Scott Horton, human rights attorney and editor of widely-read blog, No Comment will be in the next speaker in the Liberty and Power Lectures on Thursday, April 14.

His talk, “James Madison, Executive Powers and the Rise of the National Security State,” will begin at 5 p.m. at the Bedsole Moot Court Room at The University of Alabama School of Law.

Horton served as council to Andrei Sakharov and other activists in the former Soviet Union and cofounded the American University in Central Asia, Eurasian region. More recently, the Associated Press hired him to represent Bilal Hussein, a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist who the U.S. military detained for over a year. He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, where he currently serves as a trustee, and has been involved in some of the most significant foreign investment projects in the Central Eurasian region. Scott recently led a number of studies of abuse issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law. He is also a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Scott’s parents came from Lawrence County, Alabama. He is a cousin of Judge James E. Horton of Limestone Co., Alabama, the judge who threw out the conviction of the “Scottsboro” boys after concluding that it was not based on the evidence—and who was then driven from the bench.