WJI's Daily Reads for Feb. 18, 2022

Courthouse News Service: Wisconsin Supreme Court hears argument on whether ban on name change for transgender sex offender violates the first amendment.

Cary Bloodworth, an assistant public defender and member of the Madison-based nonprofit Community Justice firm, argued that, as applied to Ella, it is unconstitutional to require her to register as a sex offender because it forces her, including in circumstances where she has to use her ID, to speak and present a name that doesn’t match her gender identity, which amounts to government-compelled speech.

“Every time she uses that ID,” Bloodworth said, whether to travel on an airplane or buy Sudafed at a pharmacy, “she is speaking something that she doesn’t want to be speaking.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission passes towing procedure in attempt to curb reckless driving.
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American Constitution Society: Why Chief Justice John Roberts should retire in June 2022.

Roberts’ retirement would represent a striking symbol of good faith after the two egregious Republican power grabs – one in early 2016, when Republicans blocked the Obama nomination of Merrick Garland; the other in 2020, when Republicans rushed the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett on the eve of the election. Roberts knows that following normal protocols would have produced Democratic appointees in both those cases. Justices Gorsuch and Barrett are the direct beneficiaries of the usurpations, and Justice Kavanaugh the indirect beneficiary (because Gorsuch probably would have filled Kennedy’s seat in 2018), but none of them have shown any sign of an inner compass that would lead them to resign. Only Chief Justice Roberts has the combination of longevity and integrity that might lead him to do the right thing.

Balls and Strikes: When questioning nominees for federal court, Senators show their disdain for legal assistance to the poor.

(Nina) Morrison is a 20-year veteran of the Innocence Project, which works on exonerating wrongly convicted people using DNA testing; during her tenure, Morrison has helped free roughly 30 people from prison, including death row. Her nomination is part of the Biden administration’s concerted effort to appoint more public defenders and criminal defense lawyers to the federal bench, much to the chagrin of Senate Republicans, who are very angry Biden has the gall to nominate anyone other than three Federalist Society law students in a trench coat.

In a functional society, Nina Morrison’s work would be among the most laudable things a lawyer could do. But because our society includes people like Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Morrison got lectures like this: “Across this country, Americans are horrified at skyrocketing crime rates, at skyrocketing homicide rates, at skyrocketing burglary rates, at skyrocketing carjacking rates,” he said. “All of those are the direct result of the policies you’ve spent your entire lifetime advancing.” He went on to ask Morrison if she cared about “the innocent people being killed because of the policies you’re implementing,” as if, again, representing people who are exonerated by DNA evidence is among the nation’s leading causes of preventable death.

CNN: U.S. Supreme Court to hear New York teachers' vaccine mandate case despite initial denial by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.