Faculty Spotlight
January - June 2010

David Friedman was interviewed in Region Focus, the magazine of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Work by the Northern California Innocence Project to get a new trial for an accused arsonist was featured a Los Angeles Times story that ran in more than a dozen papers including the Sacramento Bee and the Modesto Bee, where a columnist also discussed the case.

Santa Clara University has recognized distinguished members of the faculty with appointments to endowed chairs. Kenneth Manaster was appointed as the Presidential Professor of Ethics and the Common Good. Based on the recommendations by the deans and Provost, endowed professorships are given to faculty who are prominent intellectual leaders with the talent and vision to invigorate their departments and centers of distinction, inspire other faculty, and raise the national profile of the University.

Allen Hammond testified at a hearing on the Proposed Combination of Comcast and NBC-Universal, which was held by the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary.

Gerald Uelmen wrote a feature for the June 2010 issue of California Lawyer entitled "The Wit, Wisdom, and Worthlessness of Law Reviews". Read the article here.

Gerald Uelmen was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article about legislation approved by the California State Senate that would vastly expand the powers of  Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich by giving him his own grand jury. Uelmen said he was not aware of any other city attorney in the nation with the power to empanel a grand jury for misdemeanor cases. Trutanich's proposal "seems like a rather elaborate solution to a simple problem," said Uelmen.

Eric Goldman was quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle article about the privacy consequences of sharing personal information on social networking sites. Contributors must learn how the data can be used and exercise more caution when sharing it, and consumers must become more savvy about the credibility of sources and the actual relevance of information. "It can't be a disqualification because then everyone gets disqualified," Goldman said. "We're not going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle, so we're going to have to become smarter consumers of information."

Dorothy Glancy will co-chair the 20th annual CFP conference at San Jose State University from June 15-18. This year's program will feature keynote speakers Peter Cullen of Microsoft on Tuesday, David Drummond of Google on Thursday, and California Secretary of State Debra Bowen on Friday. Read more...

Colleen Chien will be participating in a roundtable hosted by the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice, and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, on May 26, 2010, at the Office's headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The workshop will address the interaction between patent policy and competition policy as part of ongoing joint work by the agencies in this area. Read the FTC press announcement.

Jerry Uelmen was quoted twice in May in the San Francisco Chronicle, once discussing lawsuits due to state budget cuts and once discussing many prosecutors reluctance to draw up disclosure policies and lists of police officers with records of convictions or lying.

Ed Steinman was quoted by the Contra Costa Times commenting about the media gag order in the case of Melissa Huckaby, who pled guilty to the murder of 8 year old Sandra Cantu in Tracy, CA. Steinman commented that he hadn't heard of a gag order continuing after a guilty finding, saying that the gag order is aimed at the public so they don't develop prejudice before a trial.

Linda Starr was interviewed on KCBS radio regarding the recent US Supreme court decision that held it unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life without the possibility of parole for crimes other than homicide.

Kyle Graham spoke to WJRT-TV online about a settlement in which Walmart has agreed to pay $27.6 million to settle allegations that it dumped hazardous waste at stores across California, a case that led to changes in the retailer's practices nationwide.

Tyler Ochoa's essay From Moveable Type to Messaging: Copyright Law at 300 was published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal on April 27. The essay was previously published in Eric Goldman's Technology and Marketing Law Blog on April 10, the 300th Anniversary of the Statute of Anne, the first modern copyright law. On April 29, Tyler Ochoa spoke on "The Litigation Year in Review" and "Termination Rights: Three Years Later" at The Copyright Office Comes to Music City, a conference co-sponsored by the U.S. Copyright Office and the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

Stephen Diamond co-authored an oped advocating the abolishment of SEC rule 144A, which allows companies to sell massive amounts of securities – including many behind the financial meltdown – through “private placements” that avoid disclosure, liability, and other SEC rules. The oped ran in Newdeal2.0 and the Huffington Post. He was also on KLIV radio on May 6, discussing that day’s 1,000-point swing in the Dow.

Margaret Russell was a featured guest on KQED’s Forum, discussing President Obama’s choice of current Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Eric Goldman was quoted in a FoxNews.com story about a federal obscenity law, as part of a story on Wikipedia’s co-founder trying to purge porn from the site. The UK-based Register and the niche publication Adult Video News ran excerpts from the Fox story. Goldman also talked to TechWeb about the illegal practice of “data scraping” – using programs to siphon all the data from a company’s database. He was also featured in a podcast on LegalTalk Network about the theft of a prototype iPhone 4G from a local bar, and talked to KCBS radio about the iPhone issue.

