested. Sprigman said the move is typical in antitrust cases. "If you release them into a barren landscape, they starve," he said. "They need to be fed." He noted that the FTC wants to take whatever steps are needed to ensure that the companies remain viable as competitors.

Robert Turner wrote a commentary for the Aug. 2 Washington Times about the causes of the Vietnam War, on the 45th anniversary of the North Vietnamese attack on the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. "The incident remains shrouded by confusion and misinformation and continues to be misperceived by many as the reason America went to war in Vietnam. Today may be a useful time to set the record straight," he wrote, explaining that in 1959 the North Vietnamese decided "to open the Ho Chi Minh Trail and start sending tens of thousands of troops and countless tons of military equipment into South Vietnam to overthrow its government. It was to stop the communist takeover of South Vietnam by force that America went to war, just as we did in 1950 to protect South Korea." By 1971, after the Cultural Revolution, "China was no longer in the business of exporting revolution. Had America walked away from Indochina in 1965, things might have worked out very differently."

Siva Vaidhyanathan was quoted in an Aug. 3 CQ Weekly article about the use of social networking to spread conspiracy theories among like-minded people. "The Internet is simulating the intensity of 19th century political clubs," he said.  "They are insulated, they are not forums for dissent, but they are entirely outrage machines."

Steven Walt was quoted in a July 18 Roanoke Times article about the bankruptcy filing of Luna Innovations Inc., three months after the Roanoke-based corporation was ordered to pay a California company $36.3 million for breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. As part of its bankruptcy filing, Luna asked the Virginia judge to cut this award to $1.3 million even though the verdict had not yet been entered as a judgment. Walt noted that it is somewhat unusual for a company to file for bankruptcy prior to having a jury award finalized. "In most cases there would be a judgment and then they would file for bankruptcy," he said.

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Faculty in the News is compiled by Kent Olson, Law Library Director of Reference,
Research and Instruction; and the Law School Communications department.

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