Among the lawsuits filed against Obamacare is a class action in the Southern District of Mississippi. Class representatives, for residents of Mississippi who do not wish to be subject to the health insurance purchase mandate, include State Senator Chris McDaniel and Lt. Governor Phil Bryant. The complaint is available here, inside a post on Andrew Breitbart’s website. The 29-page […]
Archive | 2010
Never a Good Way to Start Your Argument
From a brief [UPDATE: link added] quoted in Duffy v. Lusk, 2010 WL 1433481 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Apr. 8): POINT I: THIS [IS] NOT AN INSANE LAWSUIT BROUGHT IN IGNORANCE OF ROOKER-FELDMAN PRINCIPLES OR JUDICIAL OR SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY. I should note that petitioner, while acting pro se, is a lawyer.
Jurat
Who or what is it?
“That’s Only Air Escaping the Body”
From Green v. Kearney (N.C. Ct. App. Apr. 6, 2010) (some paragraph breaks added): The facts as alleged in plaintiffs’ complaint show that on 24 January 2005, at approximately 8:53 p.m., emergency services were dispatched in Franklin County, North Carolina to the scene of an accident involving a pedestrian-Green-and a motor vehicle. Green suffered an […]
Preliminary List of Entry-Level Law Prof Hires
Larry Solum has the initial list of newly-hired law professors here. Congrats on the folks who landed a position, especially in this very tough market. (And if you’ll pardon a little special cheering for the home team, special congrats to 2007 GW Law grad Josh Douglas for obtaining a faculty position at the University of […]
Washington Post Editorializes in Praise of Harold Koh’s Drone Statement
By Kenneth Anderson on April 13, 2010 1:11 pm in Robotics, Targeted Killing, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
The Washington Post has an editorial today praising State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh’s March 25 statement defending the legality of drone warfare (part of a long speech on several international law topics). The editorial specifically endorses the Legal Adviser’s invocation of self-defense as a separate ground for using force apart from armed conflict in […]
Is a Shoebox Like a Suitcase?
This morning the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an opinion in United States v. Taylor, affirming the district court’s suppression of evidence (a handgun and ammunition) found in a shoebox. Judge Gilman wrote the opinion for the court, joined by Judge Daughtrey. Judge Kethledge dissented. His dissenting opinion begins: The majority […]
Judge Baltazar Garzón Indicted
Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón rose to fame in 1998 when he issued an arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for the alleged murder and torture of Spanish citizens in Chile. Such use of universal jurisdiction was unprecedented — and it was only the beginning. Since then, Judge Garzón has investigated Bush Administration officials […]
Did Congress Understand the Health Bill It Passed?
Today’s New York Times presents evidence that it did not. It is often said that the new health care law will affect almost every American in some way. And, perhaps fittingly if unintentionally, no one may be more affected than members of Congress themselves.In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may […]
Speaking to U of Kentucky Fed Soc Wednesday:
I’ll be speaking to the University of Kentucky Federalist Society Student Chapter tomorrow on the mortgage crisis, tomorrow, Wednesday April 14 at noon. Professor Chris Frost will be providing commentary.
The Democratic Strategist misdescribes some legal issues
By David Kopel on April 13, 2010 12:44 am in Constitutional History, Health Care, Politics, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Supreme Court
The Democratic Strategist (co-edited by William Galston, Stan Greenberg, and Ruy Teixeira) aims to provide “serious, data-based discussion of Democratic political strategy.” Today, a special “Urgent” issue was published, regarding the Supreme Court and warning about the “covert extremist agenda” of the Republican right. The report raises an alarm about the legal agenda currently promoted […]
Paternalistic versus Therapeutic?
I finally had a chance to read the Cato Unbound symposium that Todd Z mentioned below. It’s well worth the read. I should add to my earlier post on this that I am not, as it happens, hostile to the pursuit of behavioral economics; far from it. But I do share some of the skepticism […]
NY Times Room for Debate Forum on the Use of Offensive Language
To my surprise, the New York Times Room for Debate blog recently asked me to take part in a forum on the public use of allegedly offensive language. The forum is available here. Since I lack the linguistic expertise of co-blogger Eugene Volokh, I tried to focus my contribution on those aspects of the issue […]
Does Attaching a Thumb Drive to a Shared Computer Waive Fourth Amendment Rights in its Contents?
“Yes,” says Judge Maurice Paul in United States v. Durdley, 2010 WL 916107 (N.D. Fla. 2010), handed down on March 11. I haven’t seen any cases quite like this, but I tend to think the decision is wrong. In this post, I wanted to explain the decision and then say why I find its reasoning […]
Stalking Victims’ Duty to Warn Employees, Lovers, Visitors, and Others?
Say Donna is being targeted by a stalker. It would often be a jealous ex — whether one who is a menace directly to Donna or to her new lovers — but it could be a deranged fan, or perhaps someone who has political or religious reasons to attack Donna. Assume Donna is aware that […]