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Business Wire
12 hours ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Judge Andrea Leahy to Receive the 2025 American Inns of Court Fourth Circuit Professionalism Award
ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Andrea Leahy has been selected to receive the prestigious 2025 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Fourth Circuit. Leahy is an associate judge at large in the Appellate Court of Maryland. Judge Andrea Leahy, selected to receive prestigious 2025 American @InnsofCourt Professionalism Award for the 4th Circuit. #InnsofCourt Share Leahy was appointed to the Appellate Court in 2014. She is chair-elect of the Judicial Ethics Committee and a member of the Judicial Transparency and Access Workgroup. She was a member of the Legislative Committee, the Specialty Courts and Dockets Committee, and subcommittees focused on mental health, alcoholism and addictions, and behavioral health. One of Leahy's most recent contributions to Maryland's legal community is her work to establish the Cole-Davidson American Inn of Court, in Annapolis. Leahy chaired the organizing committee for the Inn, which was established in 2022. '[W]ithout her, there would be no appellate Inn in Maryland,' writes Senior Judge (Ret.) Ima S. Raker of the Supreme Court of Maryland, who nominated her former law school student for the award. From 2018 to 2019, Leahy served as president of the Hon. James McGill American Inn of Court in Columbia, Maryland. She was a member of the J. Dudley Digges American Inn of Court in Baltimore from 2002 to 2014. Leahy began her career as an assistant county attorney in Prince George's County Office of Law, where she met County Executive Parris Glendening. When Glendening was elected Maryland's governor in 1995, he hired Leahy as his chief legal counsel. After five years of advising the governor, Leahy became an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland. Before becoming a judge, she was of counsel in the Business Litigation Division of Whiteford, Taylor & Preston LLP from 2001 to 2006 and as a managing member of Leahy & DeSmet LLC from 2006 to 2014. Leahy is active within the legal community. A member of the Maryland State Bar Association, she is a fellow of the Maryland Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation. Leahy also chaired a project that brought judges, lawyers, and academics together to uncover and publish the history of women in Maryland law. The project culminated in the book Finding Justice: A History of Women Lawyers in Maryland Since 1642. Leahy earned undergraduate degrees in music and politics from The Catholic University of America in 1983, then spent a summer as a guest student at Mozarteum University's music academy in Salzburg, Austria. Leahy earned her law degree in 1987 from American University's Washington College of Law. The American Inns of Court, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, inspires the legal community to advance the rule of law by achieving the highest level of professionalism through example, education, and mentoring. The organization's membership includes more than 30,000 federal, state, and local judges; lawyers; law professors; and law students in more than 350 chapters nationwide. More information is available at
Boston Globe
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Maine Gov. Janet Mills: Why we must stand up to Trump's bullying
It was the echo of his voice I heard that February morning when President Trump unexpectedly we are the federal law,' I said the only thing I knew to say, what I believed any country lawyer would say: 'See you in court.' Advertisement The president's demand, the impermissible threat in his words, the attempt to govern by intimidation — this is not what the Founders meant when they wrote the Constitution. It is, in fact, the very thing they most feared when they divided power among three coequal branches of government. It is not the president who makes the law; it's Congress. The chief executive may not create a law, amend a law, or repeal a law by tweet, executive order, or press release. His job is simply to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' Advertisement Judge James Harvie Wilkinson III of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a Reagan appointee, 'Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both,' he wrote. 'The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.' This dangerous conflict is played out every day in courts across the country. In April, when the federal government Advertisement Since that time, there have been other threats across the country, more bullying toward businesses, colleges, scientists, researchers, unions, veterans, and women; threats to Social Security, health care, medical research, and education; threats toward states and countries large and small. We cannot let intimidation win the day. We cannot be afraid to stand up for the rule of law. For the law is the greatest achievement of our society, the thing that protects all of us, but especially the weak and the vulnerable, those who cannot stand up for themselves. If we stop believing in that great equalizer, the Constitution, if we give up, if we lose faith, then we lose the very thing that protects every one of us at a time when we need it most. A rusty old bicycle sits in my barn — my father's bike —flattened tires, bent pedals, worn handlebars. It bears the tattered flags of countries that millions once called home in the Europe of 1937. It is because people like my father stood up and defended America — then and now a great country — that we must not bend to the will of anyone who would rule by intimidation and not follow the law. Democracy is never lost to us. It is just sometimes not easy to fight for and hard to see the end of the fight. But as my father warned, we 'can't let bullies have their way. They never stop.' On June 6, 1966, Senator Robert F. Kennedy challenged students at the University of Cape Town — who risked their lives to hear him speak — to write the history of their generation. My generation. Advertisement It is from numberless diverse acts of courage, RFK said, that human history is shaped. Each of you will have your moment. And whenever and however you do stand up, believe me, you will count for more than you think. Our country will stand taller. Our country will be stronger. The rule of law will thrive. As RFK also said, in remarks at the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1966,we cannot afford to 'sit content in the easy approval of friends and neighbors' or accept and 'stand on the past' but must rise instead and 'fight for the answers of the future.' Each of us can send forth that tiny ripple of hope; we can restore the rule of law, we can revive our rights, recharge our nation, and rewrite the history of our world. Our children and our grandchildren will be proud of us, the way I hope my father is proud of me today.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
