Nobody disputes that driving under the influence of alcohol is dangerous. In fact, it's one of the most deadly crimes. You won't get any serious arguments from anybody that people should be allowed to drive while impaired. Nobody would dispute that you are far more likely to die at the hands of a DUI driver than at the hands of a serial killer or by gang violence.

The dispute is not about the problem of impaired driving, but rather about what to do about it. Every year, many states increase the jail time, fines and other penalties for DUI offenders. There is little evidence that increased punishment deters impaired driving. In fact, there's no conclusive evidence that suggests that the average would-be drunk driver even considers the penalties before turning on the ignition and hitting the road.

Most state lawmakers increase the penalties because it is politically popular to do so, and it’s the only thing they can think of doing. In most states, the average DUI convict spends no more than a day or two in jail for a first offense, and no longer than a year for a third offense. After that, the states have a tremendous range.

It seems for most offenders, a first, second or third DUI arrest is the wake-up call they need, and very few people get caught more than three times in their lifetime. In states such as Washington that have systems that treat and educate for alcohol and drug issues, there is a ray of hope that recidivism may be reduced. In states such as Arizona, where the focus is on punishment rather than treatment, DWI convictions often do little for a would-be repeat offender than take them off the road temprarily while they are incarcerated.

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A $10 billion toxic tort class action lawsuit has been filed against BP over alleged emissions from its troubled Texas City oil refinery, alleging that workers and residents in the area were exposed to benzene and other chemicals.  

More than 2,200 workers at the refinery and residents from the surrounding area filed the BP class action lawsuit on August 3 in the Galveston Division of the Southern District of Texas. The complaint alleges that for 40 days earlier this year, the company illegally released the chemical benzene into the atmosphere.

The benzene lawsuit comes just as BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, was finally able to stop the flow of oil from a well a mile under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, which has caused a massive oil spill that is expected to cost the company tens of billions of dollars in oil spill lawsuits and clean up costs.

Plaintiffs in the BP Texas City refinery class action lawsuit say the company has been releasing benzene into the atmosphere at the plant due to a hydrogen compressor that broke down on April 6. The 2,212 plaintiffs allege that they suffered serious injuries and illnesses from benzene exposure.

Benzene is an industrial chemical that has been linked to the development of cancer, leukemia and other life-threatening health problems. It is a known carcinogen used as an industrial solvent in the production of plastic and synthetic rubber, as well as drugs and dyes.

BP’s Texas City Refinery is the third-largest oil refinery in the United States, and has been the subject of several major safety incidents. As recently as September, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration hit BP with an $87.4 million fine for not complying with a safety agreement made after a March 23, 2005 explosion and fire that killed 15 workers and injured more than 170 others.

Lawyers who represent children in dependency proceedings say it’s time for these children – regardless of which state they live – to have a right to legal counsel.

Meeting yesterday at the 2010 American Bar Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco, a panel of children’s rights advocates discussed eliminating the barriers that prevent lawyers from representing these children in life-impacting legal proceedings.  

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services there are more than half a million children in foster care and under the jurisdiction of family courts.  These are children who have been, for example, removed from their homes, placed in temporary shelters and possibly separated from siblings.

When it comes down to who is looking out for the rights and interests of the children in the courtroom – a lawyer, a guardian ad litem or an attorney ad litem -- there is no clear-cut, uniform answer.

“Every state has a different model,” says Hilarie Bass, a Miami commercial litigator who does pro bono work representing foster kids.

She points out the obvious — that there are too many children who need help, without enough money in the system to serve them.  Despite those hurdles, Bass, who is also incoming chair of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation, says she expects the section to make a recommendation on the right to counsel for children that should come up for debate before the ABA’s policymaking body in 2011.

“It would be a recommendation to provide for counsel and representation of children in delinquency and dependency proceedings,” says Bass. 

ABA President Carolyn Lamm says the ABA is an association interested in promoting the best interest of children and finding solutions “before we have a crisis situation.”

Lamm adds, “These citizens are the most vulnerable of course, in terms of no one to defend their legal rights.  The ABA does so much work in the public interest.  This is a segment of the public that needs us and we are strong and forceful advocates for children and the rights of children to be represented."  

So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has not spoken on the issue of whether children have a constitutional right to counsel in dependency proceedings.

