Law

Chief Judge of Top Armed Forces Appeals Court to Discuss the Role of Courts in National Security

The Honorable James E. Baker, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, will deliver the Fourth Annual Judge Leonard I. Garth Lecture on Wednesday, November 12, 2014 at Rutgers School of Law–Newark.

The title of his lecture is “What Process Is Due: The Role of Courts in National Security.”

The event is free but registration is requested at www.law.newark.rutgers.edu/garth-2014.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces exercises worldwide appellate jurisdiction over members of the armed forces on active duty and other persons subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Cases on the Court’s docket address a broad range of legal issues, including constitutional law, criminal law, evidence, criminal procedure, ethics, administrative law, and national security law.

Judge Baker is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School. Following college, he joined the Marine Corps as an infantry officer, ultimately resigning his commission from the Reserves when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in 2000.

Judge Baker’s civil service career extends across the three branches of government. Prior to his appointment to the Court, he was Special Assistant to the President and Legal Advisor to the National Security Council (NSC). He also served as the Deputy Legal Advisor to the NSC and Counsel to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and Intelligence Oversight Board. As an attorney advisor in the Office of the Legal Advisor, U.S. Department of State, he provided legal advice on law enforcement, intelligence, and counter-terrorism issues and served as counsel to delegations to various environmental negotiations. He also served as a legislative aide and Acting Chief of Staff to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Judge Leonard Garth is U.S. Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He was in private practice before his 1969 nomination by President Richard M. Nixon as a judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. He was elevated to the Third Circuit in 1973 and assumed senior status in 1986. The law clerks and family of Judge Garth, and his former firm, Cole Schotz Meisel Forman & Leonard, PA, created the Garth Lecture Series in honor of their mentor and to promote the advancement of the law as the foundation of a just and free society so amply demonstrated by the judge’s example.

Previous Garth Lecturers have been U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., retired Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Pepperdine Law Dean Deanell Reece Tacha, and Yale Law Professor Akhil Reed Amar.