NASCAR Blocks Michael Jordan Team in Appellate Court
In a significant legal win for NASCAR, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Thursday vacated a preliminary injunction issued last December by a trial court judge that allowed 23XI Racing, owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, and Front Row Motorsports to race with the benefits of charters without having to release claims. Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, writing on behalf of himself and Judges Steven Agee and Stephanie Thacker, reasoned that the 'theory of antitrust law' asserted by 23XI and Front Row 'is not supported by any case of which we are aware.' Advertisement More from The ruling does not necessarily bar 23XI and Front Row from competing, as they could race as open (non-chartered) teams. Per an agreement with NASCAR, the two teams competed as open teams last fall after they sued NASCAR, but their charters are no longer protected by a district court's injunction. Thursday's ruling is not a surprise. As Sportico detailed following an oral argument at the Fourth Circuit last month, the three judges expressed substantial skepticism toward the case and sharply questioned why U.S. District Judge Kenneth D. Bell granted the injunction. Thacker went so far as to say 'this is the first time . . . in all the history of contract law' that an injunction effectively creates a new contract. By that, Thacker meant NASCAR was compelled to provide 23XI and Front Row the benefits of a charter—which guarantee teams a starting position in NASCAR-sanctioned races—without those two teams, unlike other NASCAR teams, having to release claims. The judges repeatedly opined that there's an absence of case precedent supporting this legal theory and suggested it provided an unauthorized windfall to 23XI and Front Row. Advertisement Thursday's ruling captures that same spirit of hostility toward the case. 'While [23XI and Front Row allege] years of conduct and contract provisions that they claimed were anticompetitive, thus attacking NASCAR's entire business model,' Niemeyer wrote, the two nonetheless want to compete in NASCAR Cup Series events 'under the terms of the 2025 Charter Agreement' except without having to sign a release. Niemeyer questioned why 23XI Racing and Front Row want to 'participate in the very business' that they seek 'to dismantle.' Niemeyer also criticized Bell for supplying an answer to a legal question that, the three-judge panel contends, isn't based on any precedent. Bell raised the question, 'Can a monopolist require that a party agree to release the monopolist from all claims that it is violating the antitrust laws as a condition of doing business?' He followed with, 'The answer is no.' Advertisement Niemeyer suggested Bell's answer isn't based on case law. To that end, Niemeyer wrote, Bell 'supplied no case law to support that theory. Indeed, we have found no case to support it, and the defendants claim that there is none.' Although there are cases involving parties signing agreements, those cases are 'hardly relevant,' since with 23XI and Front Row, 'there is no agreement.' Instead, 'the plaintiffs refused to sign the 2025 Charter Agreement.' Niemeyer offered still other criticisms of the injunction's issuance and the underlying case. He questioned how a release of claims could cause the type of legal injury remedied by antitrust law, which is used to combat anticompetitive practices in the marketplace. 'Neither the plaintiffs nor [Bell],' Niemeyer wrote, 'has shown how the release would have injured competition.' Quoting a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2009, Niemeyer stressed that parties—including NASCAR and teams—are 'free to choose the parties with whom they will deal, as well as the prices, terms, and conditions of that dealing.' Advertisement Thursday's ruling is a victory for Christopher S. Yates of Latham & Watkins. Yates argued the case for NASCAR, while Jeffrey Kessler of Winston & Strawn argued for 23XI and Front Row. In a statement, Kessler said his group is 'disappointed' by the ruling but emphasized it was 'based on a very narrow consideration of whether a release of claims in the charter agreements is anticompetitive.' Over the next two weeks, Kessler could petition the Fourth Circuit for a rehearing en banc, which, if granted, would mean other judges on the Fourth Circuit review the arguments. But such petitions are rarely granted, especially when there is no dissenting judge on a three-judge panel. To be clear, the vacating of an injunction doesn't end the case, which accuses NASCAR of engaging in 'anticompetitive' and 'monopolistic' conduct, and 23XI and Front Row could ultimately win. A trial is currently scheduled to start Dec. 1. Advertisement Ultimately the case is about financial considerations, which means it's also possible the parties could reach a settlement out of court. Don't be surprised if that's how the case ends. Best of Sign up for Sportico's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court rejects Maryland AR-15 case, and interest groups respond
