Judge Elissa Cadish, a state court judge in Nevada who President Obama nominated to a federal district court, asked the President to withdraw her nomination, according to a letter that became public today. Cadish was the victim of an arcane senate tradition that allowed just one senator, Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), to unilaterally block her nomination. Heller objected to her nomination because she once correctly described the state of gun rights law prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.

In 2008, before Heller established for the first time in American history that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, Cadish was asked whether the Constitution does indeed protect such an individual right, and she gave the only correct answer a judge could have given at that point in history — “I do not believe that there is this constitutional right,” adding “of course, I will enforce the laws as they exist as a judge.” This statement accurately described the state of the law pre-Heller.

Nevertheless, Cadish’s nomination languished without a hearing due to a Senate tradition that allows a single senator to veto a nominee from their home state. In Senate parlance, Heller refused to return his “blue slip” on Cadish, and Senate Judiciary Chair Pat Leahy (D-VT) honored a tradition establishing that a nomination will not receive a hearing unless both home-state senators sign these slips.

It should be noted that not every Senate Judiciary Chair has honored this tradition in the past. In 2003, for example, when Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) took over as Judiciary chair and George W. Bush was president, Hatch largely abandoned the blue slip rule. According to the Congressional Research Service, “[a] return of a negative blue slip by one or both home-state Senators d[id] not prevent the committee from moving forward with the nomination — provided that the Administration [] engaged in pre-nomination consultation with both of the home-state Senators,” during during Hatch’s tenure.

There is no good reason why President Obama’s nominees should not enjoy the same deference that President Bush’s nominees enjoyed under Hatch.

A $15.5 million settlement to a man who was confined in isolation for almost two years after he was charged but not convicted of driving while intoxicated is shedding light on the horror that can befall someone incarcerated even on mere allegations of criminal activity.

Stephen Slevin, arrested for a DWI and accused of driving a stolen car that he said he borrowed from a friend, was placed in solitary confinement shortly after he arrived at Dona Ana County Detention Center in New Mexico because he declined to post a $40,000 bond. After one medical examination, Slevin, who was severely depressed even before his arrest, was deemed suicidal and placed in a padded isolated cell with no natural light for 23 hours a day.

Once in that cell, Slevin faced an insurmountable battle in changing his circumstance, in spite of neglect so severe that his toenails grew to curl around his foot, he pulled out his own decaying tooth and fungus grew on his face. He sent letters saying “I’m afraid to close my eyes” and “I don’t know much longer I can go on.” But the only response he received was greater sedation, his lawyer told NBC News. After two years in this circumstance, the charges against Slevin were dropped and he was released, having never been found guilty of any crime. Slevin later sued and won a $22 million jury award, an amount that was upheld by a federal judge in a decision that sums up the horror of the conditions he withstood:

[The] evidence included letters written by Plaintiff seeking help, and sick call requests documenting Plaintiff’s suffering from bed sores on his thighs, fungus growing on his face, rotting teeth, pain, inability to sleep and nightmares where he could not sleep. … Medical records kept by the Detention Center similarly documented Plaintiff’s experience of pain and suffering, and the lack of treatment for his many medical and dental conditions. … Plaintiff … spent six months along in his cell with virtually no human contact before his release.

Although first attempting to explain away his lack of recreation time by testifying that Plaintiff refused to come out of his cell, [Detention Center Director Christopher] Barela testified that he would not have put his dog in a cell like Plaintiff’s cell and left him there for a month at a time, even if his dog refused to come out. He admitted that, if his dog refused to come out, he would wonder what was wrong with her and take her to the veterinarian. Barela also acknowledged that he knew it was not acceptable to leave his dog or Plaintiff in the conditions in which Plaintiff was left [...]

With regard to the injurious effects of administrative confinement on Plaintiff, his expert, Dr. Grasisan,  … testified that Plaintiff was “more massively impaired by the PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, than [he] ha[d] ever seen in [his] entire professional life.” According to Dr. Grassian’s testimony, Plaintiff’s life “is kind of torture.”

To compound matters, Slevin is now suffering from lung cancer, and he accepted the county’s settlement offer of $15.5 million even though the higher $22 million judgment was upheld by a judge. Even that lower sum is one of the largest prisoner civil rights payouts in history – an unsurprising fact considering the extremity of the mistreatment of an individual who, it is worth repeating, was never found guilty of any wrongdoing whatsoever. But the solitary confinement of individuals with identified mental health concerns is alarmingly common, in spite of evidence that the mentally ill are particularly vulnerable to long-term psychological harm from isolation. As in many detention facilities around the country, it was the policy of Dona Ana County jail to put people with mental health issues into solitary confinement — one of several issues that also prompted a class lawsuit by the ACLU of New Mexico that yielded reforms in 2010.

