Month: March 2023

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

This is the first time I discovered the advantage of having a standing room crowd. It looks like you’re giving me a standing ovation. Thank you very much. And I guess anybody who doesn’t like it will have to sit down.

Alright, so good afternoon. Much of what I am going to say today I said yesterday, at another event honoring the anniversary of Gideon. But this is important enough I think to say twice.

We are here today because this weekend marks 60 years since Gideon v. Wainwright held that “any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.”

Just to describe the experience of Clarence Earl Gideon before his case reached the Supreme Court is to recall how different the American justice system was before that decision in this case.

Gideon was charged with breaking and entering a pool hall. Without funds, and with only an eighth-grade education, he asked that the trial judge to appoint a lawyer for him. When his request was denied, Gideon endeavored to represent himself.

As Justice Black’s opinion for the Court recounted: Gideon “conducted his defense about as well as could be expected from a layman. He made an opening statement to the jury, cross-examined the State’s witnesses, . . . and made a short [closing] argument.” The jury soon returned a guilty verdict, and Gideon was sentenced to five years in state prison. 

After the Supreme Court reversed the judgment, however, the case was retried. This time, he was represented by a local defense attorney, and he was acquitted.

At every stage of my career – as a criminal defense attorney, prosecutor, judge, and now our nation’s chief law enforcement officer – I have seen the truth of what Justice Black wrote in Gideon: “Lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries.”

Without capable criminal defense attorneys, defendants cannot understand the true scope of their rights at each stage of the criminal process.

Prosecutors cannot learn of errors in their factual assumptions or legal analyses that could lead them to seek different resolutions.

Jurors cannot hear the full stories needed to fairly adjudicate cases.

And judges cannot hear the full legal arguments needed to guide their decisions.

Criminal defense attorneys put the government’s case to the test. In so doing, they make every part of our system fairer, more equal, and more just.

But the Gideon decision did more than just help ensure justice in individual cases.

With its decision in Gideon, the Supreme Court transformed the American legal system by renewing the foundational promise of equal justice under law.

It reaffirmed that the law protects all of us – the poor as well as the rich, the powerless as well as the powerful.

In so doing, it reaffirmed this country’s commitment to the Rule of Law.

And trust in the Rule of Law is what holds American democracy together.

That trust requires not only that justice be done, but that it be seen to be done. And only the presence of counsel zealously defending their clients’ rights can ensure public confidence in the legitimacy of judicial proceedings, regardless of their outcome.

There is still so much more work to be done to make the promise of Gideon real.

That work demands enormous effort from the legal community. Most of all, it makes enormous demands on those lawyers – like many in this room today – who serve as public defenders, Criminal Justice Act attorneys, pro bono lawyers, and appointed counsel of every kind. 

Our justice system today would be no different than it was before Gideon if tens of thousands of lawyers had not stood up – and continue to stand up – to take on the calling of public defense. Your work is essential not only to your clients, but to the functioning of our judicial system.

I know that our system does not treat you accordingly.

However much we at the Justice Department complain – and rightly so – about our limited resources, I know full well that yours are far more limited.

I know that public defense remains drastically underfunded. I know that public defenders offices are suffering serious recruitment and retention problems that only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 I know that you often carry staggering caseloads and that your staff and investigative resources are insufficient – to say nothing of your financial compensation. I also know that the pressure on criminal defense attorneys is enormous – there is no small case when someone’s liberty is at stake.

The Justice Department recognizes the urgency and seriousness of these challenges. And we are committed to doing all that we can to support our colleagues who have devoted their careers to public defense.

One year after Gideon, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy announced the creation of an Office of Criminal Justice within the Justice Department, focused on the provision of counsel to the poor. In doing so, he said: “It must be our purpose in government … to insure that the department over which I preside is more than a Department of Prosecution and is in fact the Department of Justice.”

It is with that same conviction that I announced the restoration of a standalone Office for Access to Justice within the Department in 2021. And it is why I asked Rachel Rossi, a former public defender, to lead it.

Our Office for Access to Justice is working closely with those of you on the front lines to identify and address the most urgent criminal and civil needs of communities across America.

Over the past few weeks, Department officials have crisscrossed the country to hear from public defense leaders on the ground.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta will discuss those efforts soon in much greater detail.

Like the Attorneys General who came before me, I begin every day by walking through a rotunda outside my office, where these words are inscribed: “The United States wins its point whenever justice is done its citizens in the courts.” The message of course, is that this is true regardless of whether the outcome is the one that the government favors.

