WJI's Daily Reads for Mar. 22, 2022

WSAW: Former Marshfield municipal court clerk charged with theft of court funds.

Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog: U.S. Supreme Court consideration of Wisconsin redistricting decision could have significant impact for Voting Rights Act.

If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of GOP state lawmakers, the federal justices could allow so-called “race-neutral” redistricting nationwide, says Marquette Professor Atiba Ellis, who has written about the landmark 1965 civil rights law. Combined with previous high court decisions reducing the strength of other parts of the Voting Rights Act, such a ruling would amount to “erasing the efforts of Reconstruction” and going back to a time before the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution extended voting rights to people of color, Ellis fears.

Slate: Democrats fail to capitalize on Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings.

Which leads us to the Democrats, who on Monday did an able job of noting that Jackson’s nomination is historic and that her family should be proud, but a dismal job of defining anything akin to a progressive legal philosophy. (Pro tip: “recognizing regular people” is no more a coherent judicial philosophy than is “originalism”). Democrats seem to have all but given up on the larger project of using these confirmation hearings to make any salient argument about the importance of the court, even in a midterm election year, and even in a midterm election year in which Democrats stand poised to lose the Senate, and even, somehow, in a midterm election year in which the Supreme Court looks ready to reverse Roe v Wade, has already reversed it in Texas, stands ready to allow guns in New York subways, and to dismantle the EPA.

NC Health News: The correlation between reading disabilities and incarceration.

Throughout her career, (Youth Justice Clinic Director Barbara) Fedders has seen how reading disability and incarceration are intertwined. It doesn’t end in the juvenile justice system either — a study from 2000 of incarcerated people in Texas prisons found that approximately 80 percent of Texas prisoners were functionally illiterate.

Perpetually behind in their reading, these children experience frustration and embarrassment at being left behind. They act out, either out of frustration or because they’re trying to deflect people from finding out their secret. As they move from one grade to another, they fall further behind, falling through the cracks in the education system, and all too frequently ending up in the juvenile justice system. By the time they meet Fedders, they’ve spent years in school without learning anything because they can’t read, and they’re angry.

Reuters: Sports bettors lose appeal in case claiming damages due to baseball's sign-stealing scandal.

"This action is nothing more than claims brought by disgruntled fantasy sports participants, unhappy with the effect that cheating in MLB games may have had on their level of success in fantasy sports contests," Circuit Judge Joseph Bianco wrote for a three-judge panel.

He said a contrary ruling in the proposed class action could open the door for unhappy bettors and ticketholders to sue whenever off-field surprises affect game outcomes.