The
Bothwell Letter
NEWS FROM THE LAW OFFICES
OF ANTHONY P. X. BOTHWELL
350 BAY STREET, SUITE 100 PMB314, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133-1966 TEL.
(415) 370-5971
January 1, 2004 Vol. VI / No. 1 -
contact@apxbothwell.com - www.apxbothwell.com
[ 1 ] AGE RULE CHALLENGED IN COURT IN NATION’S
CAPITAL
[ 2 ] U.C. IS URGED TO SETTLE ADDITIONAL NUCLEAR LAB
CASES
[ 3 ] HONORS PROPOSED FOR TELLER, OPPENHEIMER
[ 4 ] TEXANS PERSUADED NOT TO HONOR A CONQUISTADOR
[ 5 ] U.S. COUNTERTERROR POLICY IS CRITIQUED
[ 6 ] SOME OF THE MOST INSPIRING PEOPLE WE MET IN 2003
[ 7 ] LEGAL ISSUES COURSE
[ ] AREAS OF PRACTICE
[ ] BIOGRAPHIC
[ ] NOTE TO READERS
[ ] CONTACT
[ 1 ] AGE RULE CHALLENGED IN COURT IN NATION’S
CAPITAL
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has
been asked to decide that airline pilots who meet “all applicable
medical, performance and safety criteria” should no longer be
“grounded automatically after age 59.” The Professional
Pilots Federation (PPF), an organization of thousands of active and
retired airline captains, says the court should take an unprecedented
de novo review – a fresh look at the whole issue – because
the Federal Aviation Administration lacked “good faith”
and “credibility” when it rejected a petition by 12 pilots.
The FAA policy is “arbitrary” and violates constitutional
guarantees of due process and equal protection, attorneys for PPF
suggested in a statement of issues filed with the court.
“The administration has falsified age-safety data to force retirement
of the most
experienced airline pilots,” PPF’s January newsletter
quotes Atty. Tony Bothwell as saying. “The outdated age 60 rule
isn’t followed by Europe, Japan, Australia and others. It isn’t
even imposed on FAA pilots or NASA astronauts. But it deprives the
U.S. flying public of the ablest, safest available pilots.”
[ 2
] U.C. IS URGED TO SETTLE ADDITIONAL NUCLEAR LAB CASES
The University of California may lose its nuclear weapons lab contracts
because of “failure…to exercise effective oversight of
bureaucracies that have fostered and covered up misconduct,”
the new UC president, Robert Dynes, was told in a letter from a plaintiffs’
attorney. If the university is to “retain its most visible public
contracts and rescue its imperiled reputation,” it should act
to settle the still-pending nuclear lab cases, Atty. Tony Bothwell
wrote Nov. 16. Coincidentally, three days later, the UC Board of Regents
approved an $18 million settlement of a class action brought by other
law firms on behalf of female employees at UC’s Livermore lab.
Earlier in the year, Bothwell was an advisor to Gwilliam, Ivary, Chiosso,
Cavalla & Brewer on media and political aspects of Michelle Doggett’s
whistleblower retaliation suit against UC Livermore management. Four
months after Bothwell along with Atty. Gary Gwilliam met with Bruce
Darling, the UC senior vice president overseeing the labs, the university
settled suits by Doggett and Glen Walp, an ex-Los Alamos lab police
official, for $1 million each.
Bothwell and Seattle-based Government Accountability Project attorneys
now represent Livermore lab police union leaders fired after they
complained about mismanagement and safety violations.
[ 3
] HONORS PROPOSED FOR TELLER, OPPENHEIMER
“An attorney who has sued the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
has endorsed a congressional measure that would name the Lab after
the late Edward Teller,” the Livermore Independent reported
Nov. 20. The U.S. House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, was told
that Teller “had the good sense to object to the government’s
over-classification of scientific data,” and that “he
invented the Livermore Lab and was one of the giants of the 20th century.”
