For those who are interested, Ed Warren Whelan has some comments on Joan Biskupic’s new book on Justice Scalia. Part I here and Part II here. Ed’s conclusion: My overall take on American Original is decidedly mixed. On the positive side: The book is well written, much more so than I expected from my occasional […]
Archive | November, 2009
The Robotic Kindness of Strangers
One small nugget I took away from the (absolutely terrific) Stanford Law School robotics panel last week was a much better appreciation of how robotics will interact with advanced societies aging – elder-care, health care for the old and infirm, and so on. Japan leads the way. Paul Saffo (Stanford professor, futurist, and technology journalist, […]
Google Case Law and Law Review Article Search
I’m very pleased to see that Google Scholar now allows searches of a very broad range of caselaw, plus many law review articles. This should make law much more accessible to people who don’t have Lexis and Westlaw (which is also good for us privileged free Lexis and Westlaw users, when we want to link […]
Bush Continues His Uncanny Imitation of Herbert Hoover
In this January post, I noted some of the uncanny parallels between George W. Bush and Herbert Hoover: Both were president during a time of economic crisis; both presided over vast expansions of government that helped cause the crisis or at least make it worse than it might have been otherwise; finally both were (inaccurately) […]
How Many Votes To Overrule The Slaughterhouse Cases?
As I mentioned yesterday, the petitioner’s brief in McDonald v. City of Chicago written by Alan Gura asks the Supreme Court to overrule The Slaughterhouse Cases and adopt a very different interpretation of the Fouteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause. The obvious question is, how many Justices will agree? My guess: only one. In this […]
Ricci’s Not Over
The Supreme Court’s decision in Ricc v. DeStefano did not put an end to litigation over the New Haven Fire Department’s use of tests for firefighter promotions. One black firefighter, Michael Briscoe, has filed a disparate impact suit against the city (more here), and other black firefighters have sought to intervene in Ricci on remand. […]
McDonald v. Chicago and Gilbert & Sullivan: The hidden connection!
In March 1994, I was in the Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society‘s production of Gilbert & Sullivan‘s operetta Patience. You can find a list of the Society’s past shows here; I was also in the same show the next time they produced it, in April 2007. Also, you can find the libretto of the show […]
NRA brief in McDonald v. Chicago
By David Kopel on November 17, 2009 7:59 pm in Constitutional Theory, Guns, Originalism, Supreme Court
Last night, Orin noted the filing of the Petitioner’s brief in McDonald v. Chicago, the case that will decide whether the 14th Amendment makes the 2d Amendment applicable to state and local governments. As Orin noted, that brief is almost entirely devoted to incorporation under the Privileges or Immunities clause. It directly asks the Court […]
Failing To Understand How Markets Work:
One of the most interesting articles I have read on the health care cost issue was this one in the New Yorker that I read over the summer. Overall, I thought it a pretty interesting insight into the issue. But that’s not what I’m concerned about here. What I thought was interesting about it was […]
English Asylum Tribunal Approves Asylum for Afghan Who Converted to Christianity in England
The case is NM v. Secretary (Nov. 13); an excerpt (paragraph break added): We do not think this is an issue as to whether or not an individual in these circumstances is reasonably likely to be discovered on return. The plain fact on the evidence before us is that a genuine apostate, and here we […]
“Newborns’ Cry Melody Is Shaped by Their Native Language”
That’s the title of an article in Current Biology by Birgit Mampe, Angela D. Friederici, Anne Christophe and Kathleen Wermke. The abstract (paragraph break added): Human fetuses are able to memorize auditory stimuli from the external world by the last trimester of pregnancy, with a particular sensitivity to melody contour in both music and language. […]
Opinion Reversing Cory Maye’s Conviction
My cobloggers have blogged about this case, so I thought I’d point to today’s opinion reversing Maye’s conviction. I haven’t yet read the opinion, but the conclusion reads: Finding that the trial court abused its discretion in not allowing Maye to exercise the constitutional right to be tried in the county where the offense occurred, […]
Ohio Court of Appeals Strikes Down State Preemption of Local Gun Laws
The opinion is City of Cleveland v. State (Nov. 12), and it rests on (1) state constitutional “home rule” principles, and (2) separation of powers. I can’t opine confidently about the first item, which rests on Ohio case law that I’m not familiar with. The analysis seems unsound, since it seems to suggest that comprehensive […]
Public Opinion and Election Law Controversies Past and Present
(coauthored with Stephen Ansolabehere and crossposted) As part of our national survey of attitudes toward courts and the Constitution performed by Knowledge Networks this past July, we included several items related to election law and voting rights. We wanted to assess public opinion on some contemporary controversies, such as photo ID laws and election-day registration, […]
Tortoise Interference
From an SEC filing: Tri-Deck has also filed an answer and counterclaim in which Tri-Deck is asserting, among other items, damages for tortoise interference of its contractual relationships with others. See also this Accepted Uses Policy, and Appellant’s Brief in Aviation Leasing Group v. Hyatt Corp., 2002 WL 32148015 (Cal. Ct. App.) (and, yes, the […]