Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Former federal prosecutor William Otis has an interesting op-ed in the Washington Post today suggesting that President Bush should consider commuting Scooter Libby’s jail term instead of pardoning him. I found it fairly convincing. It begins: Scooter Libby should not be pardoned. But his punishment — 30 months in prison, two years’ probation and a […]

The WSJ law blog reports that writer Rebecca Eckler is suing Judd Apatow and Universal Studios for copyright infringement alleging the hit movie “Knocked Up” is partially based upon Eckler’s book. I have no idea whether this suit has any merit, but I do know that “Knocked Up” is hilarious.

In today’s W$J, Brian Carney reports (link for subscribers) from a Venice conference on the difference between American and European perspectives on the challenge of climate change policy. The story according to which politically connected industries block economic developments that would be beneficial overall but redound to the detriment of the big players is one […]

In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress delegated to the Environmental Protection Agency authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Some members of Congress do not seem too happy with this result. How else to explain draft legislation, noted on the Warming Law […]

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s struck down the Federal Communications Commission policy governing “fleeting expletives” as “arbitrary and capricious.” FCC Chairman Kevin Martin responded with an expletive-laden statement. Given the Second Circuit’s ruling, could a network air Martin’s remarks without fear of federal sanction? Discuss. UPDATE: Daniel Drezner has a […]

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down a Michigan law banning “partial-birth abortion.” According to the court’s opinion, written by Judge Boyce Martin, the statute imposed an unconstitutional “undue burden” on a woman’s right to an abortion under applicable Supreme Court precedent. State partial-birth abortion bans are consitutional, the court […]

Richard Sander — no stranger to controversial empirical work — has an interesting post on the Empirical Legal Studies Blog summarizing evidence that law school GPA correlates with success in large law firms. Specifically, Sander presents evidence that those with higher law school GPAs became partners at large law firms at a significantly higher rate […]

Is the USDA barring private companies from testing cattle for “mad cow” disease in order to protect major beef producers’ profits? Not based on the materials presented in a recent legal case, according to Stuart Buck. (LvIP)

Law school deans (and many professors) like to complain about the influence of U.S. News law school rankings. My colleague Andrew Morriss and William Henderson think some law schools doth protest too much. In an interesting article in The American Lawyer they suggest that law schools themselves should share much of the blame for the […]

With immigration such a big issue right now I’ve been trying to think of an appropriate song lyric. Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” has the right title, but the lyrics have more relevance to Nordic mythology than contemporary discussion. Genesis‘ “Illegal Alien,” on the other hand, would seem to fit the bill (and it has a […]

Yesterday six judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dissented from the full court’s denial of a petition for en banc rehearing in Cooey v. Strickland, in which a divided panel concluded that the statute of limitations had run on a death-row inmate’s Section 1983 challenge to the constitutionality of Ohio’s […]

At the first Republican Presidential debate, Senator Sam Brownback was among those who raised his hand when asked if any of the candidates did not believe in evolution. Today Senator Brownback takes to the New York Times op-ed page to try and explain his position. The premise behind the question seems to be that if […]

The Associated Press is reporting that President Bush is calling upon the leaders of the fifteen nations with the greatest carbon dioxide emissions to meet and set emission targets by the end of 2008. UPDATE: More from Reuters here. One part of the proposal that seems long overdue is a cut in tariffs and other […]

In today’s W$J, economist R. Glenn Hubbard, former Chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, makes the case for a carbon emission trading scheme along the lines proposed by the National Commission on Energy Policy. We do not know how much long-term climate change will result from our ever-expanding economic activity — primarily from […]

A Massachusetts pediatrician pseudonymously blogged a malpractice trial, spicing up his commentary with jabs at the plaintiff, plaintiff’s attorney, and even the jury. The problem? It was his own trial. After he was forced to admit his authorship of the blog on the stand, the case promptly settled. The Boston Globe covers the story here. […]