Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg

Join the FIU Federalist Society for its final event of the year:

Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, will give a presentation on DNA and Post-Conviction Exonerations, followed by comments from Hon. R. Alexander Acosta, Dean, Florida International College of Law.

DNA testing has confirmed that despite the safeguards built into our criminal justice system, there still exists the possibility that individuals can be convicted of crimes they did not commit.  Wrongful conviction of the innocent not only severely punishes those convicted and their families; it allows the person who actually committed the crime to go unpunished and to be free to commit additional crimes.  Furthermore, a wrongful conviction places the victim of the crime in a position of having to endure continued participation in the criminal justice system.  In addition, wrongful convictions negatively impact public trust and confidence in the justice system.

Who: Judge Douglas Ginsburg and Hon. R. Alexander Acosta
What: DNA & Post-Conviction Exonerations
When: April 19, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Where: FIU College of Law, RDB 1000 (Large Courtroom)
Note: Food and Drink provided.

Additional Information:

Judge Douglas Ginsburg’s Bio:
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/home.nsf/content/VL+-+Judges+-+DHG

Hon. R. Alexander Acosta’s Bio:
http://law.fiu.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=441&Itemid=816

Florida Innocence Commission:
http://www.flcourts.org/gen_public/innocence.shtml

FIU Federalist Society
http://fiufedsoc.wordpress.com/

Hon. John R. Bolton

The Federalist Society Miami Lawyers Division cordially invites you to attend its first Spring reception of its 2011 lecture series with the Honorable John R. Bolton, former United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Mr. Bolton will discuss “Foreign Policy Challenges for the Obama Administration.”

The event is Tuesday, March 22, 2011 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM at the Bankers Club of Miami, One Biscayne Tower on the fourteenth floor. Admission is complimentary, Hors D’oeuvres will be served, and there will be a cash bar.

Please RSVP to Ariana Fajardo at aloza@orshanlaw.com, or call her at 305-858-0220.

We hope to see you there.

Prof Kunich delivered this eye-opening lecture to the FIU College of Law’s Fed-Soc chapter on March 1, 2011.  He thoughtfully analyzed several fundamental questions about climate policy, and criticized relevant-players’ handling of the more important issues relating to global-environmentalism. 

This lecture is available to you for free download at FIU Law’s ItunesU page on iTunes. (Download Here)

Mohamed T. Al-Darsani, Fr. Michael Orsi, Phil Colesanti, Dean Jose Gabilondo

If you missed the Federalist Society’s Same-Sex Marriage Debate between Dean Jose Gabilondo and Father Michael Orsi, or you just want, need to watch it again, you can now download it free from ItunesU. (Go to ItunesU)

The debate over same-sex marriage was held at the Florida International University College of Law.  The specific topic of debate was Whether Same-Sex Marriage Conflicts with Societal Values and Religious Liberties? Arguing in the affirmative was Father Michael Orsi.  Arguing in the negative was Dean Jose Gabilondo, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Law at FIU College of Law.

Father Orsi and Dean Gabilondo did outstanding jobs articulating their positions. With 179 people in attendance, this debate was our student chapter’s most succesful event to date.  Please let us know what you thought about the debate and give us feedback as to how we can improve our events for the future.

According to intelligencesquared.com: “John Kunich acknowledges the difficulties involved in galvanising people into action when it comes to climate change. This will become an increasing problem as humans continue to pollute the planet and destroy the rainforests. In the latter case, humans are destroying biodiversity hotspots, many of which may contain natural resources that have potential commercial or medical value.

“As Kunich points out, because we do not know exactly how bad the situation is, and whilst there is not even a unanimous consensus that climate change is happening, getting people to act is very difficult. Kunich makes it patently clear, by citing Pascal’s Wager and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, that preserving the planet is well worth the gamble.”

Do liberals hold a monopoly on environmentalism? Can capitalism save the planet from global warming? Meet John Kunich, Professor at Charlotte School of Law, expert on Environmental and Biodiversity Law, and an environmentalist with free market solutions for problems ranging from climate change to biodiversity loss.

Mr. Kunich regularly appears as an environmental expert for American television stations, including CNN, PBS, and Fox News, and contributes to publications such as USA Today and Christian Science Monitor. Kunich is the author of five books, including Betting the Earth: How We Can Still Win the Biggest Gamble of All Time (2009) and Killing Our Oceans (2006), and is a regular contributor to law journals.

Betting the Earth: How We Can Still Win the Biggest Gamble of All Time deals with complex international environmental decision-analysis in situations involving factual or scientific uncertainty, including climate change and mass extinction. Kunich examines the role of uncertainty in rational choice-making, drawing on lessons from Blaise Pascal, Kurt Godel, Werner Heisenberg, Edward Lorenz, and others. He concludes that a fair, evidence-based, probabilistic examination of all the facts and unknowns points clearly away from any intrusive, command-and-control governmental interference in greenhouse gas emissions, and that a much more moderate, incentives-based approach is a better fit with reality. On biodiversity loss, the evidence and the odds suggest a free-market habitat-conservation strategy similar to the one outlined in his earlier book, Ark of the Broken Covenant: Protecting the World’s Biodiversity Hotspots.