Search results for "judicial branch" ...

• The Battle Over the Courts: How politics, ideology, and special interests are compromising the U.S. justice system

  Beginning with the Warren Supreme Court, this article "examined how various interest groups used the courts as a new means to achieve political ends. The movement began with civil rights groups in the 1950s. In recent years, other organizations, especially business and consumer groups, have joined the fray, treating judicial elections like any other political election as a means of installing judges sympathetic to a cause. The result has been a political free-for-all over the courts, a development that is eroding the judicial branch's independence and neutrality."

  Tags: checks and balances; politics; federal court

  By Michael France;Lorraine Woellert;Brian Grow

  Business Week

  2004

• Secret Files

  The Courant detailed the extent and nature of an unusual practice whereby state judges selectively sealed cases, some so completely that their very existence was not publicly acknowledged. That disclosure, and the revelations that the practice often favored fellow judges, celebrities, and wealthy CEO's, stoked considerable public outrage. Six months later, judges abolished it.

  Tags: state judges; dockets; Connecticut Practice Book; Connecticut Law Tribune; sealed cases; sealed files; lawsuit; divorce-court cases; Texaco; Nine West; Arthur Anderson; MasterCard; Primerica Corp.; General Electric; University of Connecticut; Level 1 sealing; Level 2 sealing; judicial branch; Superior Court Judges; U.S. Supreme Court; Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford; Connecticut State Supreme Court; U.S. District Court in Hartford; sexual abuse; lawsuits public interest cases; secret court files; state-court proceedings

  By Lynne Tuohy;Eric Rich;Dave Altimari;Jack Dolan;Christopher Keating

  Courant (Hartford, Conn.)

  2003