I am told that this this El Mundo article reports that the prosecutor was recommending rejection of the complaint; if you speak Spanish, and can confirm or deny this, please let me know. For the original story, see here. UPDATE: My Spanish-speaking correspondent translates the latest story: The “fiscal” (district attorney) ordered the immediate dismissal […]
Archive | 2010
“[A] Muslim Boy [Allegedly] Got a Stiffer Sentence Because of the Fact That [His] Offense [Was Committed] During … Ramadan[]”
By Eugene Volokh on December 21, 2010 2:45 pm in Islamic Law in the American Legal System, Religion and the Law
In Pucci v. Nineteenth District Court (6th Cir. Dec. 16), plaintiff Julie Pucci was dismissed from her job as deputy court administrator. She alleges that she was dismissed partly in retaliation for her complaining about one judge’s “practice of interjecting his personal religious beliefs into judicial proceedings and the business of the court.” The judge […]
Open Thread
Looks like a quiet day here at the VC, so it’s good time for an open thread. What’s on your mind?
The 150th Anniversary of South Carolina’s Secession
At Ricochet, Hillsdale College Professor Paul Rahe has a post on the 150th anniversary of South Carolina’s vote to secede from the Union. I’m one of the few Americans sympathetic to the general idea of secession who is also unequivocally hostile to the secession effort undertaken by the Confederacy in 1860-61. In my view, the […]
Will Huitzilopochtli Bring Back the Sun?
The days have got progressively shorter and we fear this Fifth Sun is ending. The sun moves each day on a lower and lower arc across the horizon, and we beseech Huitzilopochtli, supreme god of the Mexica – especially on this night of the most inauspicious and unsettling sky sign in which the moon disappears […]
The “Pro-Business” Supreme Court Revisited
New York Times reporter Adam Liptak recently published an interesting article on the controversy over whether the Roberts Court is “pro-business.” The article is much more balanced and nuanced than the accompanying headline (which probably, as per usual practice, was not written by the author): “Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests.” Liptak cites a […]
Pedophile Guide Author Arrested on Obscenity Charge
The AP reports: A Colorado man who wrote a how-to guide for pedophiles [“The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct”] is being transferred to Florida to face obscenity charges, after deputies there ordered a copy of the book that has generated online outrage…. If the book actually provides useful and […]
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”
is not actually in the Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers, Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution. Although 42% of Americans believe it is according to a survey conducted by the Bill of Rights Institute and Harris Interactive. More on the BRI blog.
Lame Duck Hunting Revisited
In November I wrote a blog post critical of non-emergency lame duck Congressional sessions. Since then, the lame duck Congressional session has been surprisingly productive. Not only did Congress pass a tax deal, it repealed DADT, confirmed some judges and (perhaps most importantly) rejected a pork-laden spending omnibus. That’s far better than I would have expected. But […]
Muslim Student’s Complaint, in Spain, Against Teacher Who Mentioned Ham as an Example?
So seems to report this El Mundo story, based on the machine translation that I read; but I’m always skeptical of such translations, and I’d love to see a quick summary from a Spanish-speaking reader. Thanks to Belkys Guerrero for the pointer. UPDATE: A reader who knows Spanish passes along this translation of the heart […]
Amicus Brief in Support of Cert. in Tobacco Master Settlement Case
I was pleased, along with Josh Wright and several other antitrust scholars, to submit an amicus brief in support of cert. in the Tobacco Master Settlement Case. We argue that the state action exception to the antitrust laws should not be extended to cover a multistate government-created cartel such as this one. We also survey […]
Faux Concern for Judicial Ethics
For many years Community Rights Council (CRC), a small, progressive non-profit organization, waged war on privately funded judicial education. According to CRC, allowing judges to attend expense-paid educational seminars sponsored by organizations such as the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE) and George Mason University’s Law and Economics Center threatened the independence, […]
The Role of Law Clerk Numbers in the Rise of the Supreme Court Bar
Adam Liptak has an article in the New York Times which is a variation on the “rise of the specialized Supreme Court bar” story — in this case, focusing on the role of the specialized Supreme Court bar in representing business interests before the Supreme Court. There’s an interesting underlying question here: Why did a […]
New York Time Story on the Repeal Amendment
Monday’s New York Times contains a remarkably fair and balanced story about the Repeal Amendment: Amendment Would Enable States to Repeal Federal Law. Here is a portion: Under the proposed “repeal amendment,” any federal law or regulation could be repealed if the legislatures of two-thirds of the states voted to do so. The idea has […]
Herbert Wechsler
Biographies about law professors aren’t very common — we’re not that interesting or important — but if I could pick a professor to be the subject of a biography it would be Herbert Wechsler. Wechsler was a long-time Columbia professor who managed to be at the center of a lot of major legal disputes in […]