All posts filed under: Faculty Commentary

Trump, Biden, and the Fake Cry of Selective Prosecution

The report announcing that no criminal charges would be brought against Joseph Biden for mishandling classified materials brought an unsurprising response from Donald Trump – that this was “selective prosecution.” As he stated in a speech to the NRA, “It was just announced that Joe Biden’s Department of Injustice will bring zero charges against crooked Joe despite the fact he willfully retained undisclosed droves of ultra-classified national security documents.” Trump added “if he’s not going to be charged, that’s up to them, but then I should not be charged.” And this claim has now been made in court papers, as Trump’s lawyers in the documents case filed a new pleading calling it a case that should have never been brought and must ultimately be dismissed on the basis of, inter alia, selective and vindictive prosecution. Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report issued by Special Counsel Robert Hur, finding that President Biden has “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” over the course of …

Temple University Beasley School of Law's Professor Margaret deGuzman sitting on the judge of the Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals.

Are Juries Worth the Effort? A View from the International Bench

At this year’s Edward Ross Lecture in Litigation, the Honorable Rebecca Pallmeyer, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, addressed the important and controversial topic: are jury trials worth the effort? Judge Pallmeyer’s answer was an unequivocal “yes.” She argued that juries are not merely useful tools for adjudicating cases, they are integral to the legitimacy of the American legal system. According to the Chief Judge, jury trials are one of the reasons that Americans respect the law. In her view, juries are often perceived as more impartial than judges, bringing diversity of experiences and perspectives to the resolution of cases. She emphasized that participation in the jury system promotes confidence in the system’s fairness.  Judge Pallmeyer’s views comport with conventional wisdom about the importance of juries. As every American knows, jury service is an essential duty of citizenship. According to a Pew Research Center Survey, two-thirds of U.S. adults consider jury service integral to good citizenship. District Court Judge Zach Zouhary begins trials by telling jurors that …

Coping (through Humor) with October Term 2022, U.S. Supreme Court

Whether you agree or disagree with the decisions handed down during the U.S. Supreme Court’s term ending just this June, you must agree that the term was quite a doozy. Affirmative Action out the window, student loans assistance down the drain, important LGBTQIA+ protections up in smoke. Those who are enraged or deeply disappointed by the decisions turned to a tried-and-true way to express their sentiments: humor. One of the wonders of humor is that it comes in so many varieties and adapts to such a broad array of media. Here’s just a few examples. Starting first at the nerve center of the Court itself, the dissenting opinions from the term had quite a few zingers: “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat, But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.” “The best that can be said of the majority’s perspective is that it proceeds (ostrich-like) from the hope that preventing consideration of race will end racism.” Justice Ketanji Brown …

Has The NCAA Not Learned NIL Policy Lessons Of The Past

In a stunning letter to its member schools on June 25, the National Collegiate Athletic Association said that colleges and universities must comply with NCAA policies on name, image and likeness even if those policies conflict with state laws. Purportedly in response to recent amendments to state NIL statutes that the NCAA deems to be too permissive, the association warned directly, “If a state law permits certain institutional action and NCAA legislation prohibits the same action, institutions must follow NCAA legislation.”[1] One must question the timing of this edict. Only recently, the NCAA announced that its Division I Board has directed its council to explore ways to assist student-athletes and their universities in navigating the muddy waters of NIL, acknowledging the complexity and outright inconsistency of the state legislative landscape. More specifically, on Aug. 2, the association informed its member schools that a working group of its Division I council would present specific proposals in October for rules governing: A registration process for agents and financial advisers who negotiate NIL deals on behalf of student-athletes; …

Temple Alum Brings the Fight for Equal Pay and Treatment from Soccer to Hockey

John Langel ‘74 was not always a likely candidate to be the champion of women’s sports that he has become. Now retired from Ballard Spahr where he served for decades as a partner, Langel spent much of his career representing clients in the sports industry. But for his first twenty years of practice, Langel’s experience was representing male athletes like Philadelphia legends Ron Jaworski, Reggie White, and Doug Collins. Langel’s two sons played Division I basketball, one of whom, Matt, is now the head men’s basketball coach at Colgate. His firm, Ballard, had a long-standing relationship with the Philadelphia Phillies. As Langel said in an interview for Marietta College in 2017: “I had only known a man’s world. In the man’s world, you are treated very well. I learned pretty quickly that it wasn’t the same way for the women.”[1] Langel’s education came when the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) enlisted his help in the late 1990s. The women of the National Team were embroiled in a fight with U.S. Soccer over unfair treatment. …

