"The most valuable players in the horse racing industry have been their lobbyists," Bennett Liebman, executive director of the Government Law Center at Albany Law School and Gov. David A. Paterson's appointee to the New York Racing Association, is fond of saying.

. . .

But that is not all the industry receives. Slot parlors make a profit after the fees and revenue sharing, and at the eight parlors in New York, the machines are operated by the track owners and now provide most of their income. "There should be little doubt," Mr. Liebman said, "that without the slots every harness track in New York would be out of business."

. . .

"Governor Christie is making a decision: If I have to choose between helping casinos and the racing industry, I don't see any reason to provide subsidies for the racing industry," Mr. Liebman said.

From an article titled "With New Casino, More Funds to Prop Up Horse Tracks" in the New York Times 8/31/10.

Professor Raymond Brescia recently appeared on The Takeaway, a national public radio news program, to discuss "Income Inequality May Have Big Costs For Economy, Country."  

President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy Paul Finkelman authored the piece "Parents, Children, and Citizenship by Birth" for The Huffington Post 8/19/10. 

The Supreme Court recently has been ruling unfavorably for Indian tribes and already declined to hear a very similar case involving the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York, said Robert Batson, who teaches federal Indian law at Albany Law School and is the school's government lawyer in residence.

"I would suspect they probably won't take it," Batson said, of whether the Supreme Court will hear the case.

From an article titled "Halbritter: Oneidas to appeal claim ruling to U.S. Supreme Court" in the Utica Observer-Dispatch 8/10/10.

Professor Laurie Shanks was interviewed on "Last minute changes to Arizona Immigration Law" on YNN on 7/28/10.

"People will gather legal information from the Internet, from friends, or leaflets at a courthouse and think, 'I can play checkers, I'm ready,' " said Raymond Brescia, a professor at Albany Law School, who has written about tenants' struggles to afford legal representation. "But when they get to court they realize it's a game of three-level chess, and they don't have the first idea of what's happening."

From an article titled "More Strapped Litigants Skip Lawyers in Court" in the Wall Street Journal 7/22/10.

President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy Paul Finkelman authored the piece "George Steinbrenner, Peter Rose and Shoeless Joe" for The Huffington Post 7/15/10.

Raymond and Ella Smith Distinguished Professor of Law Patricia Salkin was cited in a July 2 decision in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals by Judge Posner, River of Life Kingdom Ministeries v. Village of Hazel Crest.

President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy Finkelman's article "It Really Was About a Well Regulated Militia," 59 Syracuse L. Rev. 267 (2008), was cited in the Supreme Court's decision in McDonald v. Chicago in a dissenting opinion. 

President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy Paul Finkelman appeared on the public radio program Capitol Pressroom, which airs statewide, on July 5. Along with former Court of Appeals Judge Albert Rosenblatt, he discussed New York state's assent to ratify the U.S. Constitution in the City of Poughkeepsie.

On Monday afternoon, e-mails "from all over the place" started filling up Patricia Salkin's inbox.

Everyone wanted to know: Had Salkin, an expert on land-use law at the Albany Law School in New York, heard about the decision of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals? Boulder County had lost its appeal in a long battle with Rocky Mountain Christian Church in Niwot over a proposed expansion.

"This does have national implications," Salkin said. "There are a number of things about this particular case that are unique or not common."

From an article titled "Boulder County's denied appeal in church expansion garners national attention" in the Boulder, Co., Daily Camera 5/21/10.

Albany Law School Professor Vin Bonventre, who has developed a cottage industry observing, studying and dissecting decisions, judges and nominees of the high courts ­-- the U.S. Supreme Court as well as the state Court of Appeals -- is at it again.

As he did last year when Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor was nominated, Bonventre has a few things to say about President Obama's pick this year for the nation's top court -- Elena Kagan.

A self-described ''court junkie'' who authors the New York Court Watcher blog, Bonventre said of Kagan, "She was the first one I spoke about. She was the front-runner for people who watch the court and closely follow these things." She was the "probable pick, just like Sotomayor was figured to be picked."

From the Law Beat column "Professor has thoughts on high court pick" in the Albany Times Union 5/19/10.

His work also could be useful in court cases in which the defense or prosecution could rest on a single image, said Laurie Shanks, an attorney and clinical professor at Albany Law School.

She said courts are increasingly turning to technology to help sift through evidence and that this could allow some photos to be admitted into evidence.

"It could have a huge impact on cases of securities, fraud or computer hacking or other situations where digital images are used," Shanks said.

From an article titled "Hot on the trail of photo fakers" in the Albany Times Union 5/18/10.

"I think there has been an increase across the country and particularly in New York," said Patricia Salkin, associate Dean of Albany Law School's Government Law Center. "When the political process fails to strike a compromise ... then there is so much at stake these days that the special interest groups are resorting to the courts."

And there's a concern with that.

"The courts look at the issue in a vacuum and often times the court will reach a decision that may not have been necessary if the political process was able to figure it out," she said.

