Archive | March, 2010
It’s Spring, So It’s Time for a Romantic Story About Love and Marriage
The story — let us all learn and profit by it — is in Hall v. Maal (Fla. Ct. App. Mar. 30) (en banc). The short version: If you don’t get a marriage license — because a week before the wedding, the groom told the bride “that they were not going to be able to […]
An Interesting Article About April Fool’s Day
in Forbes, by Daniel Freedman. And its date-stamped today, so I assume it’s supposed to be accurate (well, all but the part that pretty clearly isn’t).
Moot Court
An interesting thought about moot court, from Prof. Ken Gallant (which was posted to a lawprofs’ discussion list, and which I repost here with his permisison): I sometimes coach moot court teams and participate as a judge in mooting teams. HOWEVER, I do believe that moot court is exceptionally unrealistic training for actual appellate advocacy […]
Obama Compromises on Off-Shore Drilling
Kudos to President Obama for agreeing to open up some areas for off-shore drilling (though not nearly as much as we need). This appears to be a significant step in the right direction. In the summer of 2008, candidate Obama hinted that he might be willing to do this, but by inauguration last year he […]
Why Would Congress Question Corporate Executives About Disclosures of Health Care Costs?
Megan McArdle has a good post on Congress’s decision to hold hearings about corporations’ disclosing their charges against earnings based on estimates of health care costs: The Democrats, however, seem to believe that Generally Accepted Accounting Principles are some sort of conspiracy against Obamacare, and all that is good and right in America. Here’s the […]
The Second Amendment and People with Medical Marijuana User Cards
The AP reports that Steve Sarich — who “runs CannaCare, an organization that claims 7,000 members in the state,” which among other things “provides patients with marijuana clones or starter plants and delivers about 50 patients a week with usable marijuana” — has been told by the King County Sheriff’s Office that he may not […]
Why?
Google AutoComplete strikes again. Thanks to GeekPress for the pointer.
(Continuing) Speculation About Authorship of Remaining October Supreme Court decisions
With today’s decision in Padilla v. Kentucky, there are only three cases undecided from the Supreme Court’s October sitting: United States v. Stevens, 08–769 (the First Amendment challenge to the federal prohibition on depictions of animal cruelty); Salazar v. Buono, 08–472 (involving an Establishment Clause challenge to a cross used in a war memorial that […]
Interesting SCOTUS Line-Up
Today the Supreme Court released its opinion in Shady Grove Orthopedic v. Allstate Insurance. The case concerns whether state law can preclude a federal court from considering a class-action when the federal court is exercising diversity jurisdiction over a case that primarily raises state law claims. I’m sure others will have plenty to say on […]
Ten Rules for Dealing with Police
Outstanding new film, premiered at the Cato Institute last week. Watch it here. Lots of useful advice for law-abiding citizens about how to properly exercise their rights to refuse searches that are not based on warrants or probable cause, and other efforts to trick citizens into waiving their rights.
Communicating With Those Who Have No Privacy Rights: The Hard Question in City of Ontario v. Quon
On Monday, April 19, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in this Term’s only significant Fourth Amendment case, City of Ontario v. Quon. Quon considers whether a city violated the Fourth Amendment by obtaining copies of stored text messages sent over a city-provided text pager used by a city employee. In an earlier post, […]
“Population of the 24 Urban Places [in the U.S]: 1790”
From the Census site: Rank Place Population 1 New York city, NY 33,131 2 Philadelphia city, PA 28,522 3 Boston town, MA 18,320 4 Charleston city, SC 16,359 5 Baltimore town, MD 13,503 6 Northern Liberties township, PA 9,913 7 Salem town, MA 7,921 8 Newport town, RI 6,716 9 Providence town, RI 6,380 10t […]
Unexpected Flight Delay => Hotel Stay => Criminal Prosecution for Gun Possession
An unfortunate story, detailed in Revell v. Port Authority (3d Cir. 2010): Gregg C. Revell was flying from Salt Lake City to Allentown, Pennsylvania, via Minneapolis and Newark. He had an unloaded gun legally checked in his luggage, which was supposed to meet him at Allentown. Supposed to. In fact, the flight to Newark was […]
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” (continued)
I mean this in less snarky way than the title of this post suggests, but I continue to be surprised by some of what worked its way into the health care reform bill. Today the Supreme Court held 7-2 in an opinion by Justice Stevens that 31 U.S.C. 3730(e)(4)(A), a provision of the False Claims […]