The Independent quoted Atty. Tony Bothwell as saying, “He and
I rarely agreed on public policy issues, [but] Edward Teller was a
man of extraordinary intellect and integrity.” Bothwell also
urged Pelosi to back renaming the Los Alamos National Laboratory in
New Mexico after its first director, the late J. Robert Oppenheimer.”
A National Review article Bothwell wrote in 1985 tops the list of
“premium quality” periodical literature about Teller,
according to Columbia Encyclopedia (visit www.encyclopedia.com/html/T/Teller-E1.asp).
[ 4
] TEXANS PERSUADED NOT TO HONOR A CONQUISTADOR
The El Paso City Council dropped plans to honor the name of Conquistador
Juan de Onate, a 16th century terrorist, after Southwest Native American
leaders and a San Francisco attorney protested. “On behalf of
my ancestors and on behalf of my indigenous brothers and sisters I
say we oppose the creation of a monument to Juan de Onate,”
Petuuche Gilbert, a Pueblo Indian leader, told officials planning
a four-story-high statue of Onate. “Surely it is the moral obligation
of public officials to find ways to promote mutual respect among all
segments of the multicultural community,” Atty. Tony Bothwell
told the Texas officials. “Honoring an infamous figure who committed
crimes against humanity is contrary to this aspiration,” he
added. The El Paso city council on Nov. 4 decided to complete the
giant statue but not to associate it with Onate’s name.
[ 5
] U.S. COUNTERTERROR POLICY IS CRITIQUED
Previously unreported facts about pre-9/11 U.S. counterterror failures
are disclosed in our study in the current issue of Research Papers,
a public policy journal published by the Human Rights Conflict Prevention
Centre based in Bosnia. Prof. Nedzad Basic, the Centre’s director,
comments: “Anthony Bothwell mounts a scathing attack on Republican
anti-terror legislation, and on the Democratic opposition’s
failure to defend civil rights. He explains this in terms of the psychology
of dissonance, but concludes that ‘the United States now practices
some of the same sorts of rights violations for which historically
it condemned autocracies elsewhere….’ He argues that this
will eventually generate a backlash that may undermine anti-terror
efforts.” The study can be accessed on our website, www.apxbothwell.com.
[ 6
] SOME OF THE MOST INSPIRING PEOPLE WE MET IN 2003
Thomas Burgenthal, the American judge on the International Court of
Justice, at The Hague.
Carla del Ponte, Chief Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia.
Kevin Duffy, U.S. District Judge, Southern District of New York, who
presided over trials of major al Qaeda terrorists.
Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer who guided U.S. forces
to rescue Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
and former President of Ireland.
[ 7
] LEGAL ISSUES COURSE
John F. Kennedy University School of Liberal Arts, Pleasant Hill,
Calif.: “Legal Issues” classes start Feb. 11.
BIOGRAPHIC
ANTHONY P. X. (TONY) BOTHWELL,
Esq. – Member: The State Bar of California, Bar of the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of California, Bar of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; National
Lawyers Guild, American Bar Assn., International Bar Assn.; U.S. Holocaust
Museum, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Southern Poverty Law Center.
Degrees: Georgetown Univ. School of Foreign Service, B.S.F.S.; Boston
Univ. School of Public Communication, M.S.; John F. Kennedy Univ.
School of Law, J.D.; Golden Gate Univ. School of Law, LL.M. summa
cum laude. Professor of Law, John F. Kennedy Univ. School of Law.
Listings include: Who’s Who in the Law, Who’s Who in America,
Who’s Who in the World. Descendant of Capt. John P. Dreibelbis,
Continental Army, commanded by Gen. George Washington.
NOTE TO READERS
Client referrals and speaking engagements are welcome.
CONTACT
Anthony P. X. Bothwell,
Esq.
Law Offices of Anthony P. X. Bothwell
350 Bay Street – Suite 100 PMB314
San Francisco, CA 94133-1966 USA
Telephone (415) 370-9571
Facsimile (415) 362-5469
contact@apxbothwell.com
www.apxbothwell.com
