Law
June 17, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
In January 2021, the general counsel of Coca-Cola sent a letter to the law firms that represent it. The letter demanded, among other things, that these firms “commit that at least 30% of each of billed associate and partner time will be from diverse attorneys, and of such amounts at least half will be from Black attorneys.” In response to this outrageous policy, the American Civil Rights Project (of which
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June 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
As anticipated, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz declared a peacetime emergency yesterday by executive order for the sixteenth month in a row (the fifteenth by renewal of his original order). He let on that the end is in sight — somewhere over the rainbow. Walz’s current 30-day renewal is not as egregious as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s entry into the sixteenth year of his four-year term, but it as about
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June 10, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I have posted five previous editions of footnotes to our coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd. This edition bears on the pending case against Chauvin’s three former colleagues as well. My purpose here is to provide background on the legal issues for those who seek to understand them. Readers who think they know all they need to know about these cases are invited
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June 3, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I have posted four previous editions of footnotes to our coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd. My purpose here is to provide background on the legal issues in the case for those who seek to understand them. Readers who think they know all they need to know about the case are invited to pass them by. I post these footnotes in the form
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June 2, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Judge Patrick Schiltz has presided over the Blue grand jury that handed up the federal indictments of Derek Chauvin and his former colleagues for the alleged violation of George Floyd’s civil rights. Someone privy to the work of the grand jury leaked news of the sealed indictment to Star Tribune reporter Andy Mannix, who broke the news in an April 29 story that gave no hint of the professional misconduct
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May 28, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota federal district court judge Patrick Schiltz has undertaken an investigation of the apparent grand jury leaks to the New York Times and the Star Tribune in the federal indictment of Derek Chauvin et al. I posted Judge Schiltz’s In Re Blue Grand Jury show-cause order here and the first part of this series here, both with links to relevant stories. The story is flying under the radar of the
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May 26, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota federal district court Judge Patrick Schiltz has ordered an investigation of apparent leaks of grand jury information to the New York Times and the Star Tribune. I posted his five-page order here yesterday. The subject is serious. Moreover, knowing Judge Schiltz, I think he will treat it with the seriousness his order suggests it deserves. The Star Tribune published Rochelle Olson’s May 21 story on the order without more.
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May 25, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Star Tribune reporter Rochelle Olson covered Minnesota District Court Judge Patrick Schiltz’s show-cause order triggered by apparent leaks of grand jury information to the New York Times and the Star Tribune in this May 21 story. The show-cause order implicates Star Tribune reporter Andy Mannix’s April 29 story reporting that federal civil rights indictments were forthcoming against Derek Chauvin et al. The indictment against Chauvin and his former colleagues was
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May 22, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
There are enough destructive and unlawful woke policies going forward these days to keep dozens, if not hundreds, of public interest law firms working full time. I’m happy to report on two recent court successes (for now) in cases challenging such policies. In Texas, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor has issued a temporary restraining order sought by a restaurant owner against the Biden Small Business Administration. The owner challenged the
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May 22, 2021 — Scott Johnson
My old Faegre partner and friend Patrick Schiltz is United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Judge Schiltz clerked for Justice Scalia for two years — one year on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and one year on the Supreme Court. He is a brilliant and no-nonsense kind of guy. Judge Schiltz is in the news because he has taken
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May 20, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Jack Cashill asks in a May 18 American Spectator column “Why Has the Right Let the Floyd Cops Fry?” Subhead: “If they don’t speak up, no one will.” I want to respond briefly in this post for readers who may be interested in the specific subject Cashill takes up. Cashill’s column is based on the May 12 motion filed by counsel for Tou Thao (one of the four officers charged
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May 18, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
In a move that will favor Black applicants for admission, the University of California has agreed to no longer consider SAT or ACT scores when making admissions and scholarship decisions. Most colleges and universities are confident they can discriminate against White and Asian applicants without ditching these tests. They believe they can, in effect, award free points (hundreds of them in the case of the SAT) to Black applicants to
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May 13, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The murder case against Derek Chauvin’s three former colleagues was set for trial before Judge Peter Cahill on a date certain this August. At a motion hearing in the case this morning, however, Judge Cahill rescheduled the trial to March 7, 2022, in deference to the federal civil rights case filed against all four defendants in Minnesota federal district court. As of this moment, the court has sent out an
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May 9, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I have posted three previous editions of footnotes to our coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd. My purpose here is to provide background on the legal issues in the case for those who seek to understand them. I post these footnotes in the form of bullet points and differentiate facts and law from (my) opinion. Previous editions are included below under May 5,
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May 8, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The Star Tribune drew on the work of three reporters and its collaboration with “Frontline” (through its Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) for Andy Mannix’s story on the federal indictment of Derek Chauvin and his three former colleagues on federal civil rights charges in the death of George Floyd. With all hands on deck, I thought
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May 7, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Trump Justice Department aggressively protected religious rights and liberties. In this post from December 2019, I described five cases in which the DOJ, under the leadership of Eric Dreiband, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, filed papers in defense of religious freedom. One of them was a case from Indianapolis, Indiana. In that case, the DOJ sided with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis which had been sued for firing a
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May 7, 2021 — Scott Johnson
A federal grand jury has handed up indictments of Derek Chauvin and his three former colleagues for violating George Floyd’s civil rights. I inferred from the leak underlying Andy Mannix’s April 29 Star Tribune story that the federal civil rights investigation was originally undertaken as a backstop to the state criminal prosecution of the officers in the event that Chauvin and his former colleagues were acquitted, but such is not
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