Slate Articles

Deportation Without Representation

Mark Noferi — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:04:52 GMT

Tucked onto page 567 of the Senate’s 844-page immigration reform bill is perhaps its most groundbreaking provision. For the first time, the U.S. government would voluntarily provide a free lawyer to an immigrant in deportation proceedings. The bill only gives lawyers to the most sympathetic: the mentally disabled, children, and the vaguely described “particularly vulnerable.” But the seeds are there for the broader right to counsel for detained immigrants that criminal defendants have received for 50 years. Congress should provide that. Immigrants who are detained and awaiting hearings cannot adequately represent themselves while jailed. And while other parts of immigration reform are hugely controversial, providing lawyers to detainees would be a surprisingly easy sell politically, if history is a guide.

Obama’s War on Journalists

Emily Bazelon — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:32:33 GMT

Attorney General Eric Holder has said that he doesn’t want the Obama administration’s leak prosecutions “to be his legacy.” But he has also trumpeted the cases—six and counting—in response to criticism from Senate Republicans. “We have tried more leak cases—brought more leak cases during the course of this administration than any other administration,” Holder said before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year.

It’s About Disclosure, Stupid

Richard L. Hasen — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:17:00 GMT

Let’s not make excuses for the IRS. The agency shouldn’t have subjected conservative groups to special scrutiny. Campaign finance reform groups should have immediately called for hearings when this scandal broke: Imagine the hue and cry if the IRS during the Bush administration had singled out “progressive” groups for special tax scrutiny and sent them unprecedented questions about their contributors and activities. Given the danger going back to President Richard Nixon of using the IRS against political enemies, the agency has to be scrupulously nonpartisan and fair. Congressional investigations and the Department of Justice criminal investigation announced Tuesday are inevitable and warranted.

Backlash Whiplash

Emily Bazelon — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:08:00 GMT

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg doubled down over the weekend on her ongoing criticism of Roe v. Wade. Ginsburg’s concern is about backlash: She says that by issuing the ruling that legalized abortion across the country in 1973, a group of “unelected old men” stopped the momentum that was building among the states. "That was my concern, that the court had given opponents of access to abortion a target to aim at relentlessly," she said at the University of Chicago Law School. "My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum that was on the side of change."

Read Dahlia Lithwick's Award-Winning Supreme Court Coverage

Fri, 03 May 2013 19:44:16 GMT

Slate is thrilled to announce that Senior Editor Dahlia Lithwick has been awarded a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary for her coverage of the Supreme Court’s handling of the Affordable Care Act. Lithwick is the first writer for an online publication to win an NMA in a print category.

Sandra Day Late

Emily Bazelon — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:02:06 GMT

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor should never have retired from the Supreme Court. She is an 83-year-old with plenty of energy, which she expends hearing lower-court cases, giving speeches, and making me want to tear my hair out by talking like the sensible moderate-liberal she refused to be consistently on the court. Why didn’t O’Connor voice these views when she had power?

Citizen Bomber

Patrick Weil — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:15:12 GMT

If the Boston Marathon bombing had taken place 70 to 90 years ago, alleged bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would have been stripped of his American citizenship in addition to being imprisoned or executed for his crimes. In the first decades of the 20^th century, naturalized citizens like Tsarnaev were routinely deprived of their citizenship for committing radical, "un-American" activities that took place after their naturalization. Citizenship in those years was understood as a benefit offered by a country in exchange for its citizens’ obedience to the laws of the land, always with the threat that certain actions could lead to its loss. It’s an approach the Supreme Court later rejected in the name of equal rights.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Talked for 16 Hours Before He Was Read His Rights

Emily Bazelon — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:06:00 GMT

According to the AP, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev answered questions for 16 hours before he was read the Miranda warning that he could remain silent and could ask for a lawyer. Once Tsarnaev was told that, he stopped talking. (So much for the idea that everyone has heard Miranda warnings so many times on TV that they have become an empty ritual.) The AP also reports that the investigators questioning him were “surprised when a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. Attorney’s office entered the hospital room.” The investigators “had planned to keep questioning him.”

In Honor of Kim Kardashian

Amanda Robb — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:45:00 GMT

In the crazy overload of last week, Kim Kardashian dumped the news that her 72-day marriage to NBA player Kris Humphries is officially over, after 536 days of divorce negotiations. The Kardashian clan’s predilection for nuptial fails (mom, stepdad, and late dad count eight marriages among them; Kim herself is 0 for 2) isn’t exactly the modern American norm. The Centers for Disease Control reports that the divorce rate remains nearly a third lower than its 1981 peak. Still, Americans' chances of winding up in splitsville are pretty high—73 percent of third marriages, 53 percent of married smokers, and 32 percent of all wedded Oklahomans wind up divorced. Somewhere in America, a married couple still calls it quits every 13 seconds.

Of Course Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Is Not an Enemy Combatant

Emily Bazelon — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:26:47 GMT

A group of Republican senators, led by Lindsey Graham and John McCain, spent the weekend clamoring for Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be held as an enemy combatant. This is not going to happen.