Last week, the city of Detroit declared bankruptcy. As a municipality, Detroit filed under Chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code. Shortly after Detroit filed, however, a state judge declared that Michigan’s Governor could not approve the filing (as required by Chapter 9) because doing so would violate the state of Michigan’s Constitution, which provides that […]
Archive | July, 2013
Richard Epstein Replies to my WSJ Op-Ed on the NSA, CFPB & FISC
I regret that I overlooked my friend Richard Epstein’s thoughtful reply on Ricochet to my Wall Street Journal op-ed on the blanket seizures of data by the National Security Agency and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the constitutionality of which has apparently been authorized in secret opinions issued by the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Court: National […]
More on the Value of a Law Degree
By Jonathan H. Adler on July 21, 2013 4:46 pm in Law School Tuition and Loans, Law Schools, Legal Profession
Following up on his posts at Concurring Opinions discussing his study (with Frank McIntyre) attempting to measure the value of a law degree, Michael Simkovic rounds up the commentary and critiques of the study on Leiter’s Law School Reports. I noted prior coverage of the study here, and Paul Caron rounds up some additional coverage […]
Preparing for First Year Contracts
Volokh Conspiracy readers who are heading off to law school in the Fall might benefit from a short book on contract law I wrote recently as part of a series called, the Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law. It is written to be accessible to students and to discuss most of the “classic” cases one is […]
Contracts 101 and “Ethicist” Chuck Klosterman
The New York Times’s Ethicist column is infamously awful, but I had generally found that the new columns by Chuck Klosterman were not as bad as they’d been before. Nonetheless, today’s paper featured a howler. Here’s the question: I’m on the art-museum board, so that is my preferred artistic donee. An acquaintance repeatedly called me […]
Did Election Fraud Help Win The Civil War?
A very interesting post by Rick Pildes.
Thinking Through the Constitutionality of Section 2
Several commenters asked me to expand a bit on the constitutional questions raised by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. While I doubt that I can do so with a thoroughness that would satisfy the Volokh commentariat (can anything satisfy the Volokh commentariat?), I thought I’d lay out a few more thoughts. I don’t […]
Why Some Libertarians Sympathize with the Confederacy
I heartily agree with everything my co-bloggers have said about how very unlibertarian it is to sympathize with the Confederacy. One factor that I don’t think was mentioned as to how some otherwise bright, non-racist libertarians might find themselves promoting the Confederacy’s cause is how much some libertarians hate “the Union,” that is, the federal […]
If You Haven’t Had Enough Zimmerman…
Michelle Meyer has a great post at The Faculty Lounge. Among other things, for those who think that Zimmerman “routinely profiled black males and only reported black males to the police,” Meyer has some analysis of Zimmerman’s calls that at the very least complicate the story.
No, Emanuel Goldstein, Err, I Mean the Koch Brothers
did not fund George Zimmerman’s defense. But please proceed with your Two Minutes Hate.
Ancient Hebrew Militia Law
That’s the title of a short article by me, just published in the Denver University Law Review Online. The militia politics of ancient Israel are covered in an article I wrote several years ago for Liberty magazine: ” To Your Tents, O Israel!” Both articles discuss the influence of the Israel’s history on the American Founders.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: A Simple Misunderstanding
In response to my post yesterday, Corey Robin has a blog post on Crooked Timber based on a good faith, but uncharitable misreading of this prefatory sentence on my piece. I wish to add a few additional considerations that I have become aware of over the past several years as I have researched and written about “abolitionist […]
Correction re the ACLU and Double Jeopardy
In a previous post on the Zimmerman case, I criticized the ACLU for abandoning its longstanding opposition on double jeopardy grounds to concurrent state and federal prosecutions for the same behavior. I stand by that criticism, and note that it’s just one of many examples of the ACLU privileging left-wing concerns over traditional civil libertarian […]
Some Comments on Secession by Seth Barrett Tillman
Seth Barrett Tillman writes in to add these points to our discussion of secession and the Confederacy. First, we do not have good evidence that even a majority of the adult white males in each rebel state supported secession at the time purported state conventions issued their ordinances of secession. The secession conventions were hardly […]
Possible Federal Prosecution of George Zimmerman, and the “Dual Sovereignty” Exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause
The recent talk about a possible federal prosecution of George Zimmerman reminds me that my colleague Stuart Banner recently filed a petition for certiorari challenging the “dual sovereignty” exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause. The case is Roach v. Missouri, and Stuart’s historical argument strikes me as quite powerful, though I should stress that I’m […]