U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson to Discuss Efforts to Restrict Habeas Corpus

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Honorable James Robertson, United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, will deliver the University at Buffalo Law School's annual Mitchell Lecture at 11 a.m. March 21 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.

In a talk titled "Quo Vadis Habeas Corpus?," Robertson will discuss the history of habeas corpus, the "Great Writ," and examine some modern and controversial efforts to restrict its use.

The lecture will be free and open to the public.

Appointed to the federal bench in 1994, Robertson has played a significant role in cases involving infringements of constitutional protections.

In November 2004, he issued the initial decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, granting a Guantanamo Bay detainee's petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, a decision that was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in June 2006.

Upon remand of the case, Robertson ruled in December 2006 that the Military Commissions Act, which Congress had passed following the Supreme Court's decision, had stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear the habeas petitions of Guantanamo Bay detainees, precluding his further consideration of Hamdan's petition. That decision is being appealed.

Robertson served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for more than three years, stepping down from that court in December 2005 after the disclosure by the Bush administration of National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program. In March 2006, in a letter to the Senate Committee that was considering a bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Robertson argued that the surveillance program should be presented to the FISA court for review. "Seeking judicial approval for government activities that implicate Constitutional protections," he wrote, "is, of course, the American way."

  Before he was appointed to the bench, Robertson was a civil rights lawyer in Mississippi, practiced law with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and served as president of the District of Columbia Bar, co-chair of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and president of Southern Africa Legal Services and Legal Education Project, Inc.

UB Law School Professor Robert J. Steinfeld, Roger and Karen Jones Faculty Scholar and chair of the 2007 Mitchell Lecture committee, said the subject of the lecture is especially timely. "Judge Robertson will be addressing one of the most important constitutional issues facing the country today," Steinfeld said. "To what extent Congress may restrict habeas corpus without infringing the constitution is a question of the deepest importance."

The James McCormick Mitchell Lecture was endowed in 1950 in honor of its namesake, an 1897 graduate of the UB Law School, and has been delivered annually since 1951.