Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias thinks that President Obama should consider appointing legal academics to the federal courts of appeals. President Obama has vowed both to practice bipartisanship and to appoint excellent judges. One fertile source of nominees who possess the requisite expertise and temperament to be outstanding appellate jurists is the faculties […]

The notorious Bettie Page died on Thursday. The 1950s pin-up icon inspired movies and congressional hearings, and a little gem of a song by BR5-49. Here’s the first verse: You came to New York City back in Jack and Neal’s day All the lights of old Times Square they flickered on the Great White Way […]

This is time of year when law professors often ask other law professors, “are you going to AALS?” (That is, the AALS annual meeting in San Diego on 1/6 – 1/10). There is no central list of who else will be there and when, so I thought I would start a thread on who plans […]

The Federalist Society has announced the location, topic, and some of the speakers for its annual student symposium for next year. The place and date: Yale Law School, Feb. 27-28, 2009. The topic: Separation of Powers in American Constitutionalism. Speakers: the initial list is here, with more to come. Registration is here.

Ed Whelan notes the interesting fact that there are more sitting Clinton nominees on the federal appellate bench (59) than Bush 43 nominees (56) — and that’s counting as Bush nominees the three Clinton nominees that Bush renominated. The same is true of district court judges.

Speaking of divisions on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, today a divided panel rejected the habeas appeal of Gaile Owens, the first woman sentenced to death in Tennessee. Among other things, the court divided over whether Owens received ineffective assistance of counsel because she failed to cooperate fully in her own […]

The WaPo article I noted below on ideological divisions on the U.S. Courts of Appeals highlights the case of United States v. Arnold as an example of [how] President Bush’s nominees have altered the ideological balance of the Sixth Circuit. In June 2005, two federal appellate judges here ordered Joseph Arnold released from a 21-year […]

Last week, the Bureau of Land Management announced the repeal of a regulation that required the emergency suspension of mining on BLM lands. The Center for Biological Diversity immediately decried this “last-minute attempt to roll back environmental regulations.” The CBD and other environmental groups had filed suit to enforce the regulation so as to prevent […]

Today’s Washington Post features a front-page article detailing the effect of President Bush’s nominees on federal appellate courts, focusing on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. It’s an interesting piece, as is this companion article on the politics of judicial nominations going forward, but I worry that it might exaggerate the ideological […]

Douglas Burgess Jr. makes the interesting argument that pirates are a type of terrorist and should be treated as such. The solution to piracy lies in the very nature of piracy itself. The Roman lawmaker Cicero defined piracy as a crime against civilization itself, which English jurist Edward Coke famously rephrased as

The Washington Post reports that members of the American Constitution Society are likely to be as prominent in the Obama Administration as members of the Federalist Society were in parts of the Bush Administration. Eric H. Holder Jr., an ACS board member, has been nominated to be attorney general. Executive Director Lisa Brown has been […]

The Washington Post reports on what we’ve known for a while: the combination of agriculture subsidies, ethanol subsidies, and high ag prices are causing widespread loss of important migratory waterfowl habitat. Fighting the trend is an array of hunting and conservation groups. The political circumstances in the West have forced them to try to protect […]

Maybe I’m just way out of touch, but I was a bit underwhelmed by this year’ Grammy nominations for “Record of the Year,” and just because one is the subject of plausible copyright infringement allegations. Of the nominees, I have a soft spot for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. I am an old fan of […]

Rep. Jerrold Nadler is proposing to amend the Constitution to restrict the President’s pardon power. Rep. Nadler is apparently concerned that President Bush will pardon members of his own administration involved in the development of counterterrorism and detainment policies who may have broken the law. Brian Kalt observes: the most interesting thing about Nadler’s proposal […]

Tony Mauro reports on a just-released Nixon White House tape containing a conversation between President Nixon and Chief Justice Warren Burger. It’s interesting stuff. The audio itself should be available here.