Not a Jew. I pointed out previously that persons of Jewish descent in anti-Semitic societies sometimes become openly anti-Semitic themselves to prove their lack of loyalty to the Jewish community. The flip side is that people with no Jewish descent (e.g., with very high probability, Hitler) are often alleged by their political enemies to really […]
Archive | October, 2009
Federalist Society Supreme Court Term Preview Video
The Federalist Society hosted a Supreme Court preview panel last week: You can watch the video here. The panelists were Walter Dellinger, Nick Rosenkranz, Gene Schaerr, Cleta Mitchell, and myself. Bob Barnes of the Washingoton Post was the very able moderator. Here’s a quick rundown of the order and the topics. Cleta Mitchell starts at […]
Too Many Lawyers or Too Many Laws?
A few days ago, Justice Antonin Scalia ruffled the feathers of the legal profession by suggesting that we are “wasting” too many of our “best minds” on law: I mean lawyers, after all, don’t produce anything. They enable other people to produce and to go on with their lives efficiently and in an atmosphere of […]
Proposing New Law School Finance Courses – Bleg
I’m considering submitting two new course proposals to our curriculum committee at our law school here in DC. I’d be grateful for your pedagogical advice. One would be a reading-research seminar in law and economics on the current state of debate over the Efficient Market Hypothesis. I imagine we would read some standard economics articles […]
Copyright and the Why of Property Talk
A few comments on my first two posts referred to the characterization of copyright as “intellectual property” or a “property.” While there have been a number of efforts to track down the fairly recent usage “intellectual property,” efforts to describe copyright rights as property are of an older vintage in both the United States and […]
Dahlia Lithwick (Slate) Is in Fine Form Today,
writing about the Court’s argument in United States v. Stevens, the case about video depictions of animals being killed or injured. Disclosure: I participated in writing an amicus brief in Stevens, supporting the defendant.
Madame Justice
Fun (?) Fact: It appears that the only state in which female Justices are still referred to as “Madame Justice” is Pennsylvania, or so a Westlaw search suggests. For a while in the late 1980s, federal district judge William G. Young in the District of Massachusetts referred to “Madame Justice O’Connor,” but that seems to […]
Galston on McChrystal
William Galston, writing on TNR’s The Plank, argues Bruce Ackerman and others are wrong to suggest that General Stanley McChrystal’s public comments somehow threaten the principle of civilian control of the military. Liberal pundits, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and National Security Advisor James Jones are in agreement: General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO […]
How E-Readers Can Change the Content of Legal Books
(This is part of a series; the earlier posts are here.) So we’ve spoken about why lawyers, law students, and law professors might shift to e-readers, and how this shift may change their reading habits (especially by letting them have their main reference works constantly available). But the shift should also lead to a change […]
First Circuit upholds federal ban on juvenile handgun possession
By David Kopel on October 6, 2009 2:02 pm in Commerce Clause, Constitutional History, Criminal Law, Guns
The decision is here, and includes extensive analysis of 19th and early 20th century state laws (and court decisions upholding them under state constitution RKBA provisions) against juvenile handgun possession, or sale of handguns to juveniles. The decision also rejects a challenge that the federal ban on simple possession in one’s own home exceeds congressional […]
What Manufacturers and Publishers Need To Do To Facilitate The Move to Electronic Delivery of Legal Books — Competing with Library Lending
(This is part of a series; the earlier posts are here.) So, as I discussed earlier, e-textbooks have to compete with substantially discounted used textbooks. But scholarly books that are aimed largely at law professors and law students also have to compete with something even cheaper: library borrowing. Law professors can generally get all the […]
The Ten Best Supreme Court Decisions
By Ilya Somin on October 6, 2009 11:12 am in Constitutional History, Constitutional Theory, Libertarianism, Supreme Court
It’s easy to make lists of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time, and libertarians are constantly criticizing the Court for not doing enough to protect constitutional liberties. But now, libertarian lawprof Brad Smith asks for a list of the ten best Supreme Court decisions from a libertarian point of view. As I see […]
Yesterday’s CVSG in San Francisco Health Care Case
Yesterday, the Supreme Court called for the views of the Solicitor General about a certiorari petition filed in Golden Gate Restaurant Association v. San Francisco, 08-1515, which presents the following question: Whether ERISA section 514(a), 29 U.S.C. § 1144(a), preempts local laws mandating ongoing employer contributions for employee health-benefits, or alternative payments to a local […]
Want to do it the easy way, or the hard way?
In a new podcast from iVoices.org, I explain McDonald v. Chicago to Independence Institute President Jon Caldara. This is an 11 minute audio, which presumes that the listener is entirely new to the whole idea of incorporation. If you’ve got much more time on your hands, here’s an 86 minute video of my presentation on […]
Copyright and Morals
When I was a law student, a professor asked us whether we believed law and morals were co-extensive: if the law did not prohibit certain conduct, did that mean it was moral to engage in it? One of the comments on my first post similarly asked how I distinguished effective laws from moral considerations, whether […]