The quote (from a dissent in yesterday’s Dickens v. Ryan (9th Cir. Aug. 3, 2012)) comes up in an unusual context: The case was about whether Dickens could be sentenced to death for a felony-murder in which the killer was Dickens’ confederate in an armed robbery, and the specific issue was whether Dickens knew that […]
Archive | August, 2012
Can Federal Border Patrol Agents Pull Over Cars Based Only on State Traffic Law Violations?
Imagine a police officer sees a car speeding over 90 miles an hour. The car makes several erratic lane changes as it rushes through traffic. Can the officer legally pull over the car? The usual Fourth Amendment rule is absolutely yes: The officer can pull over the car if he has probable cause to believe […]
Sunstein Back to Harvard
Professor Cass Sunstein, who currently serves as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget (aka the “regulatory czar”) is returning to Harvard Law School, Politico reports.
Must a Criminal Defendant Know His Weapon Is a Machine-Gun for Mandatory Sentence to Apply?
Today, in United States v. Burwell, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, divided 5-3 over whether the federal mandatory sentnce of thirty years for possessing a machine gun when committing a crime of violence has a mens rea requirement. Judge Brown, writing for the Court, concluded the answer is […]
Sir John Keegan, Ave Atque Vale
For various family reasons, I have been mostly off-line during the last few months, but I could not let slip by the sad news of the passing of Sir John Keegan, the renowned military historian and author of many works that certainly shaped my thinking and, I would guess, that of many of our readers. […]
Who Stuck the Fork(s) in the Cybersecurity Bill?
The cybersecurity bill is dead for this Congress, with cloture failing by a vote of 52-46. The Senate’s failure to reach any kind of compromise is particularly striking, given that roughly two-thirds of the basic ideas in the bill had been endorsed by all of the following: the Obama administration, Senator McCain and the great majority of […]
The Top Ten Libertarian Supreme Court Decisions
By Ilya Somin on August 2, 2012 6:17 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Libertarianism
Damon Root of Reason has an interesting article giving his list of the “Top Ten Libertarian Supreme Court Decisions”: It’s no secret the U.S. Supreme Court has often been a disappointment to libertarians…. But that doesn’t mean the High Court always gets it wrong. Here, in no particular order, are 10 Supreme Court decisions still […]
Do You Feel More Secure?? I Know I Do
. . . because of the Department of Homeland Security’s fearless quest to rid the Internet of copyright infringement. I’ve noted DHS’ penchant for seizing domain names at the border before — see here and here. But now it seems they’re going into the Youtube notice-and takedown business. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CV8Xt2VWvc [See Techdirt’s comments on this […]
Dante Updated
From Prof. Mark Liberman (Language Log): There’s a special place in purgatory reserved for scientists who make bold claims based on tiny effects of uncertain origin; and an extra-long sentence is imposed on those who also keep their data secret, publishing only hard-to-interpret summary statistics from statistical models. The flames that purify their scientific souls […]
Words of Wisdom from the Seventh Circuit
From Haynes v. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (7th Cir. 1993) (Posner, J.): Entering one’s bedroom with a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other is not foreplay. For those who for some reason want context, the issue was whether a book improperly invaded plaintiff’s privacy; the court suggested that plaintiffs might have […]
House Hearing to Consider Illegal IRS Rule Implementing Health Care Reform
By Jonathan H. Adler on August 2, 2012 1:37 am in Administrative Law, Health Care, Insurance Exchanges
Today the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is holding a hearing on the Internal Revenue Service’s role in “Enforcing ObamaCare’s New Rules and Taxes.” Among the subjects of the hearing is a recent IRS rule authorizing tax credits and subsidies for the purchase of qualifying health insurance plans in federally-run exchanges. Although the […]
Congratulations to Ted Cruz!
I’m on a family trip, so I was slow getting the news, but I wanted to echo Orin’s congratulations and praise. As I noted before, Ted is a very smart and accomplished lawyer — he clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist, worked in the Justice Department, served as Director of the Office of Policy Planning at […]
Fracking, Trade Secrets, and the First Amendment
So here is a curious provision of Pennsylvania law, buried in the recently-enacted Act 13, a comprehensive revision of Pennsylvania’s oil and gas law (enacted to deal with the rush to exploit the gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale): 58 Pa. C.S. §3222.1(b)(10) and (b)(11), titled “Hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure requirements,” regarding hydraulic fracturing of […]