This is what distinguishes our justice system from those of many other countries. And it is what distinguishes our Justice Department from the law enforcement agencies of many other countries.

We are responsible not only for enforcing the law, but for upholding the Rule of Law. We are responsible for protecting civil rights and for pursuing justice for all Americans.

And justice demands more than good prosecutors and good judges. It demands meaningful access to counsel for the accused, including those who cannot afford attorneys.

To provide that access, and to reaffirm the kind of faith in law upon which our democracy depends, public defender offices need more resources.

Our nation needs more lawyers to answer the call of public service by providing criminal defense for those who cannot afford it.

And as a legal community, we need to recognize and reaffirm the necessity and the nobility of the public defense profession.

When I was a law student, one of my mentors was John Hart Ely. Although he was recognized as one of the foremost legal scholars in the country, Ely emphasized that the thing he was most proud of was the work he did on the Gideon brief when he was a summer associate at Arnold, Fortas & Porter in 1962.

No doubt that influenced my own subsequent decision to join the same law firm.

The firm’s then-senior partner was Abe Krash, who had supervised Ely and worked with Abe Fortas on the Gideon argument. Abe Krash never failed to emphasize to every new lawyer that Clarence Earl Gideon was the most important client the firm had.

Mr. Krash is with us today. He’s 95 years old. [Applause] John Ely and Abe Krash knew that the integrity of the American criminal justice system depends upon effective representation for indigent defendants.

They knew that there are few things more meaningful and more honorable than applying one’s talent, experience, and education to representing another person before the state – no matter what that person is accused of having done.

And they knew that the impact of Gideon would be felt for generations.

And they knew that fulfilling the promise of Gideon would require each generation of our country’s lawyers to take up its important cause.

The Justice Department is proud to stand with the public defenders and criminal defense attorneys in this room and across the country who are doing just that.

Thank you all for everything that you do.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:

At a meeting today of the Bar of this Court, resolutions memorializing our deep respect and affection for Justice Ginsburg were adopted unanimously.

Today, the Bar of this Court gathers to pay tribute to Justice Ginsburg, a pathmarking jurist who served the nation for twenty seven years as an Associate Justice of this Court. Justice Ginsburg dedicated her life to making real the Constitution’s promise of equality under the law and the Framers’ aspiration that we build a “more perfect Union.” She helped transform the landscape of this country, fighting discrimination and forging opportunities for all persons to achieve their potential. All told, she authored over 1,100 opinions, each a model of her characteristic efficiency, clarity and decency. The Torah’s command, “justice, justice thou shalt pursue,” graced the wall of her chambers and inspired her in everything she did.

Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn in 1933, the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants. From early on, Justice Ginsburg was heavily influenced by her mother, who, she said, taught her two lessons. In Justice Ginsburg’s words: “One was to ‘be a lady,’ and that meant conduct yourself civilly, don’t let emotions like anger or envy get in your way. And the other was to be independent, which was an unusual message for mothers of that time to be giving their daugh­ters.”

At Cornell University, Justice Ginsburg studied government under Robert Cushman, who inspired her with stories of lawyers standing up for the First Amendment during the McCarthy era. It was also at Cornell, on a blind date in 1950, that she met Martin Ginsburg. The Justice liked to say that Marty was “the first boy I ever dated who cared that I had a brain.” What followed was a marriage for the ages, one that mod­eled for the world her vision of gender equality.

The Ginsburgs moved to Ok­lahoma, where Marty served in the Army and the couple welcomed a daughter, Jane.

In 1956, the couple moved to Cambridge for Marty to continue and the Justice to begin studies at Harvard Law School. One of nine women in a class of over 500, Justice Ginsburg earned top grades and was selected for the Harvard Law Review. During her second year, Marty was diagnosed with cancer. With her superhuman work ethic, the Justice managed to support Marty, care for Jane, keep up her own studies and coordinate Marty’s classmates to take notes for him, which she typed every night.

After Marty recovered, the Ginsburgs moved to New York for his new job. Justice Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School and graduated tied for first in her class. But she struggled to find a job because, as she recounted, she had three strikes against her:  she was a woman, a mother, and Jewish. Her mentor, Professor Gerald Gunther, finally secured her a clerkship by promising to provide a male replacement should Justice Ginsburg not work out. Judge Edmund Palmieri later referred to the Justice as one of his all-time best clerks.

