High Court

With confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor scheduled to begin in mid-July, inquisitive observers of these proceedings may wish to deepen their understanding of the High Court and its place in our system of government. Users of the Newport Beach Public Library will find the following titles of supreme interest: A huge bestseller in 1979, “The Brethren,” by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong , remains a fascinating account of the Warren Burger Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week refused to hear an appeal on a ruling that forces religious-based social service agencies like Catholic Charities to subsidize birth-control benefits even when the denomination opposes the use of contraceptives. “If the state can compel church entities to subsidize contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs, it can compel them to subsidize abortions as well,” the religious groups requesting the appeal from the high court argued.

Bowing to pressure from conservatives in the UC Irvine community, university officials rescinded an offer to one of the country’s best-known constitutional law experts to be the first dean of UCI’s Donald Bren School of Law. Erwin Chemerinsky accepted the university’s job offer Friday, but opposition grew as news spread through the UCI community, university officials said. On Tuesday, UCI Chancellor Michael V. Drake flew to Duke University, where Chemerinsky has taught law since 2004, to tell him the university would withdraw the job offer.

ROBERT GARDNER The other day, one of my 5-year-old great-grandsons asked where Iraq was. I was delighted with the question, as it suggested an interest in geography. When other children were playing with dolls or teddy bears, my first toy was a jigsaw puzzle map of the United States, and by the time I was 3 or 4, I not only knew all the states but also all their capitals. My parents, who had only frontier, one-room schoolhouse educations but were widely read, insisted that I know geography.

It was her legs. I happened to walk by and practically did a double take. "Dig those crazy gams," I thought, or the 1941 version of that. The rest of the package was just as great, so I managed to get myself introduced and found out that her name was Katy Harris and she worked at Douglas Aircraft Co. Lucky me! One of my best friends, Charlie Oxarart, worked at Douglas, and I decided to visit him at work the next day. As I was being escorted to his office, we passed through a huge room full of rows of women typing.

ROBERT GARDNER EDITOR'S NOTE: The Daily Pilot has agreed to republish The Verdict, the ever popular column written for many years by retired Corona Del Mar jurist and historian Robert Gardner, in exchange for donations to the Surfrider Foundation. This particular column was originally published Feb. 22, 2003. I think they quit teaching geography about the time I left school -- which was a long, long time ago. This observation was triggered by an item I saw in this paper recently that indicated one of my esteemed superiors, an editor no less, thought the runoff from the Sierra Nevada flowed into the Colorado River.

Paul Clinton Semi-retired state Supreme Court Justice Marcus M. Kaufman died Wednesday at his Corona del Mar home. Kaufman, 73, died after a long illness. He was still working on a handful of cases as a part-time attorney with a Costa Mesa law firm. Better known inside the legal community, Kaufman is perhaps best remembered as one of three judges who were appointed to the state's highest court after an angry public recalled Chief Justice Rose Bird, a death penalty opponent, and two other liberal jurists in the mid-1980s.

My wife's idea of a perfect day was 18 holes of golf at the local country club followed by an afternoon of bridge at the same country club. Then disaster struck. Her husband received an appointment to the position of chief justice of the High Court of American Samoa. She sneered at the appointment, saying that the only reason I took it was that the women were bare breasted. I pointed out that was in Tahiti. Where we were going, the missionaries had done their work so well that not only were the women not bare breasted, they covered themselves head to foot in yards of fabric.

It was her legs. I happened to walk by and practically did a double take. "Dig those crazy gams," I thought, or the 1941 version of that. The rest of the package was just as great, so I managed to get myself introduced and found out that her name was Katy Harris and she worked at Douglas Aircraft Co. Lucky me! One of my best friends, Charlie Oxarart, worked at Douglas, and I decided to visit him at work the next day. As I was being escorted to his office, we passed through a huge room full of rows of women typing.

U.S. Supreme Court declines to take on challenge to Coastal Commission, but fight's not over yet.The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear arguments in a legal case about an artificial reef built years ago in the waters near Newport Beach. In June, the California Supreme Court ruled against the Newport Beach-based Marine Forests Society when it determined the California Coastal Commission -- which the society alleged to be unconstitutional -- is a legal body.