A commenter on the goth cat thread wrote: So there are laws against mutilating non-consenting cats but not against mutilating non-consenting infant humans [alluding to male circumcision]? I suppose you could mutilate cats if that were part of your religion and you had a book from god to prove it? Another commenter responded, “yes you […]
Archive | June, 2011
English Names for Foreign Countries vs. Names in the Local Language
The country name thread has led to another iteration of the Burma/Myanmar debate, and its broader version: Even setting aside the special case of Burma, where the Myanmar name was chosen by the ruling junta, do we have some good manners / sound usage obligation to change the English names for foreign countries (or foreign […]
Piercing Your Cats Can Be Cruel
So holds a Pennsylvania appellate court in Commonwealth v. Crawford, where the defendant tried to turn ordinary cats into “gothic cats” in all sorts of unpleasant ways. The court doesn’t say that all animal piercing and tail removal is necessarily a violation of animal cruelty laws, but that these particular piercings (and dockings) were; and […]
California Bankruptcy Court Holds DOMA Unconstitutional
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, in an opinion signed by 20 of the court’s 25 judges, has held that Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutionally bars a married same-sex couple from filing a joint bankruptcy petition. The issue arose when the couple, one of 18,000 such […]
Grand Jury Investigating “War Crimes” at Abu Ghraib
Via Politico, a Time report that a federal prosecutor has opened a secret grand jury to investigate potential CIA war crimes at Abu Ghraib. It has been nearly a decade since Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi prisoner known as “the Iceman” — for the bungled attempt to cool his body and make him look less dead […]
Debating Sosa in Ali Shafi v. Palestinian Authority
Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of several claims filed against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) under the Alien Tort Statute. Chief Judge Sentelle wrote the opinion for the Court, and summarized the case as follows: Appellant Ali Mahmud Ali Shafi and […]
“Private bus companies do not represent a suspect class”
Today, in American Bus Association v. Rogoff, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit answers the timeless question: ” Can Congress constitutionally permit a federally subsidized transit system to take the residents of Seattle out to the ball game?” The court concludes Congress can and so, in an opinion by Judge Garland, it […]
Rise of the Dictionaries
In today’s NYT, Adam Liptak reports on a new study by CUNY’s Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier and Arizona superior court judge Samuel Thumma, published in the Marquette Law Review, documenting the increasing use of dictionaries by Supreme Court justices in their opinions. In May alone, the justices cited dictionaries in eight cases to determine what legislators […]
Petition for Rehearing Filed in United States v. Nosal, the Ninth Circuit Case on Criminalizing Violations of Computer Use Policies
A petition for rehearing was recently filed in United States v. Nosal, the Ninth Circuit decision holding that an employee who violates his employer’s computer use policy is guilty of “exceeding authorized access” to the employer’s computer. I have posted a copy here. I hope the Ninth Circuit grants rehearing, as I think the Nosal […]
Country Names
How many of these countries can you identify? “Grand Duchy of __.” “__ Federation.” “__ Confederation.” “United __ States.” “Oriental Republic of __.” “Plurinational State of __.” “Co-operative Republic of __.” “Federative Republic of __.” “Bolivarian Republic of __.” “Republic of the Union of __.” “Hashemite Kingdom of __.” “State of __, Abode of Peace.” […]
Fifth Circuit Invalidates City Zoning Ordinance that Treats Churches Less Favorably than Similar Secular Land Uses
In its recent decision in Elijah Group v. City of Leon Valley, the federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit invalidated a city zoning ordinance that forbade churches in an area where very similar secular land uses are permitted. The court ruled that the ordinance violates the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons […]
Early Man and the Law
In Friday’s Ex Parte E.R.G., the Alabama Supreme Court struck down the Alabama grandparent visitation statute, holding that it violated the rights of parents. The decision was a splintered 4-3-2 decision, which reflects the Supreme Court’s splintered decision in Troxel v. Granville (2000) — which held that some such laws are unconstitutional, but didn’t decide […]
The Constitutional Rights of Illegal Aliens, Under the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments
In today’s United States v. Portillo-Munoz, a divided Fifth Circuit panel holds that illegal aliens don’t have Second Amendment rights because they’re not part of “the people,” and suggests that they may lack Fourth Amendment rights as well. (The same logic might apply to the First Amendment’s Petition Clause, which also mentions a right of […]
Third Circuit (En Banc) Opines on K-12 Students’ Off-Campus Speech Rights
The long-awaited decisions are J.S. v. Blue Mountain School Dist. (decided by an 8-to-6 vote) and Layshock v. Hermitage School Dist. (unanimous); both were just handed down this morning. Here’s a quick summary, though the opinions are long and complicated, so my quick summary must necessarily omit many important details. 1. To begin with, here’s […]
Congratulations to Sabrina Strong, Alison Fischer, Ryan Chin, and the UCLA Ninth Circuit Appellate Clinic
When I blogged last week about Suradi v. Holder — the Ninth Circuit case that held that the Jordanian government acquiesces in “honor killings,” and that therefore barred the deportation of a Jordanian woman who claimed she faced a very high risk of being killed — I hadn’t realized that the case was won by […]