I just read a very interesting article, Daniel Sockwell, Writing a Brief for the iPad Judge. The basic problem: [M]ore and more judges are reading briefs primarily on iPads or other tablets…. The Fifth Circuit judiciary reads the majority of their briefs on iPads, and, from conversations with numerous judges and clerks, the other Circuits […]
Archive | January, 2014
How Rational Basis (D)evolved Into A Get Out Of The Constitution Free Card
I’ve said that the chief accomplishment of Progressive constitutional theory was to prioritize democracy over liberty as the central constitutional value. A consequence of this shift was the creation of a general theory of “judicial restraint,” which was enshrined into constitutional law in the New Deal era. There’s one aspect of this story that I […]
New Hampshire House Passes Marijuana Legalization Law
The New Hampshire House of Representatives recently became the first state legislative house to pass marijuana legalization. Legalization measures adopted in Colorado and Washington in 2012 passed by referendum. As the above-linked Concord Monitor article notes, the law faces tough sledding in the state senate, and could well be vetoed by New Hampshire’s Democratic Governor […]
Empire State Building Owners Sue Photographer for Taking Topless Photograph on the 86th Floor Observatory
See the complaint, and a New York Daily News story: Empire State Building management has filed a $1.1 million lawsuit against photographer Allen Henson for taking pictures of a topless woman at the skyscraper’s packed 86th floor observatory in August. Here’s one of the photos, which I imagine originally didn’t contain the black rectangle; the […]
Hasen on the New Proposed Voting Rights Act
Election law maven Rick Hasen writes: I have now had a chance to review the text the Voting Rights Amendments Act of 2014 introduced today by Representatives Sensenbrenner and Conyers (with parallel legislation being introduced by Senator Leahy in the Senate). I believe parts of the VRAA are likely constitutional (including the new coverage formula), […]
Adoption by Close Friend (and Not Romantic Partner) of the Child’s Parent
An “intimate partners without benefits” case, from In re Adoption of G., N.Y. Slip Op. 23454 (Surr. Ct. Dec. 27, 2013): In this uncontested second-parent adoption proceeding, the court is faced with an interesting question: may two close personal friends, who together decided to adopt and have jointly participated in all aspects of the adoption […]
“Programmer Privilege”
Philip Guo (Slate) argues that his being an Asian young man led him to “fit society’s image of a young programmer,” and therefore got him cut various kinds of slack while he was a beginner and not very good. Maybe that’s right; I’m sure people do view others through these sorts of stereotypes to some […]
What’s Misleading About This Picture?
That’s a graphic from an article last month in Vocativ, titled “Way More People Die in Texas From Drunk Driving Than Anywhere Else. (Vocativ is a new media startup that got a good deal of buzz last Fall, including for relying on “data ninjas.”) Here’s some of the analysis accompanying the graphic: Texas, in many […]
Real Clear Radio Hour with Bill Frezza
Denizens of Boston may be interested in the premiere of a new radio show this weekend, “Real Clear Radio Hour with Bill Frezza” brought to you by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It will air from 10:00-11:00 AM on Bloomberg radio’s WXKS 1200AM & WJMN 94.5FM-HD2. You can also find it on several Internet services (at the […]
Holmes Helps Americans Go To Hell
The clash between the classical liberalism of the Constitution—which holds that individual rights are primary, and democracy is secondary, and limited by individual rights—and the “wolf’s view” of politics—which holds the power of the majority as primary, and sees rights as privileges given to the individual by the majority—persisted into the twentieth century. Although the […]
A private little Slaughter-House Cases
The Slaughter-House Cases was a shocking reactionary retreat from what had been accomplished with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. But it was not the first such case. Three years earlier, the California Supreme Court decided a similar case called People v. Brady, in which it declared that if the Justices thought the Amendment had been designed […]
Twitter and Facebook
Embarrassing as it is for me to admit, I’ve been pretty absent-minded about maintaining our “social media presence,” such as it is. We’re delighted that we have almost 10,000 Twitter followers — with the Twitter feeds automatically coming from our RSS feed — but I can’t figure out how to sign on to manage one […]
Our commentary on why the FDA should allow 23andMe to proceed
For those of you who have been following FDA actions against the consumer genomics company 23andMe (see my prior posts here and here), you may enjoy the commentary that Robert Green (geneticist at Harvard) and I published in Nature today. We argue that it’s an open question whether FDA has jurisdiction over the health-related interpretations that […]
Should the FCC Actually Want Review of the Net Neutrality Opinion?
Let me go beyond yesterday’s post to ask a related question. The Commission may well file a petition for rehearing and/or certiorari in yesterday’s net neutrality decision. But if I were the FCC’s general counsel, would I actually want review of that decision? I think the answer is probably no. Here is how I would analyze […]
Jeremiah Black And The Wrecking of The Fourteenth Amendment
The first Supreme Court case to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment was the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases, in which a group of Louisiana butchers challenged the constitutionality of a state law requiring that all slaughtering be done at a single, privately-owned abattoir. They argued that this law deprived them of the right to earn a living without […]