Georgia attorney Trenny Stovall directs the DeKalb County Child Advocacy Center and represents children in dependency proceedings every day.  She says children who don’t have their own lawyer do not have a voice.

“When children don’t have a lawyer, their ability to be considered a living being with rights is vastly diminished.  Without representation, they become a widget in the eyes of the court,” says Stovall.

Children like 16-year-old Trevor Wade — who has been through the dependency court system — will tell you that having a lawyer makes a difference.  He says his lawyer fought against a system that would have placed him back with an abusive father.  These days he’s an intern in a public defender’s office, helping kids who are going through the court system.

Wade hopes to go to law school and is zealous in his advocacy on this issue.

He says that when states and courts make decisions not to provide lawyers for children, the question that needs to be asked is, “What is the price of a child’s success?”

In Arizona, the shooting death of a rancher blew the lid off simmering anger over border security and helped solidify support for a tough new immigration law. A similar eruption threatens in Virginia following the death of a Catholic nun in a car accident involving a man in the country illegally and accused of drunken driving.

The Benedictine Sisters of Virginia tried to discourage using the death of Sister Denise Mosier as a "forum of the illegal immigration agenda" and pleaded for a focus on "Christ's command to forgive."

"The sisters' mission is peace and love," said Corey Stewart, chairman of Prince William County's Board of Supervisors. "My mission is law enforcement and the protection of public safety."

Prince William County, about 25 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., stepped up its immigration enforcement in 2007 amid explosive growth of its Hispanic and immigrant populations. Under Stewart's leadership, the county implemented a local policy requiring police to determine the immigration status of all people arrested on suspicion of violating state or local laws.

David Boies challenged America’s lawyers to “bring the rule of law to its full fruition here in this country … to fulfill the goals and lofty rhetoric of our founding fathers,” as the keynote speaker at the Opening Assembly of the 2010 ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

The rule of law was the assembly theme, as ABA members gathered in the Herbst Theater of the War Memorial Veterans Building, site of the signing of the charter of the United Nations in 1945.  

President Carolyn B. Lamm pointed to ABA efforts from activities of the Section of International Law to such projects as the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative, the Rule of Law Initiative and the World Justice Project as advancing United Nations goals to spread democracy based on law around the world.

Boies, co-counsel with Ted Olson in winning a federal district court ruling Wednesday that overturned California’s Proposition 8, cited “numerous challenges to the rule of law in our own country,” in applying that theme at home.

When our nation was born, it consisted of “wes” and “theys,” Boies said, with the “wes” being white male property owners and the “theys” comprising everyone else.  As the national history unfolded, the circle of “wes” expanded to encompass more and more segments of society.  

“We have an opportunity to expand the circle of ‘wes’ until there are no more ‘theys,’” said Boies, urging lawyers to work toward ensuring that “liberty and equality and protection of individual rights is something that every citizen equally enjoys.”

To achieve that goal, Boies identified four challenges confronting his audience.

First, he suggested the rule of law works best when adversaries have equivalent resources, whether those resources are plentiful or sparse.   But the “time when our system tends to break down is when one party has tremendous resources and the other party does not.”  Those are the times that “threatened to undermine the protections of the rule of law… [and lawyers] need to find ways to reduce the imbalance,” he said.  He urged reducing procedural advantages that favor the “better resourced party,” and urged lawyers to not “use discovery as a war of attrition,” for example. 
   
Second, he called for “better tools to help juries” decide important but complex cases, such as allowing jurors to ask questions and take notes on testimony.

His third challenge was to “improve judges and the judicial machinery,” citing a “crisis in terms of financing the justice system in the United States.”  First year associates in his law firm are paid higher salaries than federal district court judges, and state court judges earn even less, he said.  “If we can’t afford to spend a fraction of what we are spending to expand that system to Iraq, something is wrong with our sense of priorities,” he maintained.  

All lawyers must stand up for the independence of judges, resisting threats to their safety when they make unpopular decisions, said Boies, noting that there already have been threats to harm the judge who  ruled in the Proposition 8 litigation.

Boies’ cited predictably equal application of the law without regard to the identity of the parties as the final challenge to the rule of law, saying that when rights depend on who is asserting them, “the rule of law is undermined.”