In 1963, Justice Ginsburg joined the Rutgers faculty. She was paid less than her male counterparts because, as the dean explained, she had a husband with a good job. Teach­ing on a year-to-year contract, Ginsburg hid her pregnancy with her son James until she had the next year’s contract in hand.

In 1972, Columbia hired Justice Ginsburg to become its first tenured female faculty member. That same year, the Justice helped found the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Pro­ject. As head of the Project, she argued six gender-discrimination cases in this Court. In the first, she represented an Air Force officer challenging the military’s policy of automatically providing certain benefits to military wives but not husbands. Her argument was a masterclass — and her client prevailed eight-to-one. Throughout the 70s, Justice Ginsburg successfully litigated cases promot­ing gender equality, ranging from the routine exemption of women from jury pools to the denial of social security benefits to male surviving spouses.

In 1980, President Carter nominated Justice Ginsburg to the D.C. Cir­cuit. And in 1993, President Clinton nominated her to this Court. At her confirmation hearings, the Justice proudly in­troduced herself as the child of immigrants. She reflected: “What has become of me could happen only in America. Like so many others, I owe so much to the entry this Nation afforded to people yearning to breathe free.” The Senate confirmed her by a vote of 96-to-3.

Over the next 27 years, Justice Ginsburg left an indel­ible mark on the law in countless ways — too many to list here. Central to her legacy are the opinions in which she championed the idea that all persons should be afforded what she called “equal citizenship stature” under the Constitution. For example, in her landmark opinion for the Court in United States v. Virginia, she wrote that the Constitution prohibits relying on generalizations to deny “equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.” She consistently voted to bolster the democratic process, defending “the core principle that voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.” She urged the Court to reckon with real-world power dynamics, vividly describing a “humiliating strip-down search” of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. And she served as the Court’s resident expert on matters of procedure, emphasizing systemic integrity, fair access to the courts and the need for judicial redress for government wrongdoing — with fairness always as the cornerstone.

Justice Ginsburg was a lifelong optimist. Some of that optimism stemmed from her belief that people of different ideological views could share the same faith in the Constitution and the Court’s role in safeguarding its principles. Her famous friendship with Justice Scalia is a perfect example; she embraced their shared reverence for the Constitution and this Court.

Justice Ginsburg will be remembered as one of our country’s great heroes. Her commit­ment to truth, justice and equality changed the course of American history and inspired millions across the world. Those of us who were lucky enough to know the Justice will remember her brilliance, her love for Marty and her family, her quiet humor, her unparalleled work ethic, her tireless attention to getting every detail “just right,” her courage in battling cancer, her great love of this country and above all, her abiding goodness. And I will remember the extraordinary year I spent in her chambers, witnessing up close her grace, her devotion to the law, and her unyielding spirit.

Gathered here together, looking back at her life, the members of the Bar of the Supreme Court express our admiration and respect for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, our loss upon her death, our appreciation for her contributions to the law and the Nation and our gratitude for her example of a life well lived.

On behalf of the Bar of the Supreme Court, it is my privilege to present to the Court the resolutions adopted today, so that the Attorney General may move their inscription on the Court’s permanent record.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

Good afternoon, members of the Ginsburg family, members of the Court, members of the Bar and friends.

This meeting of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States has been called to honor the memory of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1993 until 2020.

In addition to her time on the Court, Justice Ginsburg served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, as the first tenured female professor at Columbia Law School and as founder and director of the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU.

She was a visionary as an advocate who championed equal citizenship for all persons and as a judge who fought every day to fulfill this nation’s promise. She was a person of principle, graced with a brilliant mind, quick wit, tireless nature and courageous soul. She was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, a cherished colleague, an inspiring teacher and a historic figure in American law.

She revered the rule of law and the Constitution. The Court and this country are forever honored by her service.

I want to express my appreciation to Judge Paul Watford and Hajin Kim, who co-chaired the Arrangements Committee for this meeting, and to the members of that committee, Justice Rachel Wainer Apter, Judge John Owens and Amanda Tyler. I also want to express my gratitude to Judge John Owens and Amanda Tyler, who co-chaired the Resolutions Committee, and to the members of that committee: Payvand Ahdout, Jennifer Clark, Kelsi Brown Corkran, Beatrice Franklin, Abbe Gluck, Justice Goodwin Liu, Michael Klarman, Amy Marshak, Deborah Jones Merritt, Trevor Morrison and Daniel Rubens. The meeting today will be chaired by Judge Owens, and Scott Harris will be the secretary.

