CAREER
Service to Academic Institutions
Service to Public Institutions and Foundations
Service to the Legal Profession
Welcome to my website!
This website was created while I was a candidate for public office in the summer of 2004. It has been revised and is now being maintained to present my views on numerous public issues, and for use by students, academic friends and critics, descendants and relatives, and any strangers who happen upon the scene.
For over sixty years, I have been engaging in public affairs and expressing my views on current issues. In 2008, I served as a precinct captain for the Democratic Party, and on committees of the North Carolina Bar, NC Advocates for Justice, and NC AARP. In 2009, I was instrumental in securing enactment of the North Carolina false claims law rewarding whistleblowers who detect corruption in our state or local government. I also continue to advocate campaign finance reform in our state and work with the Bar in trying to find an acceptable method of selecting judges.
Since 2004, Roger Cramton and I have invested effort in elevating interest in and concern for the law governing the Supreme Court of the United States. We share the view that the Court has evolved in the last half century in ways that not unreasonably diminish public support for judicial independence, a condition indispensable to the rule of law. We have published several essays on the subject and were instrumental in helping to assemble a group interested in the subject. They will present a conference at George Washington University on November 20. 2009. The subject will be discussed again at other meetings, such as the SEALS conference in July. We are fully aware that " judicial law reform is no sport for the short-winded," but we will continue to advocate serious reform.
Since 2005, I have also engaged in an effort to elevate the need for private enforcement of public and international laws enacted to deter transnational corrupt practices. If OECD, the ICofC and other organizations seeking to deter corruption are to achieve results, they need to consider ways to encourage and empower private citizens to engage in law enforcement.
In other national matters in 2008, I played a very minor role in persuading Congressmen to protect contract farmers from mandatory arbitration clauses disabling them from enforcing their rights against food processing firms. I had in 2001 represented the National Automobile Dealers Association in a similarly successful cause. I continue to encourage broader legislation to protect consumers and others from this form of oppression. In 2009, there is at last the prospect of correcting the distortions of the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act imposed by the Supreme Court since 1980. I am also engaged in efforts to enhance the methods by which our highest state court judges are selected and in the national debate about judicial independence and accountability.
My diverse interests are categorized and indexed in the column on the right so that anyone sharing an interest can see what I think about a matter without being burdened with any other information. I welcome the thoughts of any reader, but especially on those topics.
On the left column below the image are links to a curriculum vita supplemented by brief accounts and some links to previous utterances of an autobiographical sort. Those curious about my 2004 campaign will find answers under Political Activity. For kinfolk and anyone curious about the source of my questionable views, there is also a link to my family connections. I pray that I have not neglected them. For Thanksgiving 2008, we celebrated our sesquicentennial: Bessie and I and our four children have been married for 150 years!
INTERESTS: No doubt I would have done better to concentrate my efforts over fifty five years on fewer subjects, but it would have been less fun.
Academic Freedom and Civil Liberties
Criminal Law and the War on Drugs
International Relations and Comparative Law
Judicial Independence and Accountability: State Courts
Legal Profession: Contemporary
Local Government and Public Education
Supreme Court of the United States
Transnational Dispute Resolution