Some comments on my Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness posts ask whether this injunction can be upheld on the grounds that it’s limited to speech near a church. Here’s what the petition has to say about that: Content-based restrictions on supposedly “gruesome” political, religious, and moral advocacy are presumptively unconstitutional even if […]
Archive | March, 2013
The Bourne Implausibility
By Nick Rosenkranz on March 6, 2013 9:40 pm in Constitutional Law, Fifth Amendment, National Security, Popular Culture, Targeted Killing, Uncategorized
I just caught the last few minutes of The Bourne Ultimatum. At the end (spoiler alert), Bourne successfully exposes everything, and we catch a glimpse of MSNBC, reporting on a secret CIA assassination program “which in several cases may have even targeted U.S. citizens.” In the movie, it appears that MSNBC believes this to be […]
Congress Has Power To Define The Terms Of Its Own Statutes
Last week, Dale Carpenter blogged about a particular amicus brief filed in U.S. v. Windsor, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) case. In this brief, Dale, as well as co-conspirators Jonathan Adler, Randy Barnett, and Ilya Somin, set forth a “federalism-based” argument against DOMA. With all due respect to my co-conspirators, I agree with Ed […]
The Conservative Origins of Strict Scrutiny
That’s the name of my article, published last year in the George Mason Law Review for a symposium on judicial engagement, that I just posted to SSRN. Here’s the abstract: Debate over judicial engagement under the Fourteenth Amendment generally starts from the presumption that strict judicial scrutiny of laws that infringe on important rights is […]
Science, Political Ignorance, and Deference to “Authoritative” Experts
By Ilya Somin on March 6, 2013 7:39 pm in Junk Science and Quackspertise, Political Ignorance, Politicizing Science, Public Opinion
Economist David Friedman has an insightful post on the problems inherent in deferring to the views of “authoritative” scientific bodies: A pattern I have observed in a variety of public controversies is the attempt to establish some sort of official scientific truth, as proclaimed by a suitable authority—a committee of the National Academy of Science, […]
Speech That Can Be Seen by Children — Sexually Themed and Otherwise
My blog posts about Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness led readers to ask about the cases that allow the government to limit the exposure of children to sexually themed speech. Here’s what the petition for certiorari says about those cases; the discussion is necessarily brief, because the point of the petition is […]
Rand Paul on Lochner, Buchanan v. Warley, and Oliver Wendell Holmes
Embedding the video isn’t working, so here’s a link to the relevant remarks (courtesy of Breitbart.com). I haven’t had a chance to blog about this, but Sen. Paul and everyone else who complain that defining “due process” for a drone strike as review within the executive branch is completely contrary to what due process has […]
Globalization(s), privatization(s), constitutionalization, and statization: Icons and experiences of sovereignty in the 21st century
Through SSRN, I’ve just come across the article Globalization(s), privatization(s), constitutionalization, and statization: Icons and experiences of sovereignty in the 21st century by Judith Resnik of Yale Law School. Here’s the abstract: What can democratic constitutional states offer that multinational corporations and global governance cannot? One answer, coming from recent decisions by courts in Israel […]
Senator Rand Paul Announces Support for Lochner v. New York, Cites David Bernstein and Randy Barnett in Floor Speech
Josh Blackman has the scoop here. I agree with Holmes on Lochner, but I’m always happy to see my co-bloggers cited in such a prominent forum.
Supreme Court Petition Challenging Injunction Against Display of “Gruesome Images” Where Children Can See Them
Monday I filed a cert petition in Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness, together with co-counsel Rebecca Messall, Thomas Brejcha, Peter Breen, and Jocelyn Floyd. I’m pleased to say that I’ve taken on the project pro bono, because I think it involves a very important First Amendment issue. The decision below, by the […]
Why the “Gruesome Images” Restriction Is a Serious Burden on Pro-Life Protesters’ Speech
This Court has been dealing with restrictions on pro-life speech for about 20 years. See Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000); Cloer v. Gynecology Clinic, Inc., 528 U.S. 1099 (2000) (Scalia, J., joined by Thomas, J., dissenting from the denial of certiorari); Lawson v. Murray, 525 U.S. 955 (1998) (Scalia, J., concurring in the […]
The Question in the “Gruesome Images” Cases Affects Much More Than Pro-Life Speech
Important as the abortion debate may be by itself, the implications of the decision below and of other similar cases go far beyond that debate. Gruesome images often reflect gruesome deeds. One powerful way of opening people’s eyes to what the speaker sees as cruelty is by showing them pictures of the results of that […]
Federalist Society Talks at Yale and Harvard
I will be speaking to the Yale and Harvard Chapters of the Federalist Society this week, about The Subjects of the Constitution and The Objects of the Constitution. Yale Law School, room 128, Wednesday, March 6, noon. Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, room 2009, Thursday, March 7, noon.
Stalin and Prokofiev
Back in January, I announced the anniversary of Lenin’s death. Today, an even more special occasion: the sixtieth anniversary of the deaths of both Stalin and Prokofiev. Prokofiev, who had left Russia for America in 1918, returned to Russia in 1936, and subsequently had a troubled relationship with Stalin and the Soviet regime (see also […]
Which Long Magazine Profile of the Aaron Swartz Case Should You Read?
Adrian Chen of Gawker has a helpful post ranking the major Aaron Swartz stories that have appeared in magazines. For those following the Swartz case, it’s worth checking out. Like Chen, I was a little frustrated with the first-person recounting of the case by Swartz’s former girlfriend Quinn Norton, a journalist who apparently agreed to […]