July 2009 Issue

Cover Story

Russia Claws at the Rule of Law While Mexico Embraces It

RUSSIA: The courtroom gallery brimmed with lawyers during the trial in January of four men ac­cused of murdering Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter for the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta who was gun­ned down in 2006 at the elevator of her Moscow apartment.

The newspaper had paid a high price for its investigations into political corruption. In 2000, another Novaya reporter had been beaten to death with hammers on a Moscow street. Three years later, the paper’s managing editor died mysteriously from something that caused his skin to peel off.

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MEXICO: In the early morning hours of May 17, 2008, Willy Moya had just closed the V-Bar, one of several popular nightspots he owned in the Pronaf section of Ciudad Juarez, when a couple of friends wandered in and told him they were hungry. Moya decided he could use a bite, so he offered to send one of his bodyguards out for pizza.

Even in ordinary times, Moya had a few bodyguards. But this was no ordinary time in Juarez. The Mexican city of 2 million was averaging more than 100 murders per month.

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Feature Section

Russia Claws at the Rule of Law

In the 1990s, Russia embraced the rule of law. Today, many fear the grip is slipping.

Justice in the Rough

As a border town becomes a murder capital, Mexico pushes for dramatic rule-of-law changes.

The ‘Roach Motel’

As a key agency all but disappears, judges take prosecutor discipline into their own hands.

ABA Connection

Wrangling Genes

As the law changes and new medical frontiers open, the dispute over genetic patents intensifies.

Opening Statements

First Amendment Footloose

Chicken Not-So-Little

By The Numbers

Bad Seed

Repeat After Me

Stats ‘n’ Studies

The National Pulse

Makin’ ‘em Walk the Plank

No More Pencils, No More Facebooks

Supreme Court Report

Narrowing the Courthouse Door

McElhaney on Litigation

The Arsenal of Persuasion

Business of Law

Meet the Neighbors

Not Just for Apartments and Used Guitars

Countdown to Savings

Letting It All Hang Out

Out of a Job, But Not Off the Hook

Serving Gays on the Net

Doing “Work Necessary To Win”

Aid in disasters

Ethics

Playing with Fire

Your ABA

Standing Together

Warming Trend

ABA Announcements

President's Message

Take Advantage of Association Offerings

Obiter Dicta

Passport to Court

Precedents

July 11, 1921

Letters to the Editor

The Journal’s Sea Change

Advertising

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