Matthew Enriquez, ’15, awarded Finn Milleman Scholarship
Matthew Enriquez, ’15, was awarded the Katherine Finn Milleman Memorial Scholarship at the Women in Law Conference on April 12.
The Katherine Finn Milleman Memorial Lecture was presented by UI Tippie College of Business and COL affiliated faculty member, Professor Nancy Hauserman, ’76.
The Belle Babbs Mansfield Women in Law Conference discussed, “Having it All: Modern Career-Work Life Balance.” The panelists included L. Song Richardson, UI Professor of Law; Cathy Pugh, Development Director, United Action for Youth; Felicia Bertin Rocha, ’99, Attorney, Bertin Rocha Law Firm; Mindy Olson, ’05, Paulson Electric; and Elisabeth Reynoldson, ’92, Iowa Attorney General, Criminal Appeals Division.
Debt conference held on April 13
Atlanta Federal Reserve President Dennis Lockhart and world-renowned economist Allan Meltzer discussed the Federal Reserve’s recent monetary policy in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-08 and competing ideas about how to handle America’s national debt at a conference at the University of Iowa on April 13.
The conference, “Fiscal Reform, Monetization, or Default: How Will the United States Solve the Problem of its National Debt?” also featured speakers Steven Schwarcz of Duke University, who has been a leading voice on systemic risk in the financial system, and Charles Himmelberg, who is head of Global Credit Strategy at Goldman Sachs. http://now.uiowa.edu/2013/03/atlanta-fed-president-speak-us-monetary-policy-conference-ui
Click here for links to video or podcasts from the event
Read press from the conference:
- http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Fed-Lockhart-Monetizing-Debt/2013/04/14/id/499382
- http://www.business-standard.com/article/reuters/fed-doves-play-down-threat-of-u-s-inflation-113041400013_1.html
- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/US-inflation-Fed-doves-play-down-threat/articleshow/19536421.cms
- http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-04-13/lockhart-calls-unfounded-the-view-that-fed-monetizes-u-dot-s-dot-debt
Click here to view photos from the conference
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller stops at UI Law School, talks bipartisanship (Daily Iowan, April 10, 2013)
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, members of his staff, and former Maine Attorney General James Tierney spoke to UI law students about the role and power of state attorneys general.
http://www.dailyiowan.com/2013/04/10/Metro/32747.html
Iowa professor helps explain new financing options for costly divorces (The Gazette, April 12, 2013)
Professor Maya Steinitz helps explain new financing options for costly divorces in The Gazette.
Law professor consults with September 11 prosecution
A University of Iowa law professor is helping the team prosecuting alleged masterminds of the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States in a controversial military tribunal under new leadership determined to rehabilitate its legal and public image.
Professor Mark Osiel has been working since January as a special consultant to the military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, trying suspects accused of supporting the terror attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Osiel’s work in particular is prosecuting two accused terrorists, which he can’t identify but who he says are prominent.
Osiel is an acquaintance of Army Gen. Mark Martins, the current chief prosecutor, and joined the prosecution team at his invitation in January. The sixth prosecutor in the last ten years, Martins has made it his goal to bring legitimacy to the highly controversial commissions that were for years accused of secrecy, politics, and a disregard for the rule of law by critics.
Osiel says the commission’s current priority is transparency, conducting trials in the open, refraining from using evidence that might have been gained through torture, and following the rule of law.
Osiel, an expert on war crimes and international law, says that in the cases he’s working on, prosecutors want to convict the alleged terrorist ringleaders for their roles in the September 11 attacks and then seek the death sentence. Osiel’s role is helping prosecutors who are looking for a legal way to keep the death sentence on the table.
“For capital punishment, it’s not enough that leaders knowingly contributed to others’ crimes through training and financial support,” Osiel says. “To execute a military or political leader for the criminal activity of others under his influence, prosecutors usually show either that he directly ordered them to commit the offenses, or at least exercised enough control to prevent their misconduct had he desired.”
Osiel says neither scenario neatly applies in the Guantanamo cases because Al Qaeda was never as tightly organized as that. It’s usually described as a “network” or—by its adherents—a “movement.”
“That’s very different from an army, with its formal chain of command, clearly delineating the duties of everyone involved. So the familiar ways to connect a low level foot soldier to his higher-ups generally don’t quite fit the facts in anti-terrorism cases,” Osiel says.
