The Gazette 1993

MARCH 1993

GAZETTE

m E s s A G E

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N R E S 1 D E T

Irish Lawyers Admitted to U.S. Supreme Court

Some reflections on a day when Irish lawyers were admitted to practise in the U.S. Supreme Court Monday, 25 Janauary, 1993 was quite a day in the US. Supreme Court in Washington. The most important event, from an Irish perspective, was the ceremony in which 44 Irish and Irish/American lawyers, most of them members of the Irish Lawyers Association of New York, were formally admitted to practise in the U.S. Supreme Court. The group included two practising Irish solicitors, James O'Dwyer, who is Chairman of Arthur Cox, and Marian Petty of the firm Monahan & Company of Ennis, Co. Clare. It was a great privilege to have been present on this occasion which was, of course, important for those admitted to practise but which was The proceedings of the court opened with a tribute from Chief Justice William Rhenquist to the memory of the late Mr. Justice Thurgood Marshall who had died the previous day. Thurgood Marshall was the first black American to have been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In his heyday as a lawyer, he had been a great champion of civil rights for the black community in the United States and had been involved in such celebrated cases as Brown -v- Board of Education of Topeka (1954), a landmark decision which ended discrimination against blacks in the educational system in America. The Chief Justice paid a warm, elegantly phrased tribute to the late Justice Thurgood Marshall who had served on the bench of the United States Supreme Court for 24 years. also importánt - and, indeed, historic - for other reasons. Thurgood Marshall Tribute

At the admission ceremony of 44 Irish/American lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court were l-r: The Hon. Mr. Justice Anthony Hederman (Supreme Court of Ireland): Chief Justice William H. Renquist, United States Supreme Court; and Brian P. Farren, President, Irish Lawyers Association of New York. (Photo: James Higgins)

on the grounds that new evidence had come to light which proved his innocence. It seems that the new evidence consisted of affidavits from members of the condemned man's family to the effect that it was not conveniently for him, now deceased! The majority of the court dismissed the application on procedural grounds of a technical nature saying that the State courts had ample jurisdiction to deal with questions of new evidence and power to order a retrial if they deemed it appropriate and that it was not open to the Supreme Court to grant such an application on habeas corpus proceedings. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Blackmun delivered a scathing attack on the majority, arguing that in capital cases the court must respond to any new evidence that tended to support the innocence of the accused. While agreeing with the substance of Mr. Justice Blackmun's decision, the other two dissenting judges disassociated themselves from the remarks which accused the majority of judicial murder! he, but his brother, who had committed the murders. As it happened, his brother was,

Death Penalty Judgement The Marshall tribute was followed by the handing down by the Court of judgments in a number of cases. For the most part, the judges simply gave their decision, stating that the rationale would be found in the written judgment which had been deposited with the clerk in the court. However, in one case ( Herrera -v- Collins) which concerned an appeal by way of habeas corpus by the applicant who had been sentenced to death for murder in the State of Texas, a very strong minority dis- senting opinion was expressed by Mr. Justice Harry Blackmun in which he accused his colleagues in the majority, including the Chief Justice, of permitting judicial murder. The case, not unnaturally, made headline news across the United States of America. been sentenced to death for the murder of two police officers in Texas. He had exhausted all his rights of appeal in the State courts and was now making a last ditch effort by appealing to the federal courts by way of habeas corpus So far as I could gather from the recital of the facts, the applicant had

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