John Demjanjuk's son and attorneys respond to Professor Harry Reicher's Demjanjuk deportation commentary.

President Obama's March 9 executive order overturning the Bush administration's limitations on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research signified the end of the Bush administration's much criticized "war on science," during which technology policy was held hostage to conservative ideology and biomedical research was viewed as an extension of abortion politics. Or so it seemed. But a funny thing has happened on the way to the counterrevolution: The National Institutes for Health, having just been granted its freedom, is threatening a partial return to Bush-era bondage.

The Blog of Legal Times last week ran several comments from representatives of legal and business interest groups reacting to the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Here is an edited sampling.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's pledge to never forget the "real-world consequences" of her decisions is not unobjectionable on its face. Unfortunately, however, empathy for disaffected groups emerges as an empty, unhelpful barometer in reaching sound legal outcomes, an emptiness reflected in many of Sotomayor's decisions.

President Obama made clear the qualities he sought in a replacement for Justice Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court: a sharp intellect coupled with the empathy required to apply legal doctrine to the real-world lives of the American people. In Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Obama found a candidate who has the complete package — both legal book smarts and the wisdom to use them well.

Conventional wisdom is that the health care sector, particularly pharmaceutical companies, may be able to withstand the global economic downturn because they supply necessary consumer services and products. Biotechnology companies that provide some of the more medically promising technologies, however, will only continue to grow if we provide them with the economic incentive to incur massive developmental and regulatory approval costs and to tolerate lengthy periods of testing and the substantial risk of failure.

The G-20's recent London Summit was not the bust that some had feared. The leaders made some progress by agreeing to tackle global financial regulation and pledging more money to the IMF. But they missed the chance to take collective, international action to stem the demise of their inextricably linked banking and financial sectors. How can intergovernmental cooperation help? The same nations that founded the World Bank could set up a banking facility, an International Fund for Revitalization and Recovery.

Nonprofit organizations — already stretched thin by tight budgets and small staffs — have been hammered by increasing demand for their services from growing segments of the public. At the same time they face a dwindling supply of the financial support, services and resources they need to ensure continued support for their underprivileged clients. In this trying climate, it is crucial that corporate law departments and law firms redouble their dedication to furnishing free legal aid to nonprofits of all sizes.

The IRS recently announced a program to lure holders of stealth offshore bank accounts to come forward, bare their assets and cough up six years of back taxes, interest and penalties. Will it succeed? It likely will not attract a significant number of eligible taxpayers. And if it doesn't, the IRS will likely not be able to deal with 52,000 UBS tax scofflaws, not to mention all the others. Also, the IRS shouldn't proceed unilaterally. There should be parallel diplomatic intervention by the Swiss government.

Court secrecy is an issue that has been around for a long time. But corporations are now using secrecy agreements to hide their negligence when their products have harmed and even killed unwary consumers. The dangerous practice allows irresponsible corporations to keep their products on the market at the expense of consumer safety. In Congress, legislation introduced last month called the Sunshine in Litigation Act is an important step in helping reform the broken system of court enforced secrecy.

Once in a while, a trial judge makes a mistake that will do irreparable damage unless it is fixed immediately. That is one rationale behind the "collateral order doctrine," a narrow exception to the final judgment rule that allows federal appeals courts to review certain trial court decisions before final judgment. The doctrine recognizes that some protections ? sovereign immunity and double jeopardy, for example ? can be effectively preserved only if immediate appellate review is allowed. It is time the U.S. Supreme Court added decisions denying claims of attorney-client privilege to the list of immediately appealable collateral orders ? something it will have occasion to do this term.

In 2005, then-U.S. senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton introduced legislation inspired by "Sorry Works," a grassroots movement based on the intriguing idea that, if health care providers honestly acknowledge and apologize for mistakes, patients who otherwise feel insulted as well as injured are less likely to file a lawsuit. It is an evolving concept that quite appropriately remains a topic of significant interest and discussion ? not just for health care professionals, but for any substantial business organization seeking alternatives to the mounting burdens of litigation. It is time for the broader business community to at least begin considering the idea.

The Supreme Court is poised to scrap the most effective piece of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. At issue is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires that certain regions (those with a history of racial bias in voting) obtain approval from the U.S. government before changing local voting rules. Opponents say Obama's election proves the requirement is obsolete; supporters say his victory confirms its continued importance. The court should refuse to engage in this debate — at least for now.

A recently released Justice Department memo, written by John Yoo and dated Oct. 23, 2001, argues that First Amendment speech and press rights may be "subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully." The "current campaign against terrorism," he concluded, "may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically." The memo is devoted primarily to the president's ability to use armed forces against terrorists within the United States, largely free of the constraints of the Fourth Amendment. It did not explore how military needs might override the First Amendment. What actions did the Bush administration contemplate?

AIG went from a market capitalization of more than $200 billion to a public float of about $1 billion, representing little more than the option value of a speculative bet on the company's future. The sum of AIG's lost market value and its bailout fund is almost half the value of the recently passed national stimulus package. Has the government really made the case that failure to satisfy AIG's counterparties would result in greater societal harm than spending $170 billion on what were private obligations?