The rampant use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons for not just the mentally ill (who are increasingly jailed in place of mental health treatment) but also children as young as 13 has become so severe that the federal agency tasked with overseeing prisons agreed last month to undertake a closer examination of the practice, which has been deemed torture, cruel and inhumane, and worse than being held hostage in Iran.

Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio may be the most despicable law enforcement officer in the country. A Justice Department legal complaint against his office alleges widespread constitutional violations and mistreatment of Latinos, including an alleged assault against a pregnant Latina woman, widespread racial profiling and use of racial slurs, and incidents where “female Latina [limited English proficiency] prisoners have been forced to remain with sheets or pants soiled from menstruation because of [the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office's] failure to ensure that detention officers provide language assistance in such circumstances.”

He also may not be sheriff much longer, as an effort to recall Arpaio already collected 120,000 of the 335,000 signatures needed to force a recall election.

A bill that passed the GOP-controlled Arizona House of Representatives could make Arpaio very difficult to defeat, however. Currently, a recalled official in Arizona faces a single election that could include challengers from their own party. The GOP bill would change this process so that the parties would choose their candidates in a primary election, and then Arpaio would likely face the winner of the Democratic primary in the general election.

The reason why this change matters is because Maricopa County is very Republican — Romney won the county by nearly 12 points — so it would be difficult for a Democrat to defeat Arpaio in a one-on-one race. At the same time, Maricopa’s Democratic voters could potentially join with a minority of the county’s Republicans in order to elect a Republican challenger to Arpaio. Indeed, this is exactly what happened when Democrats joined with some Republicans to remove anti-immigrant Senate President Russell Pearce (R) and replace him with Republican challenger Jerry Lewis in a 2011 recall election.

In other words, it may be the case that a majority of Maricopa’s voters want to remove Arpaio, and thus he could lose a recall election under the current rules. Under the GOP House’s bill, however, Arpaio would likely have a clear shot to survive the recall election so long as a majority of the county’s Republicans vote for him in the primary election.

Last year, the Supreme Court struck down much of Arizona’s harsh immigration law SB 1070, and stripped its “show me your papers” provision of many of its teeth. Earlier this week, another provision of this anti-immigrant law bit the dust. A bipartisan panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit blocked SB 1070′s restrictions on drivers seeking to hire day laborers:

Two provisions in Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 make it unlawful for a motor vehicle occupant to hire or attempt to hire a person for work at another location from a stopped car that impedes traffic, or for a person to be hired in such a manner. These provisions raise First Amendment concerns because they restrict and penalize the commercial speech of day laborers and those who would hire them. Arizona defends the provisions as traffic safety measures, designed to promote the safe and orderly flow of traffic. We acknowledge that Arizona has a real and substantial interest in traffic safety. Arizona, however, has failed to justify a need to serve that interest through targeting and penalizing day labor solicitation that blocks traffic, rather than directly targeting those who create traffic hazards without reference to their speech, as currently proscribed under the State’s preexisting traffic laws. Laws like this one that restrict more protected speech than is necessary violate the First Amendment.

As the court notes, the day laborer provisions had at least as much to do with discouraging immigration as it did with any concerns over traffic. The provisions’ lead sponsor claimed the provision would “discourage the ‘shadow economy’ of day labor and address illegal immigration because ‘[a] large number of these people are illegal immigrants and this is the way they get work, and this work is one of the anchors that keeps them in the country.’”

The Chief Justice of the Texas State Supreme Court warned during his biannual address to the state Legislature this week that “if innocent people are rotting in prison for crimes they did not commit, we certainly have not achieved justice for all.” Justice Wallace Jefferson (R) repeated his plea that the state create a commission to address wrongful convictions, noting that DNA has exonerated more convictions in Texas than anywhere else:

Michael Morton’s recent exoneration epitomizes the need to address the issue of wrongful convictions in Texas. He spent 25 years in prison, convicted of murdering his wife, until DNA evidence confirmed his innocence.

In the last 25 years, 117 Texans have been exonerated. Forty-seven were cleared based on DNA testing, more than any other state. Wrongful convictions leave our citizens vulnerable, as actual perpetrators remain free. And they leave us with the distinct impression that we today suffer from a systemic deficit in our collective approach to the way we decide how to administer criminal justice. As in years past, I continue to recommend the creation of a commission to investigate each instance of exoneration, to assess the likelihood of wrongful convictions in future cases, and to establish statewide reforms.