The Trump Indictment: What’s Happened and What’s Next

A New York grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump on fraud charges, marking the first time in US history that a former or current president has faced criminal charges. Professor Lauren Ouziel, a former federal prosecutor who teaches and writes about criminal law and criminal procedure at Temple Law, explains what’s happened so far and what’s likely to happen next. Temple Law School: How do indictments work? Lauren Ouziel: A grand jury, which is a group of randomly selected people (in New York, the group is composed of 23 people), meets to hear the testimony of witnesses and review any documentary evidence. At the close of the presentation of evidence, the prosecutors will usually then present the grand jury with a proposed indictment containing the charges against the defendant. The grand jury then deliberates and considers whether there is probable cause to believe the defendant committed the crimes charged in the indictment. The grand jury then votes, and if at least 12 of the grand jurors vote in favor, the indictment is issued. …

Temple Law at Bar-Ilan University: Teaching There, Looking Back Here

Tuesday, December 27, 2022, I taught my last of 8 classes in Problems in American Criminal Law. My location? Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, a suburb of Tel Aviv. This culminated a two-year journey, one interrupted by COVID and fraught with concerns about the world I would be entering, the tolerance I was hoping for, and a goal of supporting the bridge between our two law schools. The beginning of this story is simple. Bar-Ilan and Temple Law are collaborating, and as part of that process I was asked to create a course for an intersession program Bar-Ilan offers, 1- and 2-credit English-language courses for students nearing the end of the formal law school education (followed, unlike in the U.S., by a required internship before sitting for the Bar). Problems in criminal law were the focus, using the successes, failures, and dilemmas of the U.S. system as a tool to offer a comparative perspective and engender discussions about topics that know no boundaries – guns, capital punishment, race and class, the allocation of power …

Professor Kenneth Jacobsen Hosts Italian Executives on Philadelphia Cultural Tour

As the fall semester got underway, Professor Kenneth Jacobsen took advantage of the cooling temperatures to host twelve executives from northern Italy on a cultural tour of Philadelphia. They started with a private tour of the National Constitution Center, followed by a private audience with the Honorable Cristiana Mele, the Consul General of Italy in Philadelphia, with whom they discussed strategies for expanding business from their region in Italy to the Philadelphia metropolitan area and other parts of Pennsylvania. The group also enjoyed a presentation by the Honorable Felipe Restrepo, Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, at the US Courthouse on Market Street, on the differences between the state and federal judiciaries in the American legal system. The afternoon was spent on a private guided trolley tour of Philadelphia, with stops at the Art Museum, the Italian Market, the Comcast Tower, and more. The group rounded off their visit at a private meeting with Mayor Kenney in City Hall’s ornamental Reception Hall. The afternoon was spent at the Phillies game, where …

Dobbs, The Supreme Court, And the Sins of Omission

In Catholicism, the sin of omission occurs when a person ignores doing that which is good, needed and expected. In judicial decision-making, the sin of omission occurs when judges ignore inconvenient truths, facts beyond dispute. The Dobbs decision overruling Roe v. Wade warrants condemnation on many grounds – the end of the 14th Amendment as a source of individual liberty, the reliance on incorrect history, the freezing of rights as of 150 years ago. But also worthy of condemnation is the repeated act of omission. First to be omitted are two words – rape and slavery. Nowhere does the majority even say the word “rape.” Nowhere does it explain how Due Process permits a state to force a rape victim to bear a child. To the majority, rape does not exist. And the relevance of “slavery?” For a majority claiming to use history as a guide to what liberties are protected, the 13th Amendment banning slavery and “involuntary servitude” must be considered. A horrific and recurring act of slavery was forced childbearing. Essential history, ignored. …

Why Was He Kneeling At My Front Door, Hands Raised?

It was 4:55 a.m. when the door bell rang. Who could it be at this hour?  I looked out and saw him – crying, shivering in 20 degree cold, he waited.  And when I opened the inner door he backed away, raised his hands in the air, and kneeled down.  To tell me he was lost and needed directions.  That he approached my home because the living room light was on and the computer screen, with me at it, visible.  Kneeling, like a soldier surrendering to their captors. Growing up in the era of Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, and My Three Sons, this was not the image of how someone sought help.  The goofy or errant teenager could still turn to a neighbor, not fearing violence but perhaps expecting a stern headshake, and then having an arm put around his shoulders and taken to the kitchen for a warm drink, some fatherly advice, and a ride home. That is what my son could expect, even decades later.  A neighbor – even a …