I had the incredible honor of clerking for Justice Ginsburg, so before I turn the podium over, I wanted to share a few reflections on three roles that defined the Justice’s life and career as a lawyer, a mentor, and a fighter.

Perhaps the most natural place for me to begin is with Justice Ginsburg’s role as an advocate. It’s natural not only because I’m speaking on behalf of the Supreme Court Bar but also because Justice Ginsburg is the person who moved my admission to this Bar and was one of the first people who encouraged me to apply for a job in the SG’s Office. Although I didn’t get to argue before her as Solicitor General, I like to think that she’d be happy that I’m able to speak about her today in that capacity.

Justice Ginsburgs accomplishments as an advocate are extraordinary, the stuff of legend. She argued six cases in this Court between 1972 and 1978 at a time when few women were arguing in any court, much less this one, and she made those cases count, winning five of them and establishing the principle of gender equality as constitutional law, often through her ingenious strategy of bringing sex discrimination cases on behalf of men.

One of her big cases, litigated in the Tenth Circuit alongside her husband, Marty, was Moritz versus Commissioner. It involved a tax code provision that allowed single women but not single men to deduct the cost of caring for an elderly dependent. The case is memorably depicted in the movie “On the Basis of Sex,” but I’ll always remember hearing the story firsthand at a dinner that the Ginsburgs hosted for us clerks during our clerkship year. As they told it, Marty learned about the case through his tax practice and ran into Justice Ginsburg’s room to tell her that she needed to read the lower court decision. She said, Marty, you know I don’t read tax cases.

He said, well, you need to read this one. At the oral argument, they divided the argument time, and Marty went first. He told us that as he was delivering his argument, she started tugging on his sleeve because he was going on too long.

Without missing a beat, the Justice quipped, you were cutting into my time. Of course, they won the case. When the Solicitor General sought review in this Court, he attached an appendix listing all of the federal statutes that would be called into question by the Tenth Circuit’s decision because they classified based on sex. Justice Ginsburg later described the appendix as a treasure trove.

It turned into a sort of target list, and she took aim at many of these statutes in the year ahead. So, whatever else I do as Solicitor General, I won’t be filing any appendices like that.

Although Justice Ginsburg’s advocacy transformed an entire area of constitutional law, she never focused only on abstract legal principles. Decades later, she still remembered every client and the injustices that brought them to court. Stephen Weisenfeld, for example, lost his wife, Paula, during childbirth, but he wasn’t eligible for the Social Security benefits that a similarly situated widow would have received.

Justice Ginsburg won his case unanimously in the Supreme Court, but she didn’t stop there. She kept in touch with the Weisenfelds for the rest of her life, and almost 30 years later after the Court’s decision, when the little boy at the center of the case got married, Justice Ginsburg officiated the wedding.

That enduring commitment to people animated the second of Justice Ginsburg’s roles that I wanted to highlight, her role as a mentor. First, Justice Ginsburg recognized the importance of her own mentors. In the brief she filed in the landmark case Reed versus Reed, she insisted on including in the signature block some of the lawyers and scholars whose work had inspired her. As she put it, she stood on their shoulders and should give them credit.

And here at the Court, she mentored her law clerks in countless ways. She insisted on mastering the facts of every case, reminding us that the Court’s cases are about real people with real problems.

Clerking for her was also a master class in legal writing. She edited opinions by hand, so we would triple-space the drafts to leave plenty of room for her notes, and she had no trouble filling that space with red ink. If she wanted to reorganize the draft, she would literally cut out a paragraph and tape it somewhere else on the paper. So it was an old-school cut-and-paste. And then, when she finished, she would call the law clerk into her office and go over the revisions one by one to explain her thinking. It was an amazing opportunity to learn about the craft of legal writing from an extraordinary writer.

She modeled her incredible work ethic in many other ways. She was a famous night owl who would often stay up half the night poring over a draft line by line. The story was that she and Justice Kennedy, a well-known early bird, would pass each other going in opposite directions in the garage. For all of her devotion to her work, Justice Ginsburg also reminded us that there’s more to life. She took us to the opera and patiently explained what was going on when I confessed at intermission that I had no ide what was happening on stage. She was a fitness enthusiast who lifted weights and did pushup well into her 80s, often while wearing a Super Diva sweatshirt. And perhaps thanks to Marty, she appreciated good food, especially sweets.

