if such open carrying in that place is generally not a crime. So holds St. John v. McColley (D.N.M. Sept. 8, 2009), which grants summary judgment to the seized person on his Fourth Amendment claim: Defendants lacked a justifiable suspicion that Mr. St. John had committed a crime, was committing a crime or was about […]
Archive | October, 2009
“Court: [Tel Aviv University] bowed to Chinese pressure over Falun exhibition”:
FromHaaretz: Tel Aviv University closed an exhibit of artwork by members of the Falun Dafa (Falun Gong) sect last year due to economic and political pressure from the Chinese Embassy, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled yesterday.
Ukrainian Jewish Law Professors are a Dime a Dozen,
but a Ukrainian Jewish Dallas Cowboys player? Thanks to David Yerushalmi for the pointer.
Pro Bono Free Speech Case Headed to the Nebraska Supreme Court:
I’m delighted to say that the Nebraska Supreme Court has just agreed to review State v. Drahota (Neb. Ct. App. June 16), a case that I am litigating pro bono. We don’t have an oral argument date set yet, but it will probably be during the first week of November. Here is my argument, from […]
Petition for Certiorari in McCane v. United States
Today my co-counsel and I filed a petition for certiorari in the case of McCane v. United States. The question presented: Whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies to a search authorized by precedent at the time of the search that is subsequently ruled unconstitutional. From the petition: The Court should grant […]
Is Gov. Perry Covering Up the Execution of an Innocent Man?
The Texas Forensic Science Commission was preparing to review the evidence that led to the conviction of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the alleged arson and murder of his own children. This New Yorker article makes a persuasive case that Wilingham was innocent, and convicted on the basis of highly questionable […]
Federal District Court Rejects Challenge to “Under God” in Pledge of Allegiance,
in Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Hanover School District (D.N.H., decided yesterday).
The Lowly Comma, Revisited
In the Writing Guidelines I distribute to students, I use the following example to illustrate the principle that “everything you put on the page matters”: Everything – every word, every bit of punctuation, every decision to begin a paragraph with one sentence rather than another, every decision whether to use “shall” or “should” or “may” […]
“Hollywood Has the Best Moral Compass,
because it has compassion…. We were the people who did the fundraising telethon for the victims of 9/11. We were there for the victims of Katrina and any world catastrophe.” So says studio co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, as quoted by the L.A. Times. Well, all right then. From now, I’ll just defer to the movie industry […]
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
I just received this urgent message from the Democratic National Committee, which seems to be implying that Senator Kyl is a liar who should be “called out”: After decades of fighting to dismantle Medicare, GOP leaders like Senator Jon Kyl are taking to the airwaves with a cynical campaign of deception about how health reform […]
The Climate Policy Climate Warms Up
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a new rule requiring large emitters of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) to monitor and report their annual GHG emissions. Yesterday, the EPA released a proposed rule to regulate GHG emissions from major sources of GHG emissions under the Clean Air Act. If finalized, this […]
Indians vs. Environmentalists
The AP has an interesting story on growing conflict between some Western tribes and environmental groups over coal-fired power plants.
Does Government Spending Stimulate?
Robert Barro and Charles Redlick argue there is little evidence that government “stimulus” does much to stimulate the economy. They conclude: The available empirical evidence does not support the idea that spending multipliers typically exceed one, and thus spending stimulus programs will likely raise GDP by less than the increase in government spending. Defense-spending multipliers […]
Two Images of the Constitution
On his new blog, Josh Blackman compares the covers of two books on the Constitution.