Nancy Gertner

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Thursday to reinstate a lawsuit against the gun manufacturer Remington, filed by families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. If Remington loses the suit, it would be a landmark ruling that would deal a huge blow to the gun industry. Guest: Nancy Gertner, former Massachusetts federal judge, senior lecturer at Harvard Law School and WBUR legal analyst.

It was announced last week that President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was sentenced to less than four years behind bars, a punishment decried by many in Washington and in legal circles as too lenient ... To discuss the political and legal significance of the ruling, Jim Braude was joined by retired federal judge Nancy Gertner, now a lecturer at Harvard Law School, and Bruce Singal, a defense attorney who worked alongside Robert Mueller in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston.

An op-ed by Nancy Gertner: I was on the federal bench for 17 years before I retired in 2011 to teach, write and lecture about sentencing. The sentencing of Paul Manafort surprised me. I know how difficult the job of judging is; I am reluctant to second guess another judge’s decision as the public and pundits do. The judge sees the defendant, hears the evidence, evaluates the confidential presentence report. We do not. And since I am a critic of sentencing in U.S. courts for being overly punitive, for disproportionately impacting communities of color, I am loath to challenge any judge for being lenient. Still, I was taken aback Thursday by Manafort’s sentence to 47 months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III for cheating on his taxes and for bank fraud.

Several federal judges on Thursday gave advice to white collar attorneys on best practices when it comes to sentencing, urging lawyers to be more specific in their submissions and to take great care when it comes to their clients' final pitches to the bench. ... Judges said attorneys should take extra care at this point with clients who have lost at trial and are maintaining their innocence. Retired U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner of the District of Massachusetts, who now teaches at Harvard Law School, said the client in this situation has to “do the dance.” “The dance is you have to basically say, ‘I’m sorry that it led to this,’ there are ways you can circle around I did it,” Judge Gertner said.

Harvard Law School Professors Jeannie Suk Gersen ’02 and Janet Halley, and Senior Lecturer on Law Nancy Gertner have issued a Comment on the Department of Education’s Proposed Rule on Title IX enforcement.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and presidents of three colleges in the city are lining up against a Trump administration proposal to offer more protections to students accused of sexual assault. ... "The single-investigator model ... is a star chamber," said former federal Judge Nancy Gertner, who's now a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School. "[It] is an enormously unfair model. It doesn't offer any protections to either side. It's not the way you get at the truth."

News broke today that President Trump’s former "fixer" and lawyer, Michael Cohen, will be testifying in front of Congress — following his guilty plea and December sentencing to three years in prison for a range of crimes committed while working for Trump.... To discuss the latest on the Mueller investigation and what it all means, Jim Braude was joined by retired federal judge Nancy Gertner, who is now a senior lecturer at Harvard Law; and former U.S. attorney Don Stern, who worked alongside Robert Mueller both during his stint with the Department of Justice and in private practice at Hale and Dorr.

The Department of Justice's recent effort to toss lawsuits it says it wasted hundreds of hours investigating is emblematic of a strategy under President Donald Trump to rein in trial lawyers who are using a federal whistleblower law to seek millions of dollars. ...Prominent qui tam lawyers are now questioning the nomination of William Barr as attorney general, citing comments he made nearly 30 years ago questioning the constitutionality of private relators under the FCA. Some of the lawyers who signed a recent letter to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley criticizing Barr, including Harvard Law School Professor Nancy Gertner, participated in litigation against Celgene that the government declined to join but nevertheless generated $280 million in settlements and more than $30 million in legal fees.

Paul Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with an associate tied to Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign, prosecutors alleged, according to a court filing unsealed on Tuesday. ...  The plea agreement gives the prosecutors the power to almost unilaterally decide whether Mr. Manafort has violated it. Unless Mr. Manafort can show they acted in bad faith — a high bar — their judgment stands. The prosecutors could also decide to file new charges against Mr. Manafort for lying to them, but do not plan to do so, according to the defense lawyers’ filing, unsealed Tuesday. “They have him so deeply in the soup here that what both sides are almost saying is that this doesn’t matter,” said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor.

We look back at the year in law and politics. In law, we look at President Trump's travel ban and family separations at the border before the courts. In local politics, 2018 found Massachusetts at the center of the divide in both parties. We have a Republican Centrist Governor in a GOP with little room for centrists and an all Democratic delegation in Congress poised to take new leadership while also divided over the future of their party. Guests: Nancy Gertner, former Massachusetts federal judge, senior lecturer at Harvard Law School and WBUR legal analyst.

