Colorblind Justice From A Blind Judge, Maybe?

Justice is not always blind and seldom is it colorblind. But, can a blind judge bring us closer to that ideal? A Michigan attorney from a family of professional lawyers wants us to think so. The well known Bernstein law firm is run by daddy Sam and his siblings. So, the name Bernstein was worth a million dollars in campaign advertisements to Attorney Richard Bernstein in his contest for a seat on the Michigan Supreme Court. He began with name recognition that was off the charts.
“I want to bring blind justice to the Michigan Supreme Court,” said Detroit-area attorney Richard Bernstein as a Michigan Supreme Court candidate. Highlighting his struggles in education and his work as a legal advocate for the disabled.
"I have come to believe that life is not always fair, but judges should always be," Bernstein said. "I'm here because I believe in the idea of blind justice. I'm here because I believe in the idea of fairness for all people."



 (Attorney, Richard Bernstein, AP photo)
Legally blind since birth, Mr. Bernstein will get the chance on New Year’s Day 2015 when he’s sworn into office and makes history as the first blind person to serve on the state’s highest court.
 "It would be much easier if I could read and write like everyone else, but that's not how I was created," Bernstein said. "No question, it requires a lot more work, but the flip side is it requires you to operate at the highest level of preparedness. ... This is what I've done my entire life. This goes all the way back to grade school for me." This is his second bid for statewide office - he ran for attorney general four years ago but lost the Democratic nomination.
According to an Associated Press profile:

Bernstein is widely known in southeastern Michigan because his family’s personal-injury law firm regularly advertises on TV. He spent more than $1.8 million of his own money to campaign for the state Supreme Court. His slogan? “Blind Justice.”
As one of only two Democrats on the seven-member court, Bernstein is unlikely to crack the court’s conservative sway. But he’s still expected to make a difference.
“His own experience and background is different than anyone else’s at the conference table,” said Justice Bridget McCormack, who was a law professor before she was elected in 2012. “Richard knows a whole lot about disability law the rest of us don’t. We don’t get a lot of those cases. Who knows how it will be useful?”

 Hearing arguments and writing opinions is only part of a Supreme Court justice's job. They meet weekly to decide whether to accept or reject appeals in more than 2,000 cases a year. Because he's blind, Bernstein will be having many conversations with his law clerks instead of communicating through email or long memos.
"My chambers will be unique," he said. "Not many clerks will have as much interaction with a justice as mine will." In November, he was elected to an eight-year term. He’s not the first blind judge to sit on the highest court of a state.
Missouri Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Teitelman, who is legally blind, was appointed to the court in 2002. On the federal level, there’s David Tatel, a blind judge serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
To help prepare Mr. Bernstein for his first set of oral arguments on Jan. 13, an assistant has been reading him briefs.
“We do use technology but technology can only take you so far,” Mr. Bernstein said. “I internalize the cases word for word, pretty much commit them primarily by memory. I’m asking the reader to pinpoint certain things, read footnotes, look at the legislative record.”
(Gershman, Jacob, WSJ,  Dec. 29, 2014)

A New Breed Of Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli

Ad in Va. governor’s race spotlights Cuccinelli fight to clear wrongly convicted man

Video: A new ad for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli tells the story of his role in the case of Thomas Haynesworth, who spent 27 years in prison for rapes he did not commit.

By Fredrick Kunkle, Tuesday, September 3, 12:01 AM E-mail the writer

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II’s gubernatorial campaign is launching an ad Tuesday highlighting his evolving views on crime and casting the conservative Republican as a compassionate lawman who fought to clear a wrongly convicted man.
The ad tells the story of Cuccinelli’s role in the case of Thomas Haynesworth, who spent 27 years in prison for rapes he did not commit. After DNA testing cleared Haynesworth in two sexual assaults, Cuccinelli and two state prosecutors championed Haynesworth’s case, pushing to obtain a “writ of actual innocence” for him even in two cases where no genetic testing was possible. Cuccinelli also gave Haynesworth a clerical job in the attorney general’s office after his release from prison.

More news about Va. politics

Cuccinelli ad details fight to clear wrongly convicted man

Fredrick Kunkle 12:01 AM ET

Ad in Virginia governor’s race highlights Ken Cuccinelli II’s role in helping a wrongly convicted man.

“The attorney general’s job is not convictions,” Cuccinelli says in the ad. “Today, we got justice.”
Haynesworth, who also appears on camera, says he never would have imagined that the attorney general would take a personal interest in his case.
“He didn’t have to get involved. But he said an injustice was done, and he was trying to correct it,” Haynesworth says. “To me, he’s a hell of a guy.”
With the Virginia governor’s race set to quicken its pace after the Labor Day weekend, Cuccinelli’s campaign wants to show a different side of the candidate than the one portrayed by his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe.
McAuliffe, a businessman and former Democratic National Committee chairman who lives in McLean, has focused on depicting Cuccinelli as an extremist whose socially conservative agenda is out of step with Virginia. Cuccinelli has sought to soften his conservative image while portraying McAuliffe as a slick-talking and ethically challenged party operative whose business successes have been mostly imaginary.
Polls show that McAuliffe has taken a lead. They also show that many Virginians still know little about the men and that what is known has contributed to negative perceptions of both.
A recent Quinnipiac University survey found that 35 percent of likely voters had a favorable view of Cuccinelli, while 41 percent gave him an unfavorable rating and 22 percent were undecided. The same survey found that 34 percent had a favorable view of McAuliffe, 33 percent had an unfavorable view, and 31 percent were unsure.
Cuccinelli has attracted national attention as an activist attorney general, becoming the first to challenge the constitutionality of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, demanding records from a climate researcher at the University of Virginia, issuing an opinion that upheld stricter regulations for abortion clinics and beating back the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to regulate stormwater runoff in Fairfax County. The commonwealth’s inspector general also is investigating whether a deputy in Cuccinelli’s office improperly collaborated with energy companies in a dispute over gas royalties in southwest Virginia.
Haynesworth’s case was the first in which the state issued such a writ in a rape case without the certainty of DNA evidence. But Cuccinelli and the state prosecutors concluded that Haynesworth had been mistakenly connected to a 1984 rape.
Here is the ad’s script:
Cuccinelli: “In late 2010, a Democrat commonwealth’s attorney told me that he had this case that he thought I should take a look at.
“And he said, ‘Look, I think this guy might be innocent.’ ”
Haynesworth: “I never thought that the attorney general himself would be involved in a case like this.”
Cuccinelli: “After going through all of the evidence, I was convinced that Thomas Haynesworth was innocent. And I took that case on myself.”
Haynesworth: “He didn’t have to get involved. But he said an injustice was done and he was trying to correct it.”
News anchor 1: “Thomas Haynesworth was released from prison this week.”
News anchor 2: “Convicted on several rape charges despite his innocence.”
News anchor 3: “Spent 27 years behind bars for crimes he did not commit.”
Cuccinelli: “The attorney general’s job is not convictions. It’s justice. And today, we got justice.”