One of my favorite statutes, 28 U.S.C. 2403(a), says that when a federal court is hearing a case in which the constitutionality of a federal statute is drawn into question, the court is supposed to notify the Attorney General if the United States is not already a party: In any action, suit or proceeding in […]
Archive | September, 2013
World Constitutions, Searchable and Indexed by Topic
Looks like a cool site — ConstituteProject.org — though of course the constitutional text often doesn’t tell us that much about how the legal and political system actually operates. For more about the project, see here. Thanks to Jamie Fletcher for the pointer.
15-Year-Old Rastafarian Has Religious Freedom Right to Possess Drug Paraphernalia
So holds the Minnesota Court of Appeals in today’s In the Matter of the Welfare of J.J.M. A. (surprisingly, an opinion labeled by the court as nonprecedential). J.J.M.A. was arrested for, among other things, possession of a glass pipe used for smoking marijuana, which was covered by the state ban on possessing drug paraphernelia. Minnesota […]
Open Thread on the Government’s Brief in United States v. Auernheimer
Yesterday I provided a link to the government’s merits brief in United States v. Auernheimer, the computer crime case involving the CFAA, the identity theft statute, and the scope of venue for criminal cases. When I posted the link to the defense merits brief back in July, there was a long comment thread debating the […]
The Excellent Lawfare Blog and Its New Competitor, Just Security
In the last year, I’ve become a fairly regular reader of Lawfare, the blog focused on national security law started a few years ago by Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, and Robert Chesney. It’s a really terrific blog that offers in-depth coverage of national security law issues in nearly real-time with a host of informed and […]
“In Supreme Court Opinions, Clicks That Lead Nowhere”
Adam Liptak reports: Supreme Court opinions have come down with a bad case of link rot. According to a new study, 49 percent of the hyperlinks in Supreme Court decisions no longer work. This can sometimes be amusing. A link in a 2011 Supreme Court opinion about violent video games by Justice Samuel A. Alito […]
How’s George Mason Law School Doing?
I’ve received some concerned email from friends, after the Washington Post published an article about how D.C.-area law schools are struggling to get students. In particular the article stated that our class size has shrunk from 303 in 2010 to 151 today, suggesting that we have lost half of our tuition revenue. The article is […]
Government Files 118-page Merits Brief in United States v. Auernheimer
I’ve blogged a few times about the case of United States v. Auernheimer, the computer crime case pending before the Third Circuit in which I am pro bono counsel for the defendant (along with EFF, Marcia Hofmann, and trial counsel Tor Ekeland). We filed our merits brief in July, and it is available here. On […]
Cert Petitions Filed in Contraception Mandate Cases
By Jonathan H. Adler on September 22, 2013 11:58 am in Health Care, Religious Freedom, Supreme Court
Petitions for certiorari were filed in two cases challenging the Obamacare contraception mandate last week. Both cases involve private, for-profit employers. The first was filed by Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation, seeking review of the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit holding, among other things, that corporations may not raise free […]
Upcoming Radio Interview About Democracy and Political Ignorance
This Sunday from 3-4 PM eastern time, 12-1 Pacific, I will be discussing my new book Democracy and Political Ignorance with talk radio host Bob Zadek, on his Bob Zadek Show. Although you listen to it on the air only in California, you should be able to listen to it online here. Based on my […]
Erwin Chemerinsky on Originalism
UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the nation’s leading constitutional law scholars, recently posted a critique of originalism on the ACS Blog. Unfortunately, the points he makes are uncharacteristically weak. University of San Diego law professors Michael Ramsey and Michael Rappaport do a good job of explaining why. Chemerinsky’s most dubious point […]
Update on Indiana Right to Work Law
Last year I mentioned a legal challenge to a new right to work law in Indiana. The opinion has now come down and Asheesh Agarwal has a commentary here.
Robert Bork Bleg for GMU Law Alumni
I’m doing an essay for the George Mason Journal of Law, Economics, and Politics and one of the issues I will touch on is Robert Bork’s time teaching at GMU. First, I’m trying to establish when he taught at GMU. I have it that his last year was 1991-92 but I’m not sure how long […]
The Devil is Doing a Poor Job of Persuading People he Doesn’t Exist
It is said that “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist.” Well, it obviously wasn’t all that great a trick, because recent survey data shows that 57% of Americans still believe he does exist, including 72% of African-Americans, 65% of Republicans, and 61% of women (but only […]
The Obvious But Underappreciated Point About Federal Power and Equality
Mike Rappaport has a post at the Liberty Law Blog making a seemingly straightforward but surprisingly underappreciated point: There is good reason to think that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equality requirement was not originally meant to apply to the federal government. People frequently try to challenge various originalist views about equality by pointing to the actions […]