With the Supreme Court’s two opinions today in Merck & Co. v. Reynolds and Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp., there are now only four cases outstanding from the Court’s December sitting, and all of them are potentially blockbusters: Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (involving the constitutionality of the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board, created by […]
Archive | 2010
Is the Arizona Immigration Law Preempted?
There’s no shortage of opinions on the legality of Arizona’s strict new immigration law. Over on the NYT‘s “Room for Debate” blog, Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies argues the law “is designed to mirror federal immigration law” and thereby avoids any preemption problem. The ACLU’s Vivek Malhotra, on the other hand, argues […]
After Stolt-Nielsen v. AnimalFeeds Int’l Corp.: Deciding When Class Arbitration Is Permissible
There may not be much interest among the general readership in today’s opinion in Stolt-Nielsen SA v. AnimalFeeds International Corp., but it’s an important decision for businesses. The Court held by a 5-3 vote (with Justice Sotomayor recusing herself), along the familiar ideological lines, that the Federal Arbitration Act does not permit imposition of class […]
Gov. Pawlenty’s Next Court Pick
Within the next month, President Barack Obama will nominate the next associate justice of the Supreme Court. For many, the selection of federal judges is one of the most important things a President can do, and President Obama’s nomination will set off a debate over not just his nominee, but the role of the Supreme […]
Birnbaum on Human Rights Watch and Israel
Benjamin Birnbaum’s investigative piece for The New Republic on Human Rights Watch and Israel is now up. The piece mentions, but does not dwell on, the various scandals that engulfed HRW last year—the fundraising trip to Saudi Arabia in which HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson invoked the organization’s hostility to Israel and the […]
Is It a Crime to Receive an Item That You Know Belongs to a Third Party?
The Gizmodo controversy involves, among other things, this question: Say that someone (Finder) offers you an item, and you know it belongs to a third party, who may have lost it or had it stolen from him. Is it a crime for you to receive it? Here are the relevant statutes: Cal. Penal Code § […]
Thoughts on the Legality of the Gizmodo Warrant
To no one’s surprise, California state law enforcement officials obtained a warrant and executed it at the home of Jason Chen, the Gizmodo editor who filed the story analyzing the next-generation iPhone that Gizmodo paid $5000 for after it was apparently lost in a bar. Gawker, which owns Gizmodo, has claimed that the search was […]
My Ancestry–Fughetaboutit!
I signed up with the 23andme DNA service, just for fun, and discovered that my paternal DNA Haplogroup is G2c. Here’s what Wikipedia tells me: The most plausible scenario for the spread of G2c within Europe is an origin among Jews in Sicily, and a spread northward to Germany and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the […]
Deacons for Defense and Justice
Very nice New York Times obituary of Robert Hicks, one of the leaders of the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Louisiana in the 1960s. A good example of how Second Amendment rights were used to protect Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Debate on constitutionality of Obamacare
This Wednesday, April 28, at the University of Colorado Law School, Wolf Law Building, 7-9. Sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, Boulder Chapter (of which I am a card-carrying member). Arguing for the Obama bill (and against Colorado Attorney General Suthers’ participation in the suit against the bill) will be former Colorado […]
Mayor Bloomberg’s gun show bill
Does much more than just impose background checks small-scale vendors at gun shows. Details here, in this article I wrote for the Saturday Denver Post.
“Philosophically Poorly Timed Earthquake Coincides with ‘Boobquake’”
No, it’s not the Onion. Vanity Fair Daily has the story.
A Thought on American Jewish Demography
I attended my 25th year high school reunion last night. I graduated from the Yeshiva of Flatbush in Brooklyn. When I attended, my class was approximately 55% Jews of Syrian origin. These Jews haven’t assimiliated into broader American Jewish society, but their religious lifestyles generally fall within the “Conservadox” to “Modern Orthodox” categories. About 25% […]
Drawing Lines in the Commerce Clause Debate on Health Care Reform
I’ve generally stayed at the periphery on the debate over the constitutionality of health care reform, mostly because it’s not something that I particularly enjoy blogging about. As I see it, a lot of the blogging about the legal issues are a weird mix of actual legal analysis and efforts to influence the broader political […]
Is the Health Care Mandate a Direct Tax?
Some have argued that it does not matter whether the individual mandate is a constitutional exercise of the power to regulate “commerce . . . among the several states” because the mandate — or, more properly, the penalty for failing to comply with the requirement to obtain health insurance — is within Congress’ power to […]