A little over a year has passed since the Supreme Court’s momentous decision in NFIB v. Sebelius. Not surprisingly, there is still no consensus on what the Court got right, what it got wrong, and what the long term significance of the case will be. But several interesting books about the case have just been […]
Archive | August, 2013
“ABA Panel Favors Dropping Law School Tenure Requirement”
Karen Sloan has the story here.
Holder To Announce Major Change in Federal Policy on Charging Low-Level Drug Offenses
The New York Times reports: In a major shift in criminal justice policy, the Obama administration will move on Monday to ease overcrowding in federal prisons by ordering prosecutors to omit listing quantities of illegal substances in indictments for low-level drug cases, sidestepping federal laws that impose strict mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offenses. Attorney […]
Judge Orders That Child’s Name Be Changed from “Messiah”
So reports The Tennesseean; the parents came before the court because of a dispute over what the child’s last name should be, but the judge changed the child’s first name as well, giving two reasons: “The word Messiah is a title and it’s a title that has only been earned by one person and that […]
Learning How to Fish
Speaking of fish, the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law & Policy has just released my most recent paper, “Learning How to Fish: Catch Shares and the Future of Fishery Conservation,” co-authored with my former student Nathaniel Stewart. Here’s the abstract from SSRN: Fisheries the world over are poorly managed and under stress. Yet, proper fishery […]
Teaching Carnivorous Fish to Be Vegetarians
the Washington Post reports on a successful effort to convert captive cobia to a vegetarian diet. The conversion of these carnivorous fish to a completely vegetarian diet is a first, according to the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and a key to breaking a cycle in which the ocean’s stocks of small fish […]
Still No Money in the Budget for White House Tours
but there’s apparently plenty of money to send First Dog Bo on a private flight to join the President on Martha’s Vineyard. UPDATE: Okay, I read too much into the story. It doesn’t say that Bo arrived by himself, just that he arrived “separately” on an Osprey that has never before been used for a […]
Cert Petition in Cotterman v. United States
I’ve blogged a lot about the Ninth Circuit’s computer search decision in United States v. Cotterman, and I thought I would flag the cert petition that Cotterman filed on August 5th. Taken in isolation, the cert petition that was filed normally would be denied. But this case may be different for the reason I discussed […]
Benno Schmidt on Academic Freedom
Prompted by the outcry over criticism of pop-left historian Howard Zinn by then-governor Mitch Daniels, Benno Schmidt (the President of Yale University when I was an undergraduate), wrote a good op-ed on the issue of academic freedom. Here’s a taste: Academic freedom is faculty’s freedom to teach. But, more important, it is also students’ freedom […]
No Chevron Deference for Agency Interpretation of Court’s Jurisdiction
In Shweika v. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit confronted an interesting question: Should courts give Chevron deference to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statutory provision that determines the scope of a federal court’s jurisdiction to review the agency’s action. In this case, Mazen Shwieka sought to challenge the U.S. […]
Using NSA Surveillance Data in the War on Drugs
By Ilya Somin on August 10, 2013 11:45 am in Growth of Government, Privacy, War on Drugs, War on Terror
On Monday, Reuters reported that the Special Operations Division, a secretive unit of the Drug Enforcement Administration is using NSA electronic surveillance data in the War on Drugs, and then deceiving judges and defense lawyers about the source of the evidence when it is used in criminal trials. As various experts quoted by Reuters point […]
Goldwater Institute Tells Senator Durbin to “Pound Sand”
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has sent letters to corporate and non-profit donors and supporters of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) demanding to know whether these organizations continue to support ALEC and whether they support “Stand Your Ground” laws. ALEC is right-of-center non-profit organization of state legislators that, among other things, develops and promotes model […]
Social Security Administration Takes Different View of Marital Choice of Law
Chris Geidner (my go-to source these days for post-DOMA legal developments) reports that the Social Security Administration has now developed policies for paying benefits to couples in same-sex marriages. Most interestingly, the SSA has bucked the trend in other executive agencies of paying benefits to all couples whose marriage was validly celebrated. Instead, the SSA […]
Will the City of Richmond’s Plan to Condemn Mortgages Really Cost Taxpayers Nothing?
By Ilya Somin on August 9, 2013 8:34 pm in Eminent Domain, Just Compensation Clause, Property Rights
In an earlier post, I noted that one of the problems with the California City of Richmond’s plan to use eminent domain to condemn mortgages is that taxpayers will have to pay for it. However, some defenders of the plan – such as Mortgage Resolution Partners – the “community advisory” firm that has been hired […]
Loaded Means Loaded
From State v. Dor (N.H. May 7, 2013): On May 8, 2012, police searched the defendant’s vehicle and found a .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol adjacent to a loaded magazine in the vehicle’s glove compartment. The pistol did not have a cartridge in the chamber or a magazine in the magazine well. The State charged the […]