So reveals a query through Westlaw’s CRIM-ALL database for off(flag & (desecrat! burn burning)) & da(aft 8/1/1992). Nor is this just in one jurisdiction — I found prosecutions in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington State. Most were dismissed, but at least two led to convictions. I chose 1992 because since R.A.V. v. City […]
Archive | 2010
The Communications Decency Act of 1996 Meets the Closed Frontier
By David Thompson on June 8, 2010 12:15 pm in Anonymity, Cyberspace Law, Freedom of Speech, Internet
(Thanks for the great comments! I’ll be speaking in Las Vegas this afternoon 3:45 pm today at the EduComm conference at the Mirage, Ballroom D.) Anonymous and pseudonymous speech dates back at least to the early days of the printing press. Anonymous online speech has been a powerful force for change in situations ranging from […]
At Least About 200 Criminal Libel/Slander Prosecutions in Virginia from 2001 to 2008
I had thought that criminal libel laws, which apparently still exist in about one-third of the states, were nonetheless almost never used. But a quick search through the Westlaw criminal records database reveals about 200 criminal libel prosecutions in Virginia from 2001 until 2008. Here’s the relevant statute: Any person who shall falsely utter and […]
Results of VC Reader Poll
Last week, I posted an informal poll for VC readers. Here are the results: My Political Views are Closest to Liberal/Progressive: 552 votes Moderate: 280 votes Conservative: 607 votes Libertarian/Classical Liberal: 1316 votes Make of it what you will.
Your Lawyer’s Wrong:
Over at The Chronicle, there’s a report on a new study, published in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, that purports to show that lawyers consistently over-estimate their chances of succeeding in litigation. [The original paper can be viewed and dowloaded here]. From the abstract: Lawyers’ litigation forecasts play an integral role in the […]
World Cup 2010:
Bowing to incessant popular demand, here’s the latest in my quadrennial guide to everything you need to know about the upcoming World Cup tournament. (OK, not really everything, but at least a bunch of interesting stuff). Even those of you who are, shall we say, less than captivated by the game itself should take the […]
Anti-Wal-Mart Astroturf
Today’s WSJ has an interesting and eye-opening article on corporate-funded opposition to proposed Wal-Mart stores disguised as local community activism. When I saw local busybodies try to stop the opening of a Wal-Mart in Cleveland — a Wal-Mart that did not receive any local subsidies nor require the use of eminent domain — I realized […]
Connecticut “Racial Ridicule” Statute
Connecticut General Statutes § 53-37 provides, Any person who, by his advertisement, ridicules or holds up to contempt any person or class of persons, on account of the creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality or race of such person or class of persons, shall be fined not more than fifty dollars or imprisoned not more than […]
School Board Violating California Law?
The students in the incident I mentioned last week have now been “suspended for three to five days — causing some to miss graduation”: Seven students met in the school parking lot May 20 to play a game dubbed “Beat the Jew,” though the game happened off school grounds, Johnstone said. The chase game involved […]
The Closing of the Internet Frontier?
A gold rush. A wide-open anything-goes frontier. Prostitution. Gambling. Drugs. Lax law enforcement. Vigilantism and mob justice. Petty scammers at every turn. The subject? Not the dusty Wild West of American history, but instead the Internet of just 10 years ago. In the last decade, the Internet has gone from open frontier populated by a […]
A Crime Victim’s Right to Appellate Review?
The Denver University Law Review has just published my latest article, entitled “Protecting Crime Victims in Federal Appellate Courts: The Need to Broadly Construe the Crime Victims’ Rights Act’s Mandamus Provisions.” The article deals with the question of appellate review of denials of assertions of crime victims’ rights by federal district courts. There […]
Supreme Court Relist watch
Two apparent relists by the Supreme Court today (there are probably more, but these are the only two I’ve inferred). Sears v. Upton, 09-8854, a capital case on petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Georgia, which presents two issues: (1) Having found that capital trial defense counsel were constitutionally deficient […]
Mickey-Kaus-for-Senate Video Challenge
Here.
The Internet and Stupidity:
I have hesitated to jump into the “Is the Internet making us stupid?” debate, because it seems, well, stupid – the debate, that is. (Indeed, the attention being paid to the debate is itself evidence that maybe the Internet is making us stupid . . .). It seems stupid because the underlying premises are so […]
Mallaby on Soros and the Pound, and Some Other Summer Reading in Philosophy and Economics
By Kenneth Anderson on June 7, 2010 10:01 am in Economy, Financial Crisis, Legal Professor, War and Armed Conflict
The Atlantic is running an excerpt from Sebastian Mallaby’s new book, More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of New Elite, which is out on June 14. The excerpt covers the famous moment when George Soros broke the pound in 1992. (It was then that I went to work for him, as general […]