BALTIMORE — It's not clear if the Supreme Court's decision to deny two gun cases, including a challenge to a Maryland ban on AR-15s, a semi-automatic rifle, will influence how other gun cases are determined. However, gun owners say the split-court's case rejection reflects skepticism from some justices that the ban is constitutional. 'Four members of the Court, including Justice Kavanaugh, have made clear that the Fourth Circuit incorrectly decided the case,' said Mark Pennak, president of Maryland Shall Issue, a group advocating for gun owner rights expansion. In his view, the court's rejection only 'temporarily' allows the ban to hold. 'Once the Court grants review of the issue, the decision in that case will be controlling precedent in MD and elsewhere. If plaintiffs win on this issue in that case, the Maryland law will fail as well,' he said. The ban was enacted in response to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newton, Connecticut, where 20 children and six school staff members were killed. The Maryland case, Snope v. Brown, was declined alongside a Rhode Island case which contested a ban on high-capacity gun magazines. While Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas said they would hear the case, four of the nine Supreme Court justices must agree to hear a case. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he expects the court will address the issue of AR-15 legality 'in the next Term or two.' Kavanaugh also said that AR–15s are legal in 41 of the 50 States, which makes Maryland's law, relatively, 'something of an outlier.' Gun control advocates, including several Maryland elected officials, felt relieved at the high court's decision, saying that Marylanders are safer with the ban in place. Daniel Webster, Bloomberg Professor of American Health in Violence Prevention at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that he views the court's rejection of the case favorably. 'I think it'll mean that assault weapon ban will stay in, and I think that that's generally a good thing in terms of public safety,' Webster said. 'And I think that that is a policy that most Marylanders support for sure.' He also said that there are other states where similar bans have been challenged on Second Amendment grounds, but most courts have supported the bans. Maryland Congressman Glenn Ivey, a Democrat, posted on X, 'This decision sends a clear message: states can take bold action to protect their communities from gun violence. Marylanders shouldn't have to live in fear of weapons of war on our streets.' He also expressed his commitment to supporting 'common-sense gun laws that save lives and uphold our Constitution' in the future. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, also voiced support for the Court's decision. 'Maryland passed its ban on military-style assault weapons after the Sandy Hook massacre,' he posted on X. 'SCOTUS should continue to allow lifesaving laws like Maryland's to remain in place.' Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, the defendant in Snope v. Brown, said in a statement that the Supreme Court's case rejection means the state's ban 'that prevents senseless and preventable deaths' will remain in effect. 'Our Office will continue to advocate for gun safety laws at the General Assembly and will defend Maryland's common-sense gun reforms in court. We will do whatever we can to protect Marylanders from this horrific violence,' the statement said. ________
Vox
04-06-2025
- Business
- Vox
A federal court's novel proposal to rein in Trump's power grab
is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court. Federal civil servants are supposed to enjoy robust protections against being fired or demoted for political reasons. But President Donald Trump has effectively stripped them of these protections by neutralizing the federal agencies that implement these safeguards. An agency known as the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) hears civil servants' claims that a 'government employer discriminated against them, retaliated against them for whistleblowing, violated protections for veterans, or otherwise subjected them to an unlawful adverse employment action or prohibited personnel practice,' as a federal appeals court explained in an opinion on Tuesday. But the three-member board currently lacks the quorum it needs to operate because Trump fired two of the members. SCOTUS, Explained Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Trump also fired Hampton Dellinger, who until recently served as the special counsel of the United States, a role that investigates alleged violations of federal civil service protections and brings related cases to the MSPB. Trump recently nominated Paul Ingrassia, a far-right podcaster and recent law school graduate to replace Dellinger. The upshot of these firings is that no one in the government is able to enforce laws and regulations protecting civil servants. As Dellinger noted in an interview, the morning before a federal appeals court determined that Trump could fire him, he'd 'been able to get 6,000 newly hired federal employees back on the job,' and was working to get 'all probationary employees put back on the job [after] their unlawful firing' by the Department of Government Efficiency and other Trump administration efforts to cull the federal workforce. Related The Supreme Court just revealed one thing it actually fears about Trump These and other efforts to reinstate illegally fired federal workers are on hold, and may not resume until Trump leaves office. Which brings us to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit's decision in National Association of Immigration Judges v. Owen, which proposes an innovative solution to this problem. As the Owen opinion notes, the Supreme Court has held that the MSPB process is the only process a federal worker can use if they believe they've been fired in violation of federal civil service laws. So if that process is shut down, the worker is out of luck. But the Fourth Circuit's Owen opinion argues that this 'conclusion can only be true…when the statute functions as Congress intended.' That is, if the MSPB and the special counsel are unable to 'fulfill their roles prescribed by' federal law, then the courts should pick up the slack and start hearing cases brought by illegally fired civil servants. For procedural reasons, the Fourth Circuit's decision will not take effect right away — the court sent the case back down to a trial judge