Author Archive | David Bernstein

N.Y. Times: A Virginia court document said that in 2005 a special justice in Virginia declared Mr. Cho mentally ill and an “imminent danger to others,” a CNN report said. The new information, disclosed by police in a news conference today, raises questions about whether warning signs about Mr. Cho’s behavior and problems were handled […]

In today’s Gonzalez v. Planned Parenthood case, Justice Thomas wrote a very brief concurring opinion, reprinted in full below: I join the Court’s opinion because it accurately applies current jurisprudence, including Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). I write separately to reiterate my view that the Court’s abortion jurisprudence, […]

That’s the title of my colleague Kyndra Rotunda’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today (subcribers’ only link), that begins: CBS’s hit series “Criminal Minds” recently aired an episode entitled “Lessons Learned,” where FBI agents traveled to Guantanamo Bay and coaxed a confession from a known terrorist detainee that led to the prevention of an […]

The [BBC World Service’s] Doha Debates have been invited to hold an event at the Oxford Union – the world famous debating society of Oxford University – on the 1st of May. The motion to be debated will be: This House believes the pro-Israeli lobby has successfully stifled Western debate about Israel’s actions. A group […]

This Monday at 9:30, I’ll be presenting my article “Expert Witnesses, Adversarial Bias, and the (Partial) Failure of the Daubert Revolution,” (that I’m pleased to report will be appearing this fall in the Iowa Law Review) at AEI, with comments by a very interesting and distinguished group of panelists. You can register for the event […]

According to stories in the Daily News and Ha’aretz, Professor Liviu Librescu barred the door to his classroom with his body while his students escaped out the window. Librescu was fatally shot. To his family, May God comfort you among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

Brooks: I just attended a conference that was both illuminating and depressing. It was co-sponsored by the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan and the American Enterprise Institute, and the idea was to get Americans and moderate Arab reformers together to talk about Iraq, Iran, and any remaining prospects for democracy in […]

With regard to Prof. Murphy’s claims about himself and the TSA, discussed previously by Orin, I’ve noticed several comments on blogs and discussion lists suggesting that we should presumptively credit both his account of the event and his interpretation of it because he is a respected emeritus professor at Princeton. Without getting into the merits […]

Tomorrow (Thursday) at 4:00, I’ll be speaking to the St. Mary’s Law School Federalist Society on threats to civil liberties from antidiscrimination laws. Friday morning, I’ll be appearing on a panel at the ABA Section on Litigation discussing state rules for the admissiblity of expert testimony and toxic tort litigation. If any VC readers are […]

Back in January 2006, I authored a post entitled “Is the Housing Bubble Really a Credit Bubble?” I wrote: “I’ve seen some persuasive evidence, both scholarly and anecdotal, that a major factor driving the ‘housing bubble’ is historically loose credit standards: no money-down (or even negative money down) mortgages, cursory (or even non-existent!) checks of […]

I am somewhat overwhelmed by the absurdity of someone apologizing to Al Sharpton for making a bigoted remark, and then Sharpton not accepting the apology. Talk about glass houses! Imus should certainly have apologized for his remark, but not to someone with Sharpton’s history.

The Yale Daily News has what strikes me as a balanced profile of Koh [the first of a two-parter], who is by all accounts a nice guy, a good fundraiser, and beloved by his students, but is also a highly partisan liberal Democrat under whose tenure as dean conservative and libertarian students have felt increasingly […]

Norman Finkelstein, a professor at DePaul University most famous for his vigorous (and some would say vicious) attacks on what he terms “the Holocaust Industry,” has been recommended for denial of tenure by a DePaul dean, after winning departmental approval. I don’t know enough about the specifics of the case to comment on the potential […]

I’ve been having a problem with Buy.com, and here’s what’s really irritating: I send them an email, then send me an email back requesting specific information, which was already in the original email. I send another email providing the information once again, and get another email that clearly reflects the fact that my latest email […]

The one completely opaque element of U.S. News’s rating of law schools is the “assessment score by lawyers/judges.” U.S News doesn’t reveal who gets this survey, or who fills it out. Well, I’d like to know, and I’m sure many others would, too. So, dear reader, do you get this survey? If so, please email […]