Mar. 16, 2012

Prison reform lawyer Donald Specter was among three lawyers honored last week by the American Constitution Society’s San Francisco Bay Area chapter at a reception at UC Hastings College of the Law. Specter, whose work led to the U.S. Supreme Court ordering California to ease prison overcrowding, told the group of about 100 about his latest crusade helping Arizona prisoners. One inmate went without treatment for liver cancer until he was hospitalized a few days before he died. The cancer grew so large that the man’s abdomen was the size of a nine-months-pregnant woman. Specter read an email he received from the man’s sister, who was grateful for the lawsuit, saying, “You have no idea what this means for us. We have suffered in silence.” The American Constitution Society, the liberal counterpart to the Federalist Society, also honored Asian Law Caucus staff attorney Sin Yen Ling and Jeffrey L. Fisher, associate professor of law and co-director of Stanford Law School’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. After the awards were handed out, state Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu lightened the mood in his introduction of former Justice Carlos R. Moreno, who gave a keynote speech about the importance of restoring court funding. Liu, who was the subject of partisan attacks before withdrawing his name from consideration for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year, pointed out that Moreno was appointed to four different courts by four different judges, both Democrat and Republican. “Must be nice,” Liu said.