Arterton Cleared For Ricci

Maybe this will make Judge Arterton a bit more careful in handling the new case.

After all it was she among others who appear to have mishandled related issues in the past. Please correct me if I am wrong

Not necessarily a blow to Torre I hope.

You can bet if Torre believes she's got a judge with a political agenda who is misusing her robe and abusing her clients to pursue it, she won't back down, not one inch. These guys fought this judge before and won, and if Torre and the firefighters feel stalked by this woman, they will keep on demanding justice, fairness and a judge who can be trusted.

Walt,

...

It's a bit of a blow to Torre's credibility. Zealously defending your client's interests is one thing; gratuitously taking potshots at a judge's character is another. This ruling affirms that Arterton made no mistakes in refusing to recuse herself, and that Torre was, in fact, in the wrong.

Furthermore, this isn't a new case, it's the same Ricci v. DeStefano case that was remanded by the Supreme Court so that lower courts could apply the new caselaw that the Supreme Court handed down in its decision.

And there is absolutely nothing Arterton did incorrectly when she handled the case beforehand. She applied the law as it stood; the Supreme Court decided to write new law. Do you have any idea what would happen if every district court judge had free license to reinterpret and apply the law however they saw fit? We'd have a breakdown of our judicial process.

I'm not sure what other related issues you're talking about--should judges totally shut themselves off from the outside world because some party they come in contact with may eventually come before them? Should they only associate with people who have no prospect of ever being involved in future litigation? Bottom line, she was right, Torre was wrong...

Professor,
...This was just one step in the process of Judge Arterton's recusal. Judge Dorsey's ruling was not a surprise, in fact, it was expected. Ms. Torre will now file an appeal just like she has been doing throughout this entire case. "Bottom line, she was right, Torre was wrong…" Remember Arterton's ruling was overturned by our country's highest court. Torre is right and Arterton has been wrong from the start!

Professor,
First off, having a judge from your own district rule against you in a recusal motion is very rare. It is usually the court of appeals that grants these types of motions.
Secondly, Arterton royally screwed this case up from the get go. What new law did the supreme court write? Arterton had this case not only remanded but completely reversed by the supreme court, the ultimate slap to a judge. Please stop trying to defend her, this judge has an agenda (similar to yours)and it is quite obvious.

The "Professor" keeps posting the BOGUS claim that Arterton ruled based on existing law and the Supreme Court decided to change the law.

The Supreme Court said the City's action violated the statute's clear "command that employers cannot take adverse employment actions because of an individual's race," that Arterton "failed to adhere" to that law, and that Arterton's suggestion of "flaws" in the exam was "blatantly" contradicted by the record. Also, the court upbraided Arterton for throwing the firefighters' case out on summary judgment given the strong evidence that the city was motivated by discriminatory intent, not any concern about the validity of the tests, and added that the firefighters were denied their fundamental statutory right to equal treatment.

That the Supremes would not give Arterton another chance on remand was itself a powerful statement of their view of her handling of this case. That doesn't happen often at all and when it does, it says something.

What part of these statements by the Supremes don't you get?? The "Professor" is just disgruntled sour grapes because his views lost out at the Court. If anything, you should be annoyed with Arterton. If she had not issued such an indefensible, rogue ruling, this never would have gone so far and the Supreme Court opinion that still keeps you up at night all these months later would not exist. You lost Professor. Get a grip and get over it.

It seems to me that the only people who need to "get over it" are those who are baselessly attacking Arterton.

River to State,

The fact of the matter is that her initial ruling was based on what was THEN an accepted understanding of Title VII and relevant case law. Specifically, the ruling hinged on the standard under which a municipality could throw out the results of an employment exam. At the time that Arterton ruled, the law was basically understood to be that cities could throw out test results if they had a good faith reason to believe that the exam would violate the disparate impact provisions of Title VII. The Supreme Court ruling changed this understanding by holding that you need a "strong basis in evidence" to throw out the exam results.

And fine, let's see what happens when the recusal motion gets laughed out of the Second Circuit and denied for an en banc rehearing. The fact that appellate judges grant SOME recusal motions doesn't mean they'll grant this one.

And V,

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the "Supremes would not give Arterton another chance on remand." They DID give her another chance, which is why the case is before her NOW! The difference is that now, she has to apply a different standard than she did the first time--the new standard that the Supreme Court set forth in its ruling!

I also want to point out that perhaps we should all stop referring to the "Supreme Court" and start referring to "a majority of justices on the Supreme Court"--it's not like this was an open and shut case at the highest level. Four justices, two of whom were appointed by Republican Presidents, essentially voted to uphold Arterton's ruling (although they didn't wholesale agree with Arterton's reasoning). If Sandra Day O'Connor were still on the court, the ruling may well have gone 5-4 against Ricci. Same if Miers had been confirmed instead of Alito, or if O'Connor had waited a bit longer to retire.

Let's not forget that a grand total of 11 other Federal judges agreed with Arterton, while 11 thought that the rule should be changed (or clarified, depending on how you look at it). Are we to believe that the 11 who agreed with Arterton ALSO have some sort of evil ulterior motive and wanted so badly to screw over Frank Ricci and toss New Haven's minority firefighters an assist? And are we to believe that the 11 who disagreed with her are merely neutral arbiters calling balls and strikes? Give me a break.

Now, I've been accused of having an agenda, and that's correct--my agenda here is preventing a bunch of hacks, several of whom apparently haven't the slightest conception of how our legal system works, from mindlessly and relentlessly attacking a good, fair, honest judge simply because she deigned to apply the law as it stood.

And by the way, myself and others like me will get over this insane chipping away at civil rights laws the same way Thurgood Marshall "got over" Plessy v. Ferguson (which, by the way, was decided by a far wider margin than this case).

To the Professor: ... same ole spin. The supreme court said you can't deny a man a job because of the color of his skin. You call that a "chipping away" of civil rights?? ...

The Professor,
... SCOTUS unanimously decided Arterton was wrong, they disagreed on the reversal not remand. As far as the second circuit, they were just trying to cover up her debacle. Civil Rights laws were never designed to discriminate against one race to advance another. Civil Rights laws are there to protect EVERYBODY against discrimination.... Activist lawyers and judges who are bending the laws way past there written intent. This case illustrates that perfectly, please show me where in Title VII an employer can just disregard the results of employment exams based on results alone. ... It is the abuse of current civil rights laws and the liberal application of them that is "chipping away" at them.