The result includes court decisions that rule on one major element of spending-for example an effort to restore school aid or to block state worker furloughs-on its legal merits, not whether taxpayers can afford it, she said.

"It's also costly to go to court and you have to think about the long-term relationships with the various stock holders who have to negotiate in the future," she said.

"You want the courts interpreting the law, you don't want them to be perceived as making policy," she said.

From an article titled "Analysis: States cutting in crisis face lawsuits" by the Associated Press 5/15/10.

The Americans with Disabilities Act only requires that the government make a "reasonable accommodation" for those with disabilities, said Patricia Salkin, director of the Government Law Center at Albany Law School.

"The question becomes what is a reasonable accommodation," Salkin said. "Usually the governments will try to err on the side of the accessibility."

But, Salkin added, "reasonable doesn't always mean that the applicant gets to build what they want."

From an article titled "Project ramps up Albany debate" in the Albany Times Union 5/16/10.

The first chief justice, John Jay, was a New Yorker. But Vincent M. Bonventre, a professor at Albany Law School, said that Jay considered the Supreme Court as a comedown after contributing to the Federalist Papers and serving as president of the Continental Congress.

"He left the Supreme Court because he didn't think it was prestigious or important, and it wasn't, back then," Professor Bonventre said. Jay resigned as chief justice in mid-1795 to take a job that interested him: governor of New York.

. . .

"For most New Yorkers, they will look at the liberal minority and say, ‘That's us, that's our America,' " Professor Bonventre said, "and so when the court renders liberal decisions and you have all of those four, the three women and the Jewish guy, it will make complete sense to New Yorkers, whereas for the South and the Bible Belt, people are going to say, ‘They don't understand the rest of America.'"

From an article titled "A New York Bloc on the Supreme Court" in the New York Times 5/12/10.

Professors Stephen Gottlieb and Laurie Shanks were interviewed for a series of five CBS-6 TV news segments on former New York State Senator Joseph Bruno's sentencing, as well as a related case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

But whether the Oneidas ever decided to do something along those lines would be purely a business decision, said Robert Batson, government lawyer in residence at Albany Law School.

"Of course from the state's point of view, it would be nice," Batson said. "I'm sure the Oneidas are looking at their own bottom line."

Both Picente and Batson noted that Turning Stone wants to be able to serve alcohol throughout its resort, so it had a reason to move forward with this particular type of agreement.

From an article titled "Could Oneidas' new deal pave the way for other tax collections?" in the Utica Observer-Dispatch 4/21/10.

It took officials in South Carolina more than 90 years before they admitted they executed the wrong men for the murder of a Confederate veteran.

And that is the central problem with the death penalty in the United States, Paul Finkelman, a professor of law and public policy at Albany Law School, said yesterday during a speech at Wake Forest University School of Law.

The Griffin brothers were the great uncles of the radio talk show host Tom Joyner, and last October, Finkelman, along with others, were able to get what is believed to be the first posthumous pardon for a capital case in South Carolina's history.

"What I would hope is that people who prosecute capital cases begin to realize that human frailties, vindictiveness, racism ... all lead to executions, and that those executions are sometimes wrong," Finkelman said after his speech.

From an article titled "Justice case in South Carolina points to problems with system, professors tells Wake Forest law students" in the Winston-Salem Journal 4/16/10.

Judges on lower federal courts mostly apply existing law, rather than establish precedent as justices do, said Paul Finkelman, a professor at Albany Law School. He said justices with other legal or political experience - such as Black's background as a police court judge - might see a case in an entirely different light.

"We don't get that anymore because everybody looks the same," Finkelman said. "It's all from the same cookie cutter."

From an article titled "Appeals Go Out for Non-Appellate Nominee" in CQ Today 4/13/10.

The theft of honest service charge, first established in 1973, was designed to punish officials who betray their duties for personal gain. In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court restricted the reach of the law but Congress reinstated it, said Dan Moriarty, a professor and criminal law expert at Albany Law School.

"The statute has been around for a long time and I do not know if the Supreme Court will make any changes to it now," he continued. "If we held up a process on the chance of something changing, nothing would ever get done."

From an article titled "Attorney requests Bruno sentencing be postponed" in the Troy Record 4/9/10.

"Investigations like this put professional athletes between a rock and a hard place," said Paul Finkelman, a professor at Albany Law School who is an expert on legal issues involving sports and drugs.

"If players lie, they could be criminally prosecuted for it. But if they tell the truth, and if they admit doing anything that is improper under the rules of baseball, they potentially could get into trouble with Major League Baseball."

The law professor was quick to point out that he has no way of knowing whether Rodriguez or any other player ever got substances from Galea that are banned by Major League Baseball.

From an article titled "A-Rod due here to face feds" in the Buffalo News 3/26/10.

The U.S. lawsuits were important in opening the issue for discussions, said Timothy Lytton, a law professor at Albany Law School in New York. The suits, he said, were instrumental in getting elected law-enforcement officials and lawmakers to act, as many had been otherwise reluctant to attack an institution that many constituents held in high regard.

