The comment thread to yesterday’s post on ex ante restrictions for computer warrants led to some interesting questions, and it also suggested that it might be helpful to explain the historical role of warrants, the particularity requirement, and magistrates, in order to understand how ex ante restrictions strongly depart from the historical norm. So here’s […]
Archive | June, 2011
Luncheon Speech on ACA Tomorrow in DC
I will be speaking tomorrow in DC on the legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act at a luncheon sponsored by the Washington, DC Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. The event will be at noon at Tony Cheng’s Restaurant 619 H Street, N.W. Washington, DC (Gallery Place Metro) The cost is $15 for members […]
Interpretation vs Construction
Much confusion in constitutional discourse on both the left and right stems from blurring together of two types of claims about the Constitution. The first concerns the semantic meaning of the text — the words on the page — and the second concerns the doctrines by which that text is applied to particular facts. For […]
A Variety of 5-4 Opinions
Bullcoming v. New Mexico was not the only 5-4 decision handed down by the Court today — and it did not present the only 5-4 lineup. Here are the others. In Stern v. Marshall, the latest installment of the Ana Nicole Smith inheritance saga, the Court split along traditional ideological lines, with the conservatives prevailing. […]
Formalists Prevail in Bullcoming v. New Mexico
Among the six merits opinions released by the Supreme Court this morning was Bullcoming v. New Mexico, a Confrontation Clause challenge to the admissability of a forensic report without calling the author of the report to testify. This was a significant case for Court watchers because the case raised issues that have divided the Court […]
Three Liberals + Two Conservatives on the Confrontation Clause (and the Jury Trial Clause)
Bullcoming v. New Mexico continues the coalition of three liberals — formerly Ginsburg, Stevens, and Souter, now Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan — plus two conservatives, Scalia and Thomas who take a relatively broad view of the right to jury trial and to confront witnesses. On the other side are three conservatives (formerly Kennedy, Rehnquist, and […]
Taking the Ideological Turing Test
In this post, I’m going to take Bryan Caplan’s ideological Turing Test, which requires me to “simulate” an advocate of an ideology I oppose. In this case, I’m going to simulate an advocate of liberalism and focus on issues where liberals and libertarians disagree. And I’m going to try simulate an advocate who is reasonably […]
Geert Wilders Acquitted
From de Rechtspraak, the website of the Dutch Judiciary and the Supreme Court of the Netherlands: Verdict of the Amsterdam district court as regards the Wilders trial, 23 June 2011 Amsterdam, 23 June 2011 – Hereafter, the most important decisions of the district court are summarized. For the integral text, please go to www.rechtspraak.nl … […]
The Ideological Turing Test
In a recent interview, Paul Krugman argued that liberals generally understand conservative arguments better than vice versa: A liberal can talk coherently about what the conservative view is because people like me actually do listen. We don’t think it’s right, but we pay enough attention to see what the other person is trying to get […]
NLRB To Accelerate Union Elections
The National Labor Relations Board is proposing new regulations to accelerate the pace of union organizing elections. As the Washington Post reports: The board is proposing to streamline a union election process that currently has workers vote within 45-60 days after a union gathers enough signatures to file a petition, a time many companies use […]
More on Medical Malpractice and Fair Weather Federalism
A couple weeks ago, I had an op-ed in the Washington Examiner on the fair weather federalism of those Republicans who were supporting the federalization of state tort law in HR-5, a bill concerning medical malpractice. Today’s Daily Caller featured a new op-ed by Professor John Baker also criticizing the bill: To justify their efforts […]
Alexander Hamilton Rap
I finally got around to watching Richard Brookhiser’s film on PBS about the life of Alexander Hamilton. Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton is a fascinating effort to dramatize Hamilton’s life in ways I thought were very effective. Filmed in the settings in which Hamilton was born, lived and died, historical images and interviews with historians were mixed […]
Political Ignorance and the Federal Budget
Fred Barbash of CQ Weekly recently published an interesting article about public ignorance of the federal budget, and its implications for the current political conflict over government spending: With Washington tied in knots over the budget deficit, pollsters lately have been trying to get a sense of exactly where voters stand on the issue. What […]
Vermont Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument in Challenge to Ex Ante Restrictions on Computer Warrants
I’ve blogged before about the fascinating and important issue of whether magistrate judges have the power to impose ex ante restrictions on how computer searches will be executed as a condition of issuing warrants to search computers. As regular readers know, my view is that they don’t: I explained why in my recent article, Ex […]
Clinton and Weiner
I missed out on most of the Weiner controversy while on vacation. For the record, I think the whole thing was a tempest in a teapot. For that matter, I think (and thought at the time) that Congress in 1998 should have satisfied itself with a resolution criticizing Clinton’s behavior, and left it at that. […]