Ineffective assistance of counsel is a common habeas petition claim, particularly in capital cases. This has led me to wonder whether legal representation that is constitutionally deficient should presumptively constitute legal malpractice. After all, for a capital defendant, effective assistance of counsel can be a matter of life and death. Yet it is rare that […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Off to AALS
Like many others, I’ll be off to D.C. tomorrow to attend the AALS faculty recruitment conference. Perhaps I’ll see you there.
What Does Warren Buffet Know?
While Congress considers legislation to impose a cap-and-trade regime on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, Warrne Buffet makes “a huge bet on coal.” Either Buffet’s made a blunder, or he realizes any cap-and-trade legislation that can pass Congress will do little to reduce coal consumption. (HT: Roger Pielke Jr.)
The Non-Contradiction of Rand’s Capitalism
Adam Kirsch reviews Anne Heller’s Ayn Rand and the World She Made in the NYT. As others have noted, the review contains a curious passage. Nor would Rand, sooner than any other desert prophet, allow her message to be trifled with. When Bennett Cerf, a head of Random House, begged her to cut Galt’s speech, […]
Is the Honduran Political Crisis Over?
The United States has agreed to recognize the results of this month’s election. Ousted President Zelaya will be allowed to return to Honduras, and the legislature will vote on whether to allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term, albeit without control over the military. Meanwhile, it seems some members of […]
Sunday Song Lyric
What’s scarier, alleged Illuminati puppet Lady Gaga sung by Daughtry or sung by Cartman? Covers can be scary things. Occasionally a cover is completely unexpected, but still works. Sometimes they are simply inspired, and the cover artist seems to own the song as much as the original. One of my absolute favorite covers is Joe […]
”When GM Took Federal Dollars, They Lost Some of Their Autonomy”
Does government interference inevitably follow government ownership of private companies? It sure seems that way. As a WSJ article reports: “Companies in hock to Washington now have the equivalent of 535 new board members — 100 U.S. senators and 435 House members.” Specifically, the story reports on efforts by various lawmakers to inflence the business […]
Revising Web-based Newspaper Articles Without Informing Readers – NYT Edition
The original version of an NYT story on President Obama’s visit to the dover Air Force Base included a paragraph characterizing the trip as a staged event, “intended by the White House to convey to the nation that Mr. Obama was not making his Afghanistan decision lightly or in haste.” At some point, however, this […]
Is the Pay Czar Unconstitutional?
Former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell, now a professor at Stanford, argues that the “Pay Czar” is unconstitutional. Specifically, he argues that the “Pay Czar,” aka the Treasury Department’s “Special Master” for executive compensation, is an “officer” of the United States for purposes of the Appointments Clause (albeit likely an inferior officer) because he is […]
Debating Carbon Cap-and-Trade
I’ll be in Chicago tomorrow to debate the merits of a cap-and-trade carbon emissions control regime at the Northwestern University School of Law. It’s a noontime event sponsored by the student Federalist Society chapter. For a preview see some of my prior VC posts (1, 2) and articles from NRO (1, 2). I may also […]
They Judged the Cartoons, but Did Not Read the Book
By Jonathan H. Adler on October 26, 2009 11:24 am in Academia, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities
This morning NPR ran a story on Yale University’s decision to force the Yale University Press to remove all depictions of the prophet Muhammed, including several controversial Danish cartoons, from Jytte Klausen’s book The Cartoons that Shook the World. As had already been reported, the University’s decision was based, in part, on various outside experts […]
Prosecutors Investigate Student Investigators
It appears that some Cook County prosecutors don’t like journalism students looking into whether innocent people may have been wrongly convicted, so they’ve decided to investigate the students. The NYT reports: For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school have been scrutinizing the work of prosecutors and the police. The […]
The Harms of a Health Insurance Mandate
Tyler Cowen discusses the effects of an individual insurance mandate in today’s NYT. A taste: Americans seem to like the idea of broadening health insurance coverage, but they may not want to be forced to buy it. With health care costs high and rising, such government mandates would make many people worse off. . . […]
Sunday Song Lyric
“Weird Al” Yankovic turned 50 on Friday. (Can you believe he’s been around that long? And that he has a new album?) Yankovic’s exceedingly goofy, and quite clever. He also has a song off of his 2006 album, Straight Outta Lynnwood, that seems somewhat appropriate for the VC: “I’ll Sue Ya.” It begins: I sued […]
The Greg Craig Watch
The New York Times reports on the continuing speculation over whether White House Counsel Greg Craig is on the way out. As President Obama’s top lawyer, Mr. Craig has been at the center of thorny decisions on closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and revising interrogation and detention policies, problems that have bedeviled the […]