Archive | June, 2004

I’ve only read the Hamdi case so far, but here’s a tentative thought (subject to revision as I read the other cases and rethink the matter) — two significant facts in this case are that Justice Scalia voted against the government, and Justice Breyer voted (partly) in favor of the government. This is because these […]

I’ve had time to give today’s opinions only a quick review, but I was struck by the dissent’s language in Rumsfeld v. Padilla. The majority didn’t reach the merits, because it found that the case had been filed in the wrong jurisdiction. Stevens’ dissent (joined by Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer) focused on the jurisdiction/venue issue, […]

Off to pick up the printouts.

wasn’t announced today, I’m told; that means it’ll come down later this week. Likewise for Alvarez-Machain, the foreign torts case.

which is to say that they are entitled to a civilian court’s hearing their habeas petitions. I say “apparently” because I haven’t yet read the opinion; will blog more as I read it. I’m pretty shocked by the result, but I may be less shocked when I read the details.

This morning, the Supreme Court announced that it was granting the government’s petition for certiorari in Raich v. Ashcroft. In Raich, the Ninth Circuit held that the application of the Controlled Substance Act to persons who cultivated their own cannabis for medical use, or had caregivers cultivate it for then at no charge, was unconstitutional […]

Today’s L.A. Times story about Sam Raimi, the director of Spiderman and Spiderman 2, started with these paragraphs: Most of the furnishings in Sam Raimi’s office on the Columbia lot seem accidental — things that have survived the siege of finishing “Spider-Man 2.” There’s the big monitor on a cart stuffed with playback devices, the […]

Eugene’s post on the infamous Cuyahoga River fire brings to mind the R.E.M. song, “Cuyahoga” off of “Life’s Rich Pageant.” The lyrics are somewhat dense (as is typical for R.E.M. tunes). Nonetheless, I suspect the song was inspired — at least in part — by the myths about the 1969 fire discussed in Eugene’s post […]

This is the Sunday song lyric I had tried to schedule for posting last week. Alas, I goofed, so here it is. On June 12, 1963, civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated in Mississippi. This event, and the subsequent deaths of four young girls in a church bombing, inspired Nina Simone — the “High […]

from the Interactive Citation Workstation. I checked out the Bluebook exercises, and they look like a pretty good tool for Bluebooking practice. There are also exercises that teach the ALWD Citation Manual. Both seem to be free to LEXIS student users. If any of you can recommend other free online resources for this, please let […]

There’s been a lot of discussion about the implications of Blakely v. Washington (decided last Thursday) for various sentencing schemes; I have nothing to add to that. But I did want to flag one issue: What does Justice Scalia’s opinion suggest about nonunanimous and less-than-12-member criminal juries? When most people think of the right to […]

Many thanks to Cass Sunstein, Glen Whitman, and Neal Whitman for guest-blogging while I was out of town — I much appreciated their posts, and I hope you did, too. Please check out Glen’s and Neal’s own blog, Agoraphilia. (I’d recommend Cass’s blog, too, except he’s one of the few law professors who still don’t […]

I got over 50 responses to my Jews and “Jewish People” post; I hope to post some brief thoughts on the subject Tuesday (though unfortunately I won’t be able to respond individually to each message). Several people also pointed out that the author of the Slate Kerryisms column has posted a response to various criticisms […]

InstaPundit has excerpts from some news articles on this. I think an apology was indeed warranted (see here and here). But as I told the New York Sun reporter who first broke the story, I think this is all that can be done and all that needs to be done here. It would surely have […]

With or without written constitutions, all nations have constitutive commitments, some codified in some form, others just widely understood as such. Randy Barnett asks, rightly, the sense in which these are “commitments” and “constitutive.” They’re commitments in the sense that they’re taken (politically, that is) to be binding, and not to be subject to change […]