whose comment was cited in a Fourth Circuit appellate brief a few months ago. It's in the Reply Brief of Plaintiff-Appellant Christopher Scott Emmett, filed by the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center in Emmett v. Johnson, 2008 WL 345230, *5 n.5 (4th Cir. Jan. 11):
Since the grant of certiorari in Baze, some commentators have suggested that other controlled substances could be used in lieu of a barbiturate to cause painless death. See, e.g., The Interesting Case of Baze v. Rees, http://volokh.com, archived entry posted 12/31/2007 at 1:09 a.m., comment #8 by BruceM (speaking, with some apparent authority, in favor of using potent opioid to accomplish lethal injection).
A quick search also noted that I quoted a comment by James Fulford in my Washington U. L. Rev. piece on Scholarship, Blogging, and Tradeoffs: On Discovering, Disseminating, and Doing, and Larry E. Ribstein quoted a comment by Marty Lederman (a prominent lawyer, and now a prominent blogger, in his own right) in his piece in the same symposium, on The Public Face of Scholarship. But this is the first comment cite I've seen in the briefs, and I've seen none in court cases. If you can find other such cites — again, not to blog posts as such but to comments, preferably by people who aren't themselves noted scholars, lawyers, or bloggers — please note them in the comments below.
1. On-point Supreme Court cases
2. On-point binding court of appeals opinions
3. Analogous Supreme Court cases
....
6. Dicta in Supreme Court cases
....
12. Law review articles
...
22. Blog posts by well-known law professors, opining persuasively in their area of expertise and citing authority.
...
45. Op-eds in national newspapers.
...
75. Blog comments written by well-known law professors, opinion persuasively in their area of expertise and citing authority.
...
3,015,036. Particularly clever LolCats pictures.
3,015,037. Blog comments by people who speak "with some apparent authority"
BruceM made a knowledgable sounding point--and I give him the benefit of the doubt that he knew what he was talking about from a scientific standpoint.
If there was error, it was not in BruceM's comment, it was the Virginia Capital Resource Research Center not finding a more "authorative" source that said the exact same thing.
In full, the final sentence of the first parapraphh should read:
So if the entire tread was read, the judges were treated to an enlightened, civil debate on capital punishment.
If that's the case, though, maybe I should set to work making a lolcat picture that contradicts BruceM. "I can haz barbiturate?" is too obvious. Maybe "Do not want!" with a picture of a cat in front of "other controlled substances"? I've never done one before.
You are right, if BruceM is trying to hide his identity, he is doing a piss poor job of it. I figured it out in about 5 minutes. However, I do think "comment #8 by BruceM" sounds more authoratiative than "comment by attorney Bruce M_______, who was first licensed in 2003."
(If you want to figure out who BruceM is, do your own research, it's not my place to reveal his true identity).
I guess this is just the result of how lawyers are trained to write. Every statement has to be supported by "authority", even if that "authority" is nothing more than a statement by someone else. The value of this blog comment is simply in proportion to how much sense it makes, which, presumably, is the same as the amount of sense made by whatever was written in the brief just before the footnote. The only thing this cite prooves is that the attorneys on brief didn't make this opinion up just for convenience.
In fact, being a rape-toy for a pedophile is probably the most useful thing most children will ever be. The rest of the time they will just be loud, obnoxious little vandals.
That's just great. Nice to know that the courts look to such reasoned minds to support their arguments.
-Gene
I'm a lawyer, but my comments didn't identify me as such, and not all commenters at Scotusblog are lawyers.
Blog comments aren't unique in being cited despite the terseness of their analyses. Web site postings and short letters to the editor have been cited in law reviews, too. See, e.g., Irina V. Nirshberg, PRIOR RESTRAINT ON SPEECH AND WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION: THE CLASHING OF TWO FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS, 34 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 577, 585 n.65 (2001) (citing my New York Times letter to the editor about free speech versus racial and sexual harassment regulations); Russell G. Pearce, THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A BLUE STATE: REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY, JURISPRUDENCE, AND LEGAL ETHICS, 75 Fordham L. Rev. 1339, 1339 &fn. 1 &2 (2006) (citing my observations about how liberal lawyers are compared to the general public, from my employer's web page for me)).
Eugene: If he had emailed me, I would have happily given him my full name.
Yeah it shouldn't be too hard to find my identity. In fact, you'd have to be kinda dumb to not be able to figure out who I am. Indeed, I'm an attorney licensed in texas in 2003, as noted above.
againme: Sure is the same, but you have to put my comments in context. Most people on that thread backed up my comment, only a few whined for an apology.
Some of my comments are said tongue-in-cheek to generate a response while making a blunt point, while others (like the one quoted in the brief) are meant seriously.