One of my favorite memories came at the annual Supreme Court Christmas recess party, where I spotted the Justice across the room, making a beeline for the chocolate fountain. But she didn’t pick up a strawberry or a piece of cake to dip. Instead, she put her spoon directly under the chocolate flow – and ate it straight. As with so many other things, the Justice knew exactly what she wanted and didn’t waste time with filler.

The final aspect of Justice Ginsburg’s legacy that I want to touch on is her fighting spirit. She was almost 25 certainly the physically smallest person ever to serve on this Court, but I doubt that anyone has ever punched further above their weight.

She faced profound adversity in every phase of her life. Her mother died the day before her high school graduation. Marty was diagnosed with cancer early in their marriage. She endured discrimination based on sex and pregnancy and religion. She faced multiple bouts with cancer. And she overcame again and again, demonstrating a resilience, fearlessness, and independence matched by few others. She was the epitome of unrelenting grace.

And she was unyielding in fighting for the things she believed in.

When she was preparing for her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, a White House staffer wrote a memo describing her “disdain for the confirmation process.” The memo added that Judge Ginsburg views the White House’s interests and her interests as being at odds with each other. She sees us as having a stake in presenting her as a moderate and in getting along well with the Senate. She sees her interests as “being herself, preserving her dignity, and promoting her independence.” I’ll add only that Justice Ginsburg was confirmed 96 to three.

I witnessed one of Justice Ginsburg’s most difficult battles up close during my clerkship. That was the year that Marty was again diagnosed with cancer. The Justice lovingly cared for him, juggling his medical appointments and hospitalization with his – with her work at the Court.

The morning after he passed away was the final decision day of the term, and Justice Ginsburg had a majority opinion in one of the leading cases. The grief was so evident in Court as Justice Ginsburg delivered her opinion.

As usual, her voice wasn’t particularly loud or particularly fast, but it was steady and sure, confident in her decision in the case and in her knowledge that by coming to Court to hand down the decision, she was doing what Marty would have wanted.

Justice Ginsburg’s fight ended in September 2020 following yet another hard-fought battle with cancer. I stood guard with her other former clerks as she lay in repose at the Court.

Because of the pandemic, her casket was placed outside the Court at the top of the front steps rather than in the usual indoor location, and as I thought about it, I decided that it was fitting that she was outside, accessible to the public.

Her life was a quintessentially American story. She was born to a family of immigrants and grew up with modest means. She faced profound adversity and discrimination. Yet, through her intellect, hard work and force of will, she not only reached the top of her profession, she reshaped it.

She broke barriers for those who came after her and she inspired multiple generations. So many people came to pay their final respects as she lay in repose, as I walked to the Court down East Capitol Street, the line of mourners stretched for block after block after block, almost all the way to Lincoln Park. There were all kinds of people, young and old, women and men, parents with their small children. Some cried. Some kneeled and prayed. And many of them looked from her flag-draped casket up the majestic columns of this Court to the words inscribed in marble on the facade, words that inspired Justice Ginsburg throughout her career and that she brought to life for generations to come: Equal justice under law. May her memory be a blessing.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court.

The Bar of the Court met today to honor the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1993 to 2020.

Justice Ginsburg was brilliant, courageous, and principled. 

She believed deeply in the capacity of the law to fulfill our country’s fundamental promise of equality. 

And she believed deeply in our Constitution. As she wrote in her opinion for the Court in United States v. Virginia, she believed in its “story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded.”

I first caught a glimpse of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in this courtroom in 1978, when she came here to argue Duren v. Missouri.

The Court’s law clerks were crowded into the wings of the courtroom to hear her. Our Justices had told us she was the best advocate we would hear that Term. 

And she did not disappoint – she won the case 8-1.

As it turned out, that would be her last argument before the Court. Two years later, she was appointed to the D.C. Circuit, and 13 years after that, she was appointed to the Supreme Court.

But it had been an amazing run as a litigator. Like Thurgood Marshall on behalf of equal rights for Black Americans, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the chief tactician in a campaign for equal rights for women.

Beginning in 1971, she filed more than 20 Supreme Court briefs challenging legislative distinctions between the sexes – including distinctions that disadvantaged men – in order to establish the principle of equal treatment. 

She argued six cases before the Court, losing only one.