to 'conduct a factual inquiry' into whether the MSPB continues to function. And, even after that inquiry is complete, the Trump administration is likely to appeal the Fourth Circuit's decision to the Supreme Court if it wants to keep civil service protections on ice. If the justices agree with the circuit court, however, that will close a legal loophole that has left federal civil servants unprotected by laws that are still very much on the books. And it will cure a problem that the Supreme Court bears much of the blame for creating. The 'unitary executive,' or why the Supreme Court is to blame for the loss of civil service protections Federal law provides that Dellinger could 'be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,' and members of the MSPB enjoy similar protections against being fired. Trump's decision to fire these officials was illegal under these laws. But a federal appeals court nonetheless permitted Trump to fire Dellinger, and the Supreme Court recently backed Trump's decision to fire the MSPB members as well. The reason is a legal theory known as the 'unitary executive,' which is popular among Republican legal scholars, and especially among the six Republicans that control the Supreme Court. If you want to know all the details of this theory, I can point you to three different explainers I've written on the unitary executive. The short explanation is that the unitary executive theory claims that the president must have the power to fire top political appointees charged with executing federal laws – including officials who execute laws protecting civil servants from illegal firings. Related The legal theory that would make Trump the most powerful president in US history But the Supreme Court has never claimed that the unitary executive permits the president to fire any federal worker regardless of whether Congress has protected them or not. In a seminal opinion laying out the unitary executive theory, for example, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the president must have the power to remove 'principal officers' — high-ranking officials like Dellinger who must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Under Scalia's approach, lower-ranking government workers may still be given some protection. The Fourth Circuit cannot override the Supreme Court's decision to embrace the unitary executive theory. But the Owen opinion essentially tries to police the line drawn by Scalia. The Supreme Court has given Trump the power to fire some high-ranking officials, but he shouldn't be able to use that power as a back door to eliminate job protections for all civil servants. The Fourth Circuit suggests that the federal law which simultaneously gave the MSPB exclusive authority over civil service disputes, while also protecting MSPB members from being fired for political reasons, must be read as a package. Congress, this argument goes, would not have agreed to shunt all civil service disputes to the MSPB if it had known that the Supreme Court would strip the MSPB of its independence. And so, if the MSPB loses its independence, it must also lose its exclusive authority over civil service disputes — and federal courts must regain the power to hear those cases. It remains to be seen whether this argument persuades a Republican Supreme Court — all three of the Fourth Circuit judges who decided the Owen case are Democrats, and two are Biden appointees. But the Fourth Circuit's reasoning closely resembles the kind of inquiry that courts frequently engage in when a federal law is struck down. When a court declares a provision of federal law unconstitutional, it often needs to ask whether other parts of the law should fall along with the unconstitutional provision, an inquiry known as 'severability.' Often, this severability analysis asks which hypothetical law Congress would have enacted if it had known that the one provision is invalid. The Fourth Circuit's decision in Owen is essentially a severability opinion. It takes as a given the Supreme Court's conclusion that laws protecting Dellinger and the MSPB members from being fired are unconstitutional, then asks which law Congress would have enacted if it had known that it could not protect MSPB members from political reprisal. The Fourth Circuit's conclusion is that, if Congress had known that MSPB members cannot be politically independent, then it would not have given them exclusive authority over civil service disputes. If the Supreme Court permits Trump to neutralize the MSPB, that would fundamentally change how the government functions The idea that civil servants should be hired based on merit and insulated from political pressure is hardly new. The first law protecting civil servants, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which President Chester A. Arthur signed into law in 1883. Laws like the Pendleton Act do more than protect civil servants who, say, resist pressure to deny government services to the president's enemies. They also make it possible for top government officials to actually do their jobs. Before the Pendleton Act, federal jobs were typically awarded as patronage — so when a Democratic administration took office, the Republicans who occupied most federal jobs would be fired and replaced by Democrats. This was obviously quite disruptive, and it made it difficult for the government to hire highly specialized workers. Why would someone go to the trouble of earning an economics degree and becoming an expert on federal monetary policy, if they knew that their job in the Treasury Department would disappear the minute their party lost an election? Meanwhile, the task of filling all of these patronage jobs overwhelmed new presidents. As Candice Millard wrote in a 2011 biography of President James A. Garfield, the last president elected before the Pendleton Act, when Garfield took office, a line of job seekers began to form outside the White House 'before he even sat down to breakfast.' By the time Garfield had eaten, this line 'snaked down the front walk, out the gate, and onto Pennsylvania Avenue.' Garfield was assassinated by a disgruntled job seeker, a fact that likely helped build political support for the Pendleton Act.
