Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

In January 1964, Sam Cooke recorded “A Change Is Gonna Come,” an uncharacteristically weighty song for the man who wrote and recorded “Cupid,” “Twisting the Night Away,” and “You Send Me.” Cooke was inspired to write the song by Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” According to Rolling Stone, “What struck Cooke was the challenge […]

Rick Hasen investigates the strange disappearance of the American Center for Voting Rights. As Hasen recounts, ACVR appears to have been a fly-by-night election reform organization that pushed voter ID laws in order to benefit Republicans. In addition to exposing ACVR, Hasen argues that voter identification laws are unnecessary because polling-place voter fraud is rare […]

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued two unanimous opinions in habeas cases. In Durr v. Mitchell, the Court considered and rejected death row inmate Darryl Durr’s appeal of the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. An Ohio jury had sentenced Durr to death for the 1988 […]

Did the FY 2004 National Defense Authorization Act authorize the Defense Department to temporarily curtail the collective bargaining rights of the Department’s civilian employees? Yes. At least that was the conclusion reached by a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in American Federation of Government Employees v. Gates. By […]

Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger has agreed to forfeit his law license, according to this report. As I’ve noted before, we still do not know precisely what documents Berger burgled from the National Archives. It also appears Berger may have been eager to strike a deal over his bar license to avoid further scrutiny: […]

Benjamin Wittes is uncompromising in his take on James Comey’s testimony. At least as Comey relates it, this affair is not one of mere bad judgment or over-aggressiveness. It is a story of profound misconduct on Gonzales’s part that, at least in my judgment, borders on the impeachable. Put bluntly, faced with a Justice Department […]

Michael Dorf discusses the NBA’s Version of the Hart-Fuller Debate and Basketball Formalism.

Yesterday the Senate considered an amendment to the water projects bill that would have required the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to consider the impact of climate change on proposed water projects. The measure was largely symbolic, but it divided the Senate nonetheless, attracting a bare majority — 51 votes — but not enough Senators […]

Over at BLT, Tony Mauro has an interesting post on the late-Rev. Jerry Falwell’s unintended contribution to First Amendment jurisprudence.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected a death-row inmate’s appeal of the denial of his habeas petition in Henley v. Bell. Steve Henley was sentenced to death in Tennessee after his conviction on two counts of first-degree murder and aggravated arson. He filed a habeas petition alleging […]

The responses to my post