Just to describe some of those cases is to recall how different the world was then.

In Duren, the Court struck down a Missouri law that made jury duty optional for women – and only women.

In Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, the Court struck down a provision that permitted a deceased man’s social security benefits to be paid to his widow, but did not permit a deceased woman’s benefits to be paid to her widower.

And in one of the first cases Justice Ginsburg briefed, Reed v. Reed, the Court unanimously struck down a state probate statute that said “males must be preferred to females” in appointing estate administrators.

Now, if you think the 1970s were different, you should hear just a snippet of Justice Ginsburg’s own description of what it was like in 1956, when she was one of only nine women in a Harvard Law School class of more than 500:

“[W]omen were not admitted to faculty club dining tables; one could invite one’s father, but not one’s wife or mother, to the Law Review banquet; [and] the old periodical room at Lamont Library was closed to women.”

In 1958, the Justice’s husband Marty – whom all of us who knew him loved – graduated from Harvard a year ahead of the Justice and received a job offer in New York. 

Justice Ginsburg asked the Dean to let her finish the requirements for her Harvard degree at Columbia. Famously, and to Harvard’s ever-lasting regret, the Dean denied her request.

So the Justice transferred to Columbia anyway, served as an editor of the law review, and tied for first in her class.

But in those days, even that was not enough. 

A Supreme Court Justice turned her down for a clerkship, telling the Dean of the law school that he “just wasn’t ready to hire a woman.” Nor could she find a job in a corporate law firm.

But as the Justice noted in 2009, that wasn’t such a bad result. If she had gotten the job, she said, she would have been a retired law firm partner instead of a Supreme Court Justice.

I do not need to tell anyone in this courtroom how different the world would be had that happened. 

During the Justice’s 27 years on this Court, she influenced every area of the law, from issues that made the headlines, like equal rights for women, to highly complex questions of civil procedure, without which our court system could not function.

Everyone here knows what an intellectual force she was on the Court. 

Every lawyer who appeared before her knows how incisive her questioning was at oral argument. 

And everyone who reads her concise, elegant opinions can see her commitment to – in her own words – “get it right and keep it tight.”

Justice Ginsburg was not only one of the country’s brightest legal minds; she was also a beacon of civility and collegiality.

She revered the role of the federal judiciary, and this Court in particular, in upholding the Rule of Law. 

She understood the necessity of an independent judiciary to our democracy.

“[E]ssential to the rule of law in any land,” she said, “is an independent judiciary, judges not under the thumb of other branches of government, and therefore equipped to administer the law impartially.” 

She strived to be that kind of judge. And she succeeded.

Justice Ginsburg was also an enormously caring person.

In her personal life, she supported Marty during his battle with cancer and then fought her own.

And in her professional life, she was an extraordinary mentor to her law clerks.

Justice Ginsburg’s impact on this Court, and on our country, will be felt for generations to come. She is – and always will be – deeply missed.

May her memory be a blessing.

Mr. Chief Justice, on behalf of the lawyers of this Nation – and in particular, the members of this Court’s Bar – I respectfully request that the resolutions presented to you in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg be accepted by the Court, and that together with the chronicle of these proceedings, they be ordered kept for all time in the records of this Court.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Memphis, TN – Former Memphis attorney, Leigh M. Chiles, 49, pled guilty in connection with a scheme to defraud an estate over which she was appointed to serve as executrix. United States Attorney Kevin G. Ritz announced the guilty plea today.

According to U.S. Attorney Ritz, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Chiles in July 2022. Based on the charges and information presented in court today, Chiles, currently of Little Rock, Arkansas, appeared before United States Magistrate Judge Annie T. Christoff and entered a guilty plea to one count of wire fraud.

In September 2018, Chiles was appointed to serve as executrix over an estate opened in Shelby County Probate Court. In connection with her duties Chiles was responsible for collecting estate assets and distributing them to heirs and beneficiaries. In violation of her fiduciary duty, Chiles used approximately $124,000 in estate funds to write checks to herself and to pay her personal credit card between November 2018 and June 2019.

A sentencing hearing is currently set before United States District Judge John T. Fowlkes, Jr. on July 17, 2023, where Chiles faces a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assistant United States Attorney Carroll L. André III is prosecuting this case.

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For more information, please contact Public Information Officer Cherri Green at (901) 544-4231 or cherri.green@usdoj.gov. Follow @WDTNNews on Twitter for office news and updates.