The Dec. 6 National Review Online included a feature by U.S. Commission on Civil Rights commissioner Jennifer C. Braceras on possible Bush appointees to the Supreme Court. One of her suggestions was Lillian BeVier, about whom she wrote: "The well-respected constitutional scholar is known as an expert on the First Amendment and intellectual property. BeVier is adored by conservatives and would bring serious intellectual firepower to the Court."

In a Dec. 5 Richmond Times-Dispatch article about newly opened files showing the history of capital punishment in Virginia, Richard Bonnie noted that in 1908 Virginia became the first state in the South to use the electric chair instead of hanging. In a Dec. 26 Hearst Newspapers story on lawmakers' attempts to combat underage drinking, Bonnie commented that parents "underestimate the threat to their children [of alcohol] in part because it is a legal drug. Parents . . . are themselves a little ambivalent as to whether the prohibition on underage drinking should be taken really seriously. Too many parents not only condone but actually facilitate underage drinking in ways that they think are protective."

Earl Dudley was quoted in a Dec. 6 Syracuse Post-Standard story about Syracuse University's search for a new athletic director. Having served as chairman of the search committee when U.Va. was looking for a new AD in 2001, he praised the executive search firm SU had hired. "I'm a lawyer, and while I'm a lifelong sports fan, I don't know that world out there, and neither did anyone else on our committee," he said. "We said to them, 'Bring us the best, most qualified group of people that you can, and we'd like it to be a group that is diverse, not only in the sense of race and gender, but in the sense of background and personality.' And I thought they did a superb job of that."

In a Nov. 5 National Post story about President Bush's potential Supreme Court nominees, A. E. Dick Howard noted that Bush's victory speech called for the need to unite the deeply divided nation, but doubted that he would pick a moderate candidate to avoid a political fight with Senate Democrats. "The language of victory speeches [is] feel-good language that doesn't have much shelf life," he said. "His instinct in recent years has been to go for broke." Howard was also quoted in a Dec. 2 Fulton County Daily Report story on the judicial philosophies of potential nominees. "I'm not sure that those who call themselves strict constructionists would care to carry it to its logical conclusions," he said.

David Martin was quoted in a Nov. 17 Financial Times story about the erosion in the idea that each person has just one nationality. He explained that the threat of war once lent value to a system that guaranteed individuals the rights and responsibilities of citizenship of a single state, saying: "However much one could tolerate complex and layered loyalties in times of peace, war may demand an unquestioning obedience." The Nov. 20 Daily Progress reported on Martin's comments at an immigration discussion in Charlottesville. He advocated stronger enforcement of immigration laws, but argued that illegal immigrants' children who grow up in the United States might deserve to pay in-state rates for college. "In a way, they are functionally part of American society at that point," he said.

John Norton Moore wrote an op-ed piece in the Nov. 10 Washington Post about the Bush administration's decision to block compensation for American POWs tortured by Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. "As a matter of national honor we owe a special debt to our prisoners of war," he wrote. "But rather than offering the former prisoners the support of a grateful nation, a decision was quietly made in the Bush administration to prevent the POWs from holding Iraq accountable. . . . [W]hatever the price of Iraqi reconstruction, it is shameful to ask American POWs brutally tortured by Iraq to pay for that reconstruction. Billions in legal claims against Iraq will be honored, but there seem to be no funds for American national honor."

Robert O'Neil wrote in the Nov. 12 Chronicle of Higher Education about the risks of international scholarly collaboration in light of the government's position that publishing an article co-written by a colleague from Cuba, Iran, or Sudan could subject the editor or publisher to criminal liability. He wrote: "Since September 11, 2001, the need for the government to forbid the export of certain materials to the embargoed countries merits substantially greater deference than in the past. Yet if any lesson is clear in these past three stressful and painful years, it is the need to keep open the channels of scholarly communication—no less with those in enemy lands than with those in friendly nations." O'Neil was also quoted in several news stories. In a Nov. 26 Chronicle of Higher Education article about a professor accused of having a liberal bias and intimidating conservative students, he noted that the current political atmosphere gives students a sense that if "they pound and shout loud enough they'll be able to make something happen to a faculty member with whom they disagree." In a Nov. 30 Hartford Courant article about the Supreme Court's refusal to hear a case involving a state gay marriage ban, O'Neil said, "This is clearly a matter of states' rights. There is no eagerness [on the part of the court] to get into the issue ... of how a state defines marriage, as long as it does not do so in a way that burdens some federally protected interests." In a Dec. 20 Associated Press story about confrontations between conservative students and liberal professors, O'Neil noted that the idea of students trying to dictate what they don't want to be taught was a new twist to academic freedom battles. "Even the most contentious or disaffected of students in the '60s or early '70s never really pressed this kind of issue," he said.

George Rutherglen was quoted in a Dec. 14 Daily Progress article about an ethics complaint filed against the federal prosecutor investigating eavesdropping by former top Republican Party officials, charging that the prosecutor went easy on allies of George Allen and Jerry W. Kilgore to spare them from possible political embarrassment. He said that he was not convinced that the complaint would stand up. "You really need a direct connection to someone who might be involved" in criminal activity, he said. "I can't really see where the conflict of interest lies."

Rip Verkerke was quoted in a Nov. 16 New York Times article about a Delta flight attendant who filed a sex-discrimination complaint after being fired for posting provocative photos of herself on her weblog. "Nonunion employees enjoy very little legal protection for their off-duty activities," he noted, and added that the flight attendant "cannot invoke the common law privacy doctrines because she posted these photos in a public place. The employer didn't have to search at all, except perhaps on Google, to find the images." He also noted the airline industry's attempts to eliminate the overt sexualization of flight attendants prevalent in the 1960s and 70s. "Airlines discovered they were on the wrong side of that issue 20 years ago," he said. "They've gotten religion. And deeply ingrained in their corporate culture and human relations practices is an aversion to that kind of sexualization." Some of his comments to the Times were also printed in a Nov. 24 National Review Online article on the topic.

Four members of the faculty were quoted in a Nov. 12 Cavalier Daily article about the homicide trial in which a former U.Va. student was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
"This is the kind of case where no one is going to be satisfied," Anne Coughlin said. "It's a compromise verdict. People are often shocked when that happens, but that is what's going on throughout the system. Compromise is not just the best we can do, it's what we want to do. The sentence should fit both the crime and the defendant."
Earl Dudley argued with the defense attorney's conclusion that the jury was unlikely to acquit the student for killing a volunteer firefighter. "If that was the case," he said, noting the jury's relatively lenient decision, "you'd think it would have cut the other way." Dudley also commented that reversal by an appellate court was unlikely. "Most convictions are affirmed on appeal," he said, although it would depend on the specifics of the case.
Kim Forde-Mazrui took issue with the prosecutor's claim that the three-year sentence was too light, especially when compared to a nine-year sentence given to a cocaine dealer earlier that day. "That's kind of missing the point," he said. "It assumes the drug sentence is right."
Stephen Smith noted that harsh sentences have not proved to deter would-be criminals and can backfire by increasing dissatisfaction with the justice system. "Deterrence can be pretty draconian," he said. "Retribution has to play a role." To those who think the defendant got off easy, Smith said the long-term impact of having committed a crime may be a more devastating factor in his life than the time he spends in prison. "You're just damaged goods once you get out," he said.