"Most of what we know about the misconduct of bishops and lack of supervision is all from discovery in lawsuits," said Mr. Lytton, author of "Holding Bishops Accountable: How Lawsuits Helped the Catholic Church Confront Clergy Sexual Abuse." 

From an article titled "German Priest Scandal May Sting Less Than in U.S." in the Wall Street Journal 3/16/10.

"There's a bunch of reasons why it would make sense to go to Chief Judge Kaye," said Vincent Bonventre, a professor at Albany Law School. "Regardless of what anybody thinks about whether she was too liberal on the court or what her jurisprudence was ... everybody understands that this is a woman of absolutely impeccable ethics."

From an article titled "Kaye's stock rises in state investigations" in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin 3/12/10.

Bennett Liebman, a professor who heads the racing and gaming law program at Albany Law School, said, "We've had a process that has almost been everything wrong with New York State in microcosm: secrecy, possible corruption and an inability to reach any decision."

From an article titled "Slot Machines at Aqueduct? No, Not Yet" in the New York Times 3/12/10.

Albany Law School professor Michael Hutter, a one-time nominee to the Court of Appeals and a recognized expert in criminal law, said flatly, "Any government official who is under investigation by the attorney general or any law-enforcement agency has the option to disclose or not to disclose what the person knows.

"To my knowledge, there is nothing in statute or created by the courts that would prevent the governor from talking about what's going on."

From a column titled "Silence of the sham" in the New York Post 3/8/10.

Shanks said the DNA evidence would be important, but it would have to be bolstered by other evidence linking Raucci to the crime. A DNA match, she said, can't be taken as solid proof of guilt in and of itself.

It's something that jurors sometimes wrongly rely upon, she said.

"Jurors now are conditioned by TV," Shanks said. " ‘Law and Order', ‘CSI,' they want to hear scientific evidence. They tend to believe it, and perhaps, give it more credence than it's worth."

But it's something, she said, that prosecutors can definitely build upon.

Professor Laurie Shanks in an article titled "Motions reveal development of pending case against Raucci" in the Daily Gazette 2/28/10.

Vincent Bonventre, a professor of law at Albany Law School and a veteran, said obtaining Congressional support for repealing "don't ask, don't tell" would be more difficult than obtaining the support of military generals.

"Most of the generals are already on board," he said. "Anyone who's in the service knows that there's quite a large number of gays and lesbians already serving."

Bonventre served in U.S. Army Military Intelligence and the Judge Advocate General's Corps, the legal branch of the Armed Services. In 1980, he represented and prevented the discharge of a soldier whose superiors had discovered he was gay. At that time, even closeted gays were barred from military service, and Bonventre soon found himself providing gay and lesbian servicemembers with advice on how to avoid discharge.

"There were lines out the door," he said. "They were deathly afraid of being found out." The advice he gave gay and lesbian servicemembers was quite similar to "don't ask, don't tell": "don't talk to people about being gay, don't do anything to suggest to people that you're gay. We wouldn't tell them to be a martyr.

"Some of the gay and lesbian soldiers happen to have critical expertise that the military needs," Bonventre said. "To be discharging them makes no sense, except from a political point of view."

From an article titled "Push is on to let gay soldiers out of closet" in the Daily Gazette 2/21/10.

"The message he is sending is he doesn't mind fighting for a much more progressive direction at the court," Vincent M. Bonventre, a professor at Albany Law School who studies the court, said of Judge Lippman.

From an article titled "Top Judge Sets Liberal Course for New York" in the New York Times 2/18/10.

Professor Raymond Brescia authored the piece "Crash Test Ratings for Banks: Move Your Money Somewhere Safe" for The Huffington Post 2/1/10. 

A provision to require trial-level review could be part of new legislation being drafted by Mr. Perkins, said Amy Lavine, a staff attorney with Albany Law School's Government Law Center, who is advising the state senator. At the top of her list is substituting a specific definition of blight for the current standard of "substandard and insanitary."

One model might be Pennsylvania's law from 2006, which permits a blight finding only when a substantial number of properties meet certain conditions like being "unfit for public habitation" or having been tax delinquent for two years. "It's about making sure there are objective standards relating to public health and safety," Ms. Lavine said.

Ms. Lavine said she also supported lengthening the 30-day time limit for mounting a condemnation challenge.

From an article titled "Lesson on Limits of Eminent Domain at Columbia" in the New York Times 1/20/10.

Laurie Shanks, a clinical professor at Albany Law School, said she expects them to start showing up in smaller airports such as Albany "because it's a big money-maker. There are people who are going to make millions of dollars off these machines."

She noted that former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has been giving interviews saying that the federal government needs to purchase more scanners, even though his security consulting company includes a client that manufactures the machines.

Shanks said expanding the use of scanners would unnecessarily erode privacy.

From an article titled "Full-body scanners coming to airports" in the Daily Gazette 1/9/10.