Robert L. Tsai Journalist Profile

Articles

The Fight for Justice Starts with Blocking Judges Who Are “Tough on Crime”

Nov 13, 2024 | publicbooks.org | Robert L. Tsai |Imani Radney

On April 1, 1992, the Senate Judiciary Committee convened to decide whether Alabama Assistant Attorney General Ed Carnes should become a judge on the US Court of Appeals. For 11 of the 16 years he worked as a government lawyer, Carnes had run the state’s unit that litigated cases of capital punishment. Usually Supreme Court nominations generate the most attention.
A Practical Program for Resisting a Trump Second Term

Nov 7, 2024 | liberalcurrents.com | Robert L. Tsai |Danielle Wenner |Samantha Hancox-Li |Katherine Cross

In the days after January 6, 2021, it appeared that the worst was finally behind us. The shock of that event was felt quite broadly at first. It seemed as though Trump might truly be politically finished, that we needed only to make it to Biden’s inauguration without another incident and we would all be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief. The worst outcomes had been avoided—so it seemed at the time. Yet here we are, in November of 2024.
Constitutional Disorder

Sep 18, 2024 | democracyjournal.org | Robert L. Tsai

Some books about the U.S. Constitution insist that we have strayed too far from our political origins and must recommit to ancient ways. Others argue that a constitution itself must adapt or be rewritten when social, economic, or technological advances have rendered it archaic. All such literature can be mapped along a spectrum, from the worshipful to the diagnostic.
Equal justice is under threat in Louisiana

May 4, 2024 | thehill.com | Robert L. Tsai

Don’t look now, but there’s a power grab in Louisiana — one that might well destroy the ideal of equal justice in that state. Some 85 percent of people in the state’s criminal justice system are too poor to afford their own attorney. Now a plan is moving forward for the governor’s office to wrest control of all “powers, duties, and responsibilities” over the state’s public defense system from the state’s public defense board.
The Supreme Court's World War II Battles

Sep 22, 2023 | washingtonmonthly.com | Robert L. Tsai

On October 22, 1935, a middle school student in Minersville, Pennsylvania, named William Gobitas refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance; his sister Lillian followed suit the next day. As Jehovah’s Witnesses, they believed that saluting the flag amounted to idolatry. School officials expelled the children, and other kids threw rocks at them.