An op-ed by Nancy Gertner and Laurence H. Tribe: Michael Flynn’s sentencing on Tuesday took a turn that no one expected—not the special counsel, not the defense lawyers, not the public. Judge Emmet Sullivan—who was initially appointed as a judge by President Ronald Reagan and promoted by Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush—announced that he would not give Flynn the sentence the parties agreed upon. Flynn’s cooperation, which special counsel Robert Mueller said deserved probation, would not outweigh the seriousness of his crimes, both charged and uncharged, which the judge believed required prison. The judge even asked whether Flynn’s actions might have amounted to treason, a question many found perplexing. It was a question that could take on a different complexion in light of the redacted material available to the judge but not to the public, given Flynn’s role as Turkey’s secret agent during the Trump transition.

Nancy Gertner discusses the sweeping criminal justice reform bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday. It's called the First Step Act, and it proposes some significant changes to the federal prison system. In a rare show of bipartisanship, the Senate passed the bill 87-12, with only 12 Republicans voting no.

Partisan rhetoric in Washington is intensifying, as new court filings suggest President Trump may have skirted campaign finance laws. Federal prosecutors are recommending prison time for two former members of Trump's inner circle: former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his personal attorney Michael Cohen. At the same time, the president's current circle continues to break apart with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly planning to leave at the end of the year. Guests...Nancy Gertner, retired federal judge, senior lecturer at Harvard Law School, and WBUR legal analyst.

If his Twitter activity is any indication, President Donald Trump is getting nervous about what's coming next out of the Mueller investigation — especially as it relates to the testimony of his former fixer, Michael Cohen, who's been cooperating with the special counsel. Legal observers have pointed to his disparaging tweet towards Cohen as potential evidence of obstruction of justice. Meanwhile, three sentencing memos are due from Mueller this week: for Cohen, former security advisor Michael Flynn, and ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort. To discuss the latest in the Russia probe, Jim Braude was joined by...Nancy Gertner, retired federal judge and senior lecturer at Harvard Law School.

An op-ed by Nancy Gertner. Jose Medina-Perez, an immigrant, evaded ICE detention after his arraignment in the Newton District Court on drug charges and a Pennsylvania fugitive warrant, according to the Globe. While an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was waiting to take him into custody, he slipped out the back door of the courthouse. The details of how that happened are unclear. What is clear is that everyone — the defense lawyer, the prosecutor, and the judge — was concerned about whether Medina-Perez had been identified correctly in the fugitive warrant. The mug shot attached to the warrant didn’t match the defendant in the courtroom.

President Trump throws his support behind a rewrite of federal sentencing laws. What’s brought us to this point where politicians from both sides of the aisle are pushing for criminal justice reform? Guests...Nancy Gertner, retired Massachusetts federal judge, senior lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and WBUR legal analyst.

A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to restore the press credentials of Jim Acosta of CNN, handing the cable network an early win in its lawsuit against the president and members of his administration...“This ruling is not saying that what Acosta did was the right thing or the wrong thing,” said Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge and a Harvard Law School professor. “The judge ruled that the president can’t revoke his credentials without due process: a statement of what he did wrong, an opportunity to respond, a final decision. The ruling leaves those issues and his First Amendment challenge for another day.”

The number of criminal defendants who are challenging their waivers to their right to appeal is increasing throughout New York’s appeals courts, and appellate justices in Brooklyn are calling on trial judges to take greater care to ensure that defendants understand what they’re getting themselves into. ...Among them is Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge who is on the faculty at Harvard Law School, who said the right to appeal should be as sacrosanct in the criminal justice system as the right to counsel and that it should be taken off the table for plea deals, especially at a time when the vast majority of criminal cases are resolved through plea deals. As for reducing backlog, Gertner said that justice should take priority over case management. “The more the criminal justice system becomes a mill, the more you see it taking in people who are one, innocent; two, poor; and three, black,” Gertner said.

A panel co-hosted by ProPublica, The New York Times Magazine, Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, and Harvard Law’s Criminal Justice Policy Program looked at the use of unreliable forensic science practices and models for reform...Held on Oct. 25 at Harvard Law School, the discussion convened prominent leaders from across the judicial system — including Nancy Gertner, a retired federal district judge and Harvard Law School senior lecturer