Here’s Justice Stevens’ concurrence in Graham v. Florida, a decision holding that the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause bars states from sentencing under-18-year-old criminals to life imprisonment without parole, except for homicide: In his dissenting opinion, Justice Thomas argues that today’s holding is not entirely consistent with the controlling opinions in Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 […]
Archive | May, 2010
A Few Thoughts on the Comstock Case
Earlier today, I blogged the syllabus of the majority opinion, and noted my earlier thoughts that the statute is likely constitutional. I mentioned that I might have more thoughts after I read the opinions, so here are those thoughts — but note that they’re brief and rather shallow, since I’m not a scholar of federal […]
Preliminary Thoughts on Comstock
I just finished reading the opinions in Comstock. While I disagree strongly with the majority’s analysis, and am disappointed that Chief Justice Roberts joined Justice Breyer’s opinion, the case has little or no import for the constitutional challenges to the individual health insurance mandate. The reason for this is simple. Comstock involved whether ample connection […]
Prosecution for Insulting Religion — This Time, Buddhism
By Eugene Volokh on May 17, 2010 12:25 pm in Blasphemy, Freedom of Speech, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
InfoLanka.com reported in late March: Sarah Malanie Perera [was] detained in the [Sri Lankan] capital Colombo for allegedly offending the spiritual leader of Buddhism …. [I]t is understood two of her recently published books offended ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists, who account for about 70 per cent of Sri Lanka’s 20 million population…. The 38-year-old, who previously […]
Comment on Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill
I am a sometime-contributor to the National Journal‘s Energy & Environment Expert Blog. This week the focus is the Kerry-Lieberman climate change bill, the “American Power Act,” and the EPA’s decision to raise the threshold for stationary sources regulated under the Clean Air Act from emissions to 75,000 tons per year for carbon dioxide, even […]
Interesting SCOTUS Lineup
Among the opinions handed down today by the Supreme Court was Abbott v. Abbott. The case involved the question of whether a ne exeat clause confers a “right of custody” within the meaning of the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. (More here.) The Court answered “yes,” by a vote of 6-3, but the lineup […]
Life-Without-Parole Sentence for Under-18 Offender Unconstitutional, When the Crime Is Not Homicide
So holds the Court, by a 6-3 vote, in Graham v. Florida. Hope to have more later today, when I’ve read the opinions, but here’s one item that’s likely to be quite controversial: The majority opinion (Justice Kennedy writing for the four liberals and himself) has a subsection near the end that begins, There is […]
Constitutionally Defenseless?
Has thirty years of political conservatives pushing “judicial restraint” left us constitutionally defenseless against an unprecedented claim of Congressional power? Judicial restraint was a judicial philosophy devised by Progressives to overcome Supreme Court resistance to the then-unprecedented growth of federal and state power during the so-called Progressive Era. After the Warren Court deviated from this […]
Federal Government Wins Comstock
This morning the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in United States v. Comstock, a challenge to the federal government’s authority to civilly commit a “sexually dangerous” federal prisoner beyond the time of his sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the federal government lacked such authority within its enumerated […]
Federal Government Has the Power to Civilly Commit Sexually Violent Predators After Federal Incarceration
So the Court just held in United States v. Comstock, with Justices Thomas and Scalia dissenting, and Justices Kennedy and Alito concurring in the judgment. I hope to have more later today, after I have a chance to read the opinions. UPDATE: In the meantime, here’s the syllabus, from Justice Breyer’s majority opinion, which is […]
Now that the Government has Proved as Incompetent
in first not preventing and then managing a man-made disaster in the Gulf of Mexico as it proved in managing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, can we finally put to rest the inane (not to mention counter-factual) Krugman argument that the Bush Administration’s incompetence in handling Katrina was a result of the government being “run […]
Do Law Schools Seek “Exciting” and “Diverse” Students?
Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley Jr. writes: In fact, law schools strive for an elitism that is quite democratic in comparison with many other fields. As at Yale and Harvard, we at Berkeley seek to build a campus community that is as exciting and diverse as our nation. That means a New Jersey physics […]
James Ely on Stevens, Kagan, Obama, and Property Rights
By Ilya Somin on May 16, 2010 8:25 pm in Eminent Domain, Judicial Nominations, Kagan Nomination, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights, Supreme Court
Vanderbilt lawprof James Ely – a leading expert on constitutional property rights – has an interesting column on the relevance of property rights to the current Supreme Court nomination: In seeking a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, President Obama indicated that he wanted to name someone in the Stevens mold. Among […]
Right-leaning bloggers like dark horses better than front runners in 2012
The online daily newspaper The New Ledger has debuted its “online influencers poll.” It’s a monthly poll “of 100 online influencers on the right. We asked leading voices from around the blogosphere, with writers from Redstate, National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, HotAir, Commentary, BigGovernment, individual bloggers, and others throughout the conservative/libertarian thinktank world to […]
Mothers Against Debt
A new grassroots organization started by my Independence Institute colleague Amy Oliver. This short video shows the growth in per-person national debt in the United States. Even when you take into account the fact that some of the increase in nominal debt is due to inflation, the tremendous increase in debt in the 21st century is frightening.