The ACLU of Santa Clara Valley honored Cookie Ridolfi and Linda Starr of NCIP in the annual Don Edwards Award Celebration on June 12. Read more...

Eric Goldman discussed numerous tech-law issues with reporters including the FTC’s view of bloggers receiving gifts (Law.com); Facebook’s partial victory in a click-fraud case (MediaPost); and a novel suit against Google over automatic search suggestions that pop up and suggest something undesirable about the person being searched. (TechWeb; InformationWeek; NBC.com).

The Northern California Innocence Project’s review of a Vacaville killing made the news in a number of papers, including InsideBayArea.com, the (Long Beach) Press-Telegram and (Vacaville) Reporter. Read more...

On May 13, 2010 Women Defenders honored Cookie Ridolfi for her contribution to the world of criminal defense. Go to www.womendefenders.org for more information.

Beth Van Schaack has updated the casebook she cowrote with Ronald C. Slye of Seattle Law, "International Criminal Law and Its Enforcement, Cases and Materials, Second Edition".

Ed Steinman was interviewed by KCBS-AM radio about the decision by a San Francisco federal judge that found the federal government illegally wiretapped an Islamic charity and two attorneys without a search warrant. The decision is the first time that any court in this country has ruled that the post-Sept. 11 warrantless interception of communications between Americans and suspected foreign terrorists by the Bush administration violated the US Constitution.

Kenneth Manaster was quoted in the ABA Journal’s story about the retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, with whom Manaster worked on a Chicago judicial-corruption case in 1969.

Stephen Diamond was quoted extensively in an article on growing unrest among Chinese clothing sweatshop workers for insidefashionlive.com

Catherine Sandoval spoke to the San Jose Mercury News about a Court of Appeals ruling in April that rejected the argument of the FCC that it had the power to regulate Internet service providers. The decision deals a direct blow to proponents of so-called net neutrality rules, which require Internet service providers like Comcast to treat all Internet traffic equally. Sandoval is a former FCC official.

At the annual Conference of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis in March, Alan W. Scheflin received the prestigious Richard von Krafft-Ebbing Award for the Best Paper on Forensic Issues and Hypnosis. Read more...

Sandee Magliozzi talked to the San Francisco Business Times about changes to SCU Law services and classes to help prepare grads to stand out in the legal marketplace. The story ran in several area Business Journals.

Eric Goldman talked to ABC Australia Radio about Google and China. His name also appeared in print hundreds of times — stemming from interviews with the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters and others— about topics like Google’s legal battle with Viacom; financial news aggregators; and a key Google Adwords victory. Several legal bloggers also extensively quoted him or his blog postings on Google, with praise like “excellent analysis.”

Angelo Ancheta spoke to Miller-McCune-Online about affirmative action, saying that schools should look at both class and race in order to increase diversity.

Anna Han was interviewed on ABC7 about the unlikely chances that China will stop censoring Internet access now that Google has pulled its search from China —a story that was picked up by numerous affiliate stations. She was also a source for the San Jose Mercury News on the same subject, a story picked up by nearly a dozen publications.

Gerald Uelmen was quoted in an article in the Sacramento Bee about a case against a medical marijuana user who is on trial for concealing five pounds of medical marijuana in his luggage during a flight.

Colleen Chien was quoted in Business Week talking about the International Trade Commission becoming a new forum for patent disputes that are delayed or lost in federal court.

Gerald Uelmen was quoted in a San Francisco Recorder article on California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George.

David Friedman wrote an item for Investors Business Daily about the fallacy of government contraction during the Great Depression. The article also ran in the Washington Times.

Michelle Oberman was quoted in an article in The Journal News (Westchester, NY) about a murder in which a mother strangled her adult daughter.

Anna Han gave a talk for the Business and Litigation sections of the SC County Bar Association on International Contracting Issues.

Eric Goldman was quoted in The Salt Lake Tribune discussing proposed state legislation that would allow companies that are victims of certain fraudulent practices to go after those responsible in state court. Goldman also spoke with ABC local news in the Bay Area about internet freedom becoming component of an on-going economic and diplomatic dispute impacting U.S.-China relations.

Michelle Oberman was quoted in the Vancouver Sun discussing the murder of children by their own mothers.

Pratheepan Gulasekaram was a featured guest on KALW’s CityVisions, talking about the legal aspects of the Prop. 8 trial, challenging the validity of California’s voter-approved anti-gay-marriage law.