Texas is not only known for its high rate of wrongful convictions; it is also known for executing far more individuals than any other state. This is a dangerous combination that risks condemning those wrongly convicted to the most irreversible sentence. Morton’s murder conviction was one of several egregious examples of wrongful convictions in Texas. In his case, prosecutors seized on a note Morton’s wife left for him that expressed tactful frustration over a sexual encounter as evidence that Morton was a suspect, and bolstered that suspicion with the lack of evidence of a break-in or other alternative cause. Slate’s Emily Bazelon explains how prosecutor “tunnel vision” leads to reinforced beliefs about a suspect where rigorous procedures are not put in place for investigation or alternative explanations.

During remarks that touched on many of the major justice issues of our time, Jefferson also called for an end to the school-to-prison pipeline, and much greater commitment to providing resources to both criminal and civil defendants. “My presentation today is not a State of the Judiciary,” he said. “It is a call to arms.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy doesn’t like law. Or, at least, he doesn’t like for people that aren’t him to engage in lawmaking. Kennedy did not simply vote to toss out nearly two-hundred years of established law in order to strike down part of the Affordable Care Act, he wanted to toss out the entirety of Obamacare. He was the driving force behind Citizens United. He’s given sweeping legal immunity to corporations. A 2005 study found that Kennedy was the second most likely justice to strike down acts of Congress — second only to the guy who thinks federal child labor laws are unconstitutional.

So Kennedy is very quick on the draw when he has the opportunity to shape American law more to his liking, an instinct on his part that has generally served America very badly. One rare instance where Kennedy’s has actually been a force of good, however, is gay rights. Kennedy authored two landmark decisions in this space, and is viewed as the most likely fifth vote to strike down the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act.

Which is why it is a bit concerning to see Kennedy suddenly claiming that he believes in judicial restraint while he is no doubt in the process of reviewing briefs in the marriage equality cases:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said Wednesday that congressional lawmakers need to maintain the nation’s balance of power by being able to compromise, expressing concerns that the high court is increasingly the venue for deciding politically charged issues such as gay marriage, health care and immigration.

Kennedy, a former Sacramento law school professor, was asked by reporters whether he thought the court was deciding too many issues that can be decided by Congress.

“I think it’s a serious problem. A democracy should not be dependent for its major decisions on what nine unelected people from a narrow legal background have to say,” Kennedy said. “And I think it’s of tremendous importance for our political system to show the rest of the world — and we have to show ourselves first — that democracy works because we can reach agreement on a principle basis.”

Now, let’s be clear. If Kennedy has now decided that he cares about judicial restraint, than that could be a very good thing. Kennedy’s opinion in Citizens United did terrible damage to our democracy, as did the deciding vote he cast to install George W. Bush in the White House. He expanded abusive companies’ ability to exploit their consumers through forced arbitration and similar practices. He stole away Lilly Ledbetter’s right to equal pay for equal work. And, of course, the pending challenge to the Voting Rights Act presents him with a fantastic opportunity to show that he is now committed to restraint — an opportunity he did not seem likely to seize during oral arguments.

But his recent claim to care about judicial restraint is, at best, entirely inconsistent with his record on the Court. At worst, it is a warning that he’s suddenly decided to restrain himself now that he has a rare opportunity to do good in the world in the marriage equality cases.

A group behind the effort to recall infamous Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpiao says it has gathered roughly one-third of the signatures required for a recall election.

So far, Respect Arizona has collected 120,000 of the 335,000 signatures needed by the May 30 cut-off date. The petition reads:

“We believe Sheriff Arpaio has failed to fulfill his duties as Maricopa County’s top law enforcement official. We believe Sheriff Arpaio has violated our trust and dignity as citizens because too many people have suffered as a result of Sheriff Arpaio’s abusive practices and policies. We believe business owners should not be unfairly harassed, workers unlawfully detained and families unjustly torn apart. We believe too many lawsuits have been filed and too many lives have been lost. We believe our children deserve a Sheriff that respects families, immigrants and Latinos. We believe Sheriff Arpaio should respect, defend and protect the rights guaranteed under the US Constitution because no one — not even a Sheriff — is above the law. No election victory can excuse or make right the unlawful acts that have occurred under Sheriff Arpaio’s leadership.”

Arpaio is best known as an anti-Latino, anti-immigration sheriff. Some of his antics include arming deputies with automatic weapons to prevent so-called “illegals” from escaping and recruiting Steven Segal to train vigilantes. He has also battled several lawsuits alleging he misused government funds and violated civil rights.

As the recall effort gains ground, Arpaio’s supporters are not idling. His Tea Party backers have named Arpaio’s opponents “domestic terrorists,” and formed “shadow armies” to combat the recall, placing volunteers in areas where Respect Arizona will gather signatures.