I’ve posted this before, but I thought some of our newer readers might appreciate a re-post of my short article on how to read legal opinions: How to Read a Legal Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students. It’s intended for new law students, but I understand that at least some non-lawyers have found it […]
Archive | July, 2013
Video Interview with Elena Kagan
Justice Elena Kagan recently did a video interview with Jeffrey Rosen. As with most Supreme Court justices, Kagan is very careful about what she says in public about her colleagues and the cases before the Court. But there are some interesting moments nonetheless, such as her discussion of the difficulties the justices experience in deciding […]
Malware Infection Leads Government Agency to Destroy $170,000 Worth of Computing Hardware (And Plan to Destroy $3 Million Worth)
From the Inspector General’s report on the Economic Development Administration’s reaction to the infections (June 26, 2013) (emphasis added): Given EDA’s history of common malware infections (the NSA identified common malware on EDA’s IT systems in its 2009 review), there was a high probability that external incident responders would find some malware infections when investigating […]
Amicus Briefs in United States v. Auernheimer
Three Four amicus briefs have been filed in support of the appellant in United States v. Auernheimer, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act case I have blogged about (and for which I am co-counsel for the appellant). Here they are: 1. National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Attorneys: Counsel from Keker & Van Nest) 2. […]
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms and People Who Appear to Lack “Emotional Stability” at a Court Hearing
From In re Hahn (N.Y. App. Div. 2013): Proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78 (initiated in this Court pursuant to CPLR 506[b][1]) to review a determination of respondent which revoked petitioner’s pistol license. [As I understand it, this is a license required to possess a handgun even at home, and not a license that allows […]
McConnell on the Obama Administration’s Decision to Delay the Employer Mandate
By Jonathan H. Adler on July 8, 2013 11:40 pm in Administrative Law, Health Care, Insurance Exchanges
In tomorrow’s WSJ, Stanford’s Michael McConnell has an op-ed discussing the constitutional implications of the Obama Administration’s decision to delay enforcement of the PPACA’s employer mandate. Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution states that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” This is a duty, not a discretionary power. While the […]
So What’s This Supposed to Mean?
Here’s Virginia House Bill 825, proposed in the 2012 session: § 8.01-465.26. Application of foreign laws. A. For purposes of this chapter, unless the context requires a different meaning: “Foreign law” means any constitution, law, legal code, or legal system that is established outside the jurisdiction of the United States, the District of Columbia, or […]
“Different From the Law of the State of Alabama Is Foreign Law”
A funny locution in a proposed Alabama constitutional amendment, which will be on the November 2014 ballot. Substantively, the proposed amendment, which deals with the use of foreign law in Alabama courts, is apparently fairly narrow, because it mostly just says that foreign law can’t be used in ways that violate state law or rights […]
Video of the Huffington Post Live Discussion on Democracy and Constitutionalism in Egypt
A video of the Huffington Post Live panel discussion on constitutionalism, democracy, and the situation in Egypt is now available here. I was one of four participants. The others were Prof. Stanley Katz of Princeton, Zaid Al-Ali – an expert on constitutional design in the Arab world, and Daniel Landsberg-Rodriguez. I tried to emphasize two […]
More on How the FISC Justifies the Legality of Requiring Telephone Providers to Turn Over Entire Databases of Metadata
A month ago, on the day that The Guardian released the FISC order requiring Verizon to turn over all of its telephone metadata, I wrote: If the order is what it appears to be, then the order points to a problem in Section 1861 that has not been appreciated. Section 1861 says that the “things” […]
Petition for Rehearing in Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness, Seeking a Hold for McCullen v. Coakley
I’ve blogged quite a bit about Scott v. Saint John’s Church in the Wilderness, a First Amendment pro-life protester case in which my cocounsel and I filed a cert petition earlier this year. The Court recently denied certiorari in that case, but two weeks later it granted certiorari in McCullen v. Coakley, another First Amendment […]
More on Egypt, Constitutionalism, and Democracy
At the Liberty and Law blog, Michael Rappaport has posted a thoughtful response to my recent post arguing that liberal democrats are sometimes justified in supporting restrictions on democracy in cases where the majority public opinion is highly illiberal. I cited survey data and other evidence suggesting that Egypt is probably such a case. Michael […]
Sri Lanka Bans Time Magazine with Cover Story on Buddhist-Led Pogroms in Myanmar
So Agence France Press reported last week: Customs department spokesman Leslie Gamini said they held the July 1 issue, because it carried a photo of a prominent Myanmar monk under the headline: “The Face of Buddhist Terror” “By operation of law these magazines will be confiscated,” Gamini said. “We did not allow this issue to […]
“A Good Musket” and Bearing Arms
By Eugene Kontorovich on July 8, 2013 11:37 am in Constitutional Amendments, Constitutional Theory, Guns, Militia, Originalism, Right to carry
I’ve been discussing whether the right to bear arms is infringed by laws limiting people to bearing only one “arm”, as a proposal by Illinois Gov. Quinn seeks to do. Perhaps the best evidence for a singular reading of “arms” is the Second Militia Act of 1792, section 1, which provides, in part, that a […]
The Supreme Writer on the Court: The Case for Roberts
Here are two passages from a recent Supreme Court case called Already LLC v. Nike. Guess which Justice wrote each. Passage One “This brief, separate concurrence is written to underscore that covenants like the one Nike filed here ought not to be taken as an automatic means for the party who first charged a competitor […]