Gerald Uelmen was quoted in the San Jose Mercury News discussing the boycott of Superior Court Judge Andrea Bryan initiated by Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr.

Gerald Uelmen argued a case on medical marijuana in the California Supreme Court and won a unanimous ruling. The Court ruled to invalidate state limits on medical marijuana possession, throwing out a 2003 provision that capped possession at eight ounces and cultivation at six mature or 12 immature plants. The decision means that people who have a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana can possess and cultivate as much as is "reasonably necessary".

Rachel Smith has a series of legal writing podcasts available online.

In January, a new casebook co-authored by Tyler Ochoa was published by Carolina Academic Press. The casebook is entitled Celebrity Rights: Rights of Publicity and Related Rights in the United States and Abroad. It is the first law-school casebook to comprehensively cover the law of rights of publicity, from both a domestic and a comparative law perspective. In February, Prof. Ochoa spoke on "The Litigation Year in Review" at "The Copyright Office Comes to California, a program co-sponsored by the U.S. Copyright Office and the State Bar of California Intellectual Property Section.

Kandis Scott's Why Did China Reform Its Death Penalty?, has now been published in University of Washington Law School's speciality journal at 19 Pac. Rim L. & Pol. J. 63(2010).

Oxford University Press asked Kandis Scott for the shortest possible published piece of writing: a back cover blurb for Brest & Krieger, Problem Solving, Decision Making, and Professional Judgment.

Yvonne Ekern and Joanne Banker-Hames authored the fourth edition of their Introduction to Law text, which was recently translated into Chinese.

Cynthia Mertens was named one of the 2010 Women of Influence by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. The Business Journal will showcase the Women of Influence in a special publication, scheduled to run March 19.

Tom Klein published a book: Director and Officer Indemnification and Insurance for VC-Backed Companies, 2d Edition.

Stephen Diamond published a new book: From ‘Che’ to China: Labor and Authoritarianism in the New Global Economy.

Cookie Ridolfi and Maurice Possley wrote a guest column in the January 29, 2010 issue of the Los Angeles Daily Journal, "Boycott Threatens Independent Judiciary", which discusses the decision by Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr to stop bringing criminal cases before Superior Court Judge Andrea Bryan. Carr said she was upset over a number of rulings by the judge. Ridolfi and Possley state that on January 6, Judge Bryan decided to ..."release Augustin Uribe, who was serving a sentence of 38 years to life on child molestation charges. Judge Bryan found that Carr’s Deputy District Attorney Troy Benson had testified falsely and committed “numerous acts of misconduct.” Uribe was convicted of sexually assaulting a young relative, but the conviction was set aside by the California appellate court, which held that the district attorney’s office had improperly withheld a videotape of the alleged victim’s physical exam. That tape was not turned over until after Uribe was convicted. Subsequently, an expert hired by Uribe’s defense team examined the tape and declared that it contradicted assertions by the prosecution witnesses that the child had been assaulted."

Allen Hammond was part of a panel comprised of academics testifying at an FCC investigation of ownership diversity believe that there are ways the Commission can craft rules to increase minority and female ownership that would stand up to court scrutiny. Hammond stated that in most business types, minority ownership is close to their proportion of the population; but broadcast is a glaring exception. FCC must be able to show that broadcast diversity is a compelling government interest.

David Yosifon published on op-ed on the historic Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in the San Francisco Chronicle the day after the historic decision. Read the op-ed here.

Margaret Russell wrote an article on the pros and cons of television technologies in federal courts which was published in the January 20, 2010 issue of the Los Angeles and San Franciso Daily Journals. Russell states that "...in 2010 the tide is turning and the cameras are beginning to roll. It is time for our profession to address head-on the introduction of television technologies in federal courts. Compelling public interests are at stake, and the key question should be not whether, but how to balance these competing concerns in a technologically-advanced society. "

Patricia Cain wrote a Perspectives piece on the need for a federal solution to the same sex marriage issue in the January 15, 2010 issue of the Los Angeles and San Franciso Daily Journals. Cain states that the best route for a federal solution to the problem of each state having different laws is for the U.S. Supreme Court to constitutionalize the rights of same-sex couples to have their relationships recognized at the state level.

Anna Han discussed the attack on Google's security systems in China and the resulting possibility that Google may pull out of China on ABC 7 (Bay Area News) and in the San Jose Mercury News.

Eric Goldman discussed the complex and thorough contracts that reality show hopefuls must agree to on CNN.