Nancy Gertner

An op-ed by Nancy Gertner. The Icarus myth is a cautionary tale for our new president. Daedalus gave his son, Icarus, wings made of feathers and wax on a wood frame, with a warning. If Icarus flew too near the sun, the wax would melt and he would fall to his death. Icarus, heady with his new power and bursting with hubris, ignored the warnings and perished. It is one thing to be a real estate mogul, playing fast and loose with the bankruptcy laws. It’s another to be the president playing close to the line. If Trump suppressed the investigation of Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee in order to avoid delegitimizing his election, he could could have committed treason, as John Shattuck has written. Any foreign money Trump receives, in any form, could violate the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause — which prohibits government officials from taking money or gifts from a foreign state — as alleged in the lawsuit filed last week by a group of ethics experts and legal scholars. And if he tries to use his presidential power to secure private advantage, he could face impeachment for extortion or bribery.

People know Allison Dale Burroughs as fearless. As a prosecutor who cracked down on organized crime in Philadelphia during the 1990s at the US attorney’s office, Burroughs garnered a reputation as a whip-smart attorney who was attracted to challenging, demanding work, said John Pucci, who worked alongside her in Philadelphia...In 2014, Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge, was part of the committee that recommended Burroughs to her current position. “She is someone who knows her way around the US attorney’s office, knows her way around the Boston legal community, and more significantly,” she said, “we knew she would have guts.”...Alex Whiting, who worked with Burroughs as a prosecutor at the US attorney’s office in Boston, also said he was always struck by another thing. “She is fair, and she has great judgment,” said Whiting, now a professor at Harvard Law School. “Prosecutors have a lot of power, and she was always thoughtful of how that power was being used.”

The Gun Owners' Action League and other plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit challenging the state's ban on assault weapons. They argue that the ban is unconstitutional. The lawsuit also involves a directive that Attorney General Maura Healey issued in July that cracks down on copies or duplicates of forbidden guns, where gunmakers alter a weapon slightly to comply with state law. But the tweaks don't limit how lethal the weapons are...Guest: Nancy Gertner, former Massachusetts federal judge, senior lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and WBUR legal analyst.

Closing arguments are set for tomorrow in the death penalty case of Gary Lee Sampson. The court is deciding whether to uphold Sampson's 2003 death sentence. We analyze the trial so far with WBUR legal analyst and former Judge Nancy Gertner.

More than 40 liberal law professors sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday, voicing “great concern” with his commitment to the nation’s constitutional system and opposing the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama to be the next attorney general. The letter identified seven areas in which Trump has shown “complete ignorance or indifference toward constitutional values,”...Among the signers are...former federal judge Nancy Gertner of Harvard Law School...Most of the signers are board members or advisers to the liberal American Constitution Society, which posted the letter on its site Tuesday.

WBUR legal analyst Nancy Gertner looks at the ongoing legal battles between Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and ExxonMobil, as well as how President-elect Donald Trump could reshape the Supreme Court, and what that could mean for Massachusetts.

...This fall, a new Harvard course has helped students become part of the effort to reform the nation’s criminal justice system. Schiraldi, Harvard Law School lecturer Nancy Gertner, and Harvard sociologist Bruce Western are teaching a graduate seminar examining the origins of U.S. mass incarceration and helping students craft workable solutions for getting, and keeping, people out of prison...“Each of us in different ways has been teaching and working on the problem of criminal justice policy,” said Gertner, who served as a federal judge in Massachusetts for 17 years. “We thought there would be some unique value in bringing together three perspectives: the social science on problems of crime and criminal justice, the perspective of policy research and analysis, and law.”

On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court handed down a decision on parental rights that broadens the legal definition of a family. In the case, Partanen v. Gallagher, the state extended parental rights to people in same-sex relationships who never married, and who don't have a biological connection to a child, if they can show that they have been actively involved with the child's upbringing. We'll also talk about the case of Duane Buck, a convicted Texas murderer whose case is now before the Supreme Court. The court is examining the role of race in sentencing after a psychologist testified that Buck was more likely to be a future danger to society because he was black. Guest: Nancy Gertner, former Massachusetts federal judge, senior lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and WBUR legal analyst.

The United States Supreme Court today declined to hear the case of Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger. A jury in 2013 convicted Bulger for his role in 11 murders, extortion and drug offenses in the 1970s and 1980s. Because of the decision, the 87-year old will continue to serve his life sentence. Guest: Nancy Gertner, former Massachusetts federal judge, senior lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and WBUR legal analyst.

