Justia columnist and former counsel to the president John W. Dean discusses a less-remarked but extremely important aspect of the 2012 presidential race: Its outcome may exert a profound influence on the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court, if the Republican candidate prevails. As Dean explains, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg approaching her eighties, and having experienced some health issues, Republicans foresee her possible retirement from the Court. And, if a Republican President were to be elected in 2012, and Ginsburg were indeed to retire, then that President would have a chance to create a solid conservative majority on the Court. Dean describes the Court’s current composition, and contends that if a conservative were indeed to take Justice Ginsburg’s (or another moderate or progressive Justice’s) spot, that would create a majority that would be not only conservative, but also radical and fundamentalist in its conservatism. Such a majority, Dean notes, would put the Court far out of step with Americans’ views. Indeed, Dean predicts, drawing in part on the work of Martin Garbus, that a conservative majority could even take America back to a pre-New Deal world—and one where long-established rights are abolished or severely compromised. He thus urges even the most unhappy former Obama supporter to think seriously about the fate of the Supreme Court when casting his or her vote.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on the obstacles to bringing prosecutions and civil suits based upon the alleged child sexual abuse by Syracuse associate head basketball coach Bernie Fine. Hamilton explains why the first two alleged victims who came forward may not receive justice due to the New York statute of limitations (SOL) that will govern their cases, and why the third alleged victim, who says he suffered abuse in Pennsylvania, will be subject to less draconian SOLs. Hamilton argues for SOL reform in these states and nationwide, and takes on the question of whether it should matter—or will matter—to judges and jurors that the third alleged victim who came forward in the Syracuse scandal is himself facing child sexual abuse charges. Hamilton points out, regarding this issue, that child sex abuse victims disproportionately become abusers themselves—suggesting that they deserve at least some sympathy, as their own childhood abuse is likely one causal factor in their own later abuse of children. She also calls for SOL standardization across the country, so that pedophiles can no longer choose to live in the locations with the most lenient laws (via federal incentives offered to states that opt for reform, and federal penalties for those that do not). In addition, Hamilton suggests that states create SOL “windows” to help past victims of child sexual abuse whose civil claims otherwise would be time-barred confront their accusers in court and find justice.