1987—While ten members of the American Bar Association’s judicial-evaluations committee sensibly give Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork the highest rating of “well qualified,” four members indulge their ideological biases and rate him “not qualified.”
The four members hide behind the cloak of anonymity, but they will later be reported to be Jerome J. Shestack (Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis, Philadelphia), Joan M. Hall (Jenner & Block, Chicago), Samuel Williams (Hufstedler, Miller, Carlson & Beardsley, Los Angeles), and John Lane (Wilkes, Artis, Hedrick & Lane, Washington, D.C.).
2023—In a pair of decisions (in Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization and Waldman v. Palestine Liberation Organization), a Second Circuit panel rules that the federal courts lacked personal jurisdiction over the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority in suits concerning deaths and injuries to United States citizens from terrorist attacks overseas. The panel holds that a federal law enacted in 2019 that undertook to subject the foreign defendants to the jurisdiction of federal courts violated their Fifth Amendment right to due process.
In 2025, the Supreme Court will unanimously reject the Second Circuit’s ruling.