This means that prosecutors must find another way to link the high profile Guantanamo Bay defendants to the people who were actually at the controls in the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and USS Cole. So Osiel and the prosecution team are invoking the international law on “Join Criminal Enterprises,” first used at Nuremberg and fleshed out by the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
“The idea is that a group of people share a common criminal purpose, like expelling another ethnic group from their country,” says Osiel. “Everyone significantly contributing to this purpose then becomes responsible for the criminal acts of all others committed to it. We can credibly say that both the top Guantanamo defendants and those hijacking the planes on September 1 shared the criminal purpose of conducting such attacks on Americans.”
Under international law, he says that makes them all members of a single criminal enterprise. Lawyers for the defendants respond that this legal concept arose only in the late 1990s and was not yet settled law before the September 11 attacks. They also argue that, in any event, it is no different from “aiding and abetting,” which would reduce the likelihood of capital punishment.
Prosecutors first sought to try these defendants for conspiracy and material support for terrorism, but federal courts rejected that, since international law doesn’t recognize these offenses. So the accused must be tried for traditional war crimes, like attacking civilians, because these can be prosecuted in a military commission, where both the Bush and Obama administrations have insisted on bringing these cases, Osiel says.
YOUR MONEY-Financing options open up for costly divorces (Reuters, April 12, 2013)
Professor Maya Steinitz is quoted in a Reuters article about divorce financing.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/12/money-divorce-loans-idUSL2N0CQ1NW20130412
Refund delay further burdens poor, blacks (The Gazette, April 14, 2013)
Courtney Thomas-Dusing, ’14, comments on the effect of tax refund delays.
http://thegazette.com/2013/04/14/refund-delay-further-burdens-poor-blacks/
No need to tinker with Tinker
UI law student, Aaron Hersh, ’13, comments on Tinker v. Des Moines.
http://now.uiowa.edu/2013/04/no-need-tinker-tinker
Three COL students receive UI’s highest honors
Congratulations to COL students Michael Todd Appel, ’13, Mauricio Cardona, ’13, and Abhay Nadipuram, ’13, who were presented the University of Iowa’s highest honors at the 96th annual Finkbine Dinner on April 9.
Michael Todd Appel received the Hancher-Finkbine Graduate/Professional Student Medallion. He is a third-year law student from Iowa City. Appel has served as Vice President and President of the Executive Council of Graduate and Professional Students. He introduced the One Biggest Improvement initiative, encouraging council delegates to enhance one area of their respective colleges. Appel also proposed a plan titled Universities for a Better Iowa, to the Iowa Board of Regents, in order to emphasize the benefits of state institutions. The initiative boosted publicity for the UI and other state universities.
As National LGBT Bar Association regional chair for the Midwest, Appel increased collaboration among law schools, and helped establish advocacy organizations at schools without LGBT-friendly policies. He also has served as a judicial intern and law clerk, participated in Moot Court, joined the Citizen Lawyer Program, and received the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence.
Mauricio Cardona received the Hubbard Human Rights Award—Graduate/Professional. He is a third-year law student from Delta, Colorado. Cardona has helped lead the Latino Law Student Association (LLSA), served on the Dean’s Advisory Council on Diversity, and worked as a student intern in the College of Law Legal Clinic.
Through the LLSA, he organized a spring break trip to Austin, Texas, for student volunteers at the Workers Defense Project. Long-range goals of this project include encouraging students to use their Texas experiences to support low-wage immigrant workers in Iowa.
Cardona has helped establish the Center for Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa, uniting a diverse group of Johnson County people and organizations to assist low-wage workers.
Abhay Nadipuram received the Graduate/Professional Distinguished Student Leader Certificate. A third-year law student from Waterloo, Iowa, he is currently the note and comment editor for the Journal of Corporation Law, working closely with students to develop their scholarly writing.
Nadipuram has served as a Research Assistant for Alexander Somek, Professor of Law, analyzing comparative law topics. As Co-President of the Iowa Student Bar Association, he advocates for student learning and development, and works with administrators to consider more LGBT-related course work.
As Governmental Relations Coordinator for the Executive Council of Graduate and Professional Students, Nadipuram coordinated town hall events and Regents’ Day with student leaders, and spoke at the Universities for a Better Iowa event. He was the council’s Member of the Year in 2012.
He’s also served with the Pro Bono Society, Iowa Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and the Asian-Pacific American Law Student Association. In 2012, he was named Student Organization Leader of the Year.
Google’s Android is target of new antitrust complaint in Europe (Los Angeles Times, April 9, 2013)
Professor Herbert Hovenkamp comments on an antitrust complaint involving Google in the Los Angeles Times.