On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in the case of Commonwealth v. White that police do not have blanket authority to seize cellphones in criminal investigations. The case had to do with police officers investigating an armed robbery and fatal shooting in 2010. The officers seized a suspect's cellphone from his high school without a search warrant. In order to do so, the officers needed probable cause that a warrant would have been approved, but the court ruled the suspicion that a phone may have contained evidence of the crime is insufficient. Guest: Nancy Gertner, former Massachusetts federal judge, senior lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and WBUR legal analyst.

The state’s highest court, tossing out a Boston man’s gun conviction, ordered judges Tuesday to consider whether a black person who walks away from a police officer is attempting to avoid the “recurring indignity of being racially profiled” — and not because the person is guilty of a crime. The Supreme Judicial Court overturned the conviction of Jimmy Warren, citing studies by the American Civil Liberties Union and Boston police, both of which found that black people were more likely to be stopped and frisked by police between 2007 and 2010...Retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner described the ruling as “an extraordinarily significant decision” because the courts will be forced to consider an officer’s actions in these cases. “Up until now it has been too easy for courts to legitimize, after the fact, police decisions on the ground, giving them deference under circumstances where deference is not warranted,” said Gertner, a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School. “It should affect police behavior going forward.”

Today, 13 years after he became the the first defendant ever sentenced to death in federal court in Massachusetts, Gary Lee Sampson returned to court for a new sentencing trial. Back in 2003, Sampson pleaded guilty to the stabbing murders of two men in the course of two separate carjackings in 2001, and jurors in the case unanimously chose the death penalty as his sentence. But in 2011, U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf overturned that sentence, because one of the jurors lied during jury selection. So now the court will seat a new jury, tasked with deciding Sampson's fate once again. Guest: Nancy Gertner, former Massachusetts federal judge, senior lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and WBUR legal analyst.

Sean Ellis was convicted of murdering Boston Police Detective John J. Mulligan in 1993. In 2015, Ellis was released on bail after 22 years behind bars. Friday morning, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts concluded Ellis was unfairly tried and entitled to a new trial. Guest: Nancy Gertner, former Massachusetts federal judge, senior lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and WBUR legal analyst.

The effectiveness of mandatory minimums is up for debate. NPR's Scott Simon talks to retired federal judge and Harvard Law professor Nancy Gertner about the topic.

An op-ed by Nancy Gertner. A number of Republicans, including Michael Mukasey, former judge, and Attorney General, have advocated for mens rea reform. (Mens rea is the state of mind required of a defendant guilty of a crime.) So important was the proposed mens rea statute that this group helped derail bipartisan criminal justice reform that did not include it, legislation that would have ameliorated mass incarceration. Their ardor for mens rea reform makes all the more curious their beating the drum for the prosecution of Secretary Hillary Clinton for using a private email server to communicate with state department employees. Republican support for mens rea reform should lead in the opposite direction – backing FBI Director James Comey’s decision to decline prosecution.

A Supreme Court ruling that has made it more difficult to prosecute public officials for corruption could affect a wide range of cases in Massachusetts, including the ongoing investigation into state senator Brian A. Joyce, the indictment of Boston City Hall officials, and the convictions of state probation department officials...“One takeaway from the McDonnell decision is the notion it’s OK to advocate on behalf of constituents,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge and Harvard Law School professor. “The question is what is legitimate constituent advocacy and what is not.”

In a rather confusing and seemingly contradictory statement, FBI Director James Comey announced Tuesday that the agency would not recommend bringing charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while she served as secretary of state..."There are lots of statutes that deal with the mishandling of classified information, but what they all have in common is that it's intentionally or knowingly reckless, not careless," Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School lecturer who specializes in criminal law, told Business Insider. "If carelessness were sufficient, we would have indicted half the government."

An op-ed by Nancy Gertner. The Supreme Court’s decision in the corruption case against former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell will complicate the already complex investigation of union influence in the Walsh administration. The court found that it was not a crime to receive money from a constituent in exchange for introducing him to officials who might be interested in his business and even hosting him at the governor’s mansion. What was illegal was taking money in exchange for a decision on a pending matter, like the award of a specific government contract or a vote for bill. The decision was unanimous and followed other Supreme Court decisions rejecting the government’s novel interpretation of federal criminal statutes.

When Judge Anthony Kennedy was put forward for the supreme court by President Ronald Reagan, whose previous two nominations had been rejected, he was asked whether he had ever smoked marijuana. “No,” he insisted, “firmly no.” Kennedy was a safe pair of hands. But in the just ended term, dominated by the death of fellow Catholic and Reagan appointee Antonin Scalia, he has emerged as the pivotal figure and surprised many by tilting America’s highest court to the left...“He’s not easy to predict and there are those who believe that’s a good thing for a judge, that the court has been too polarised for a long time,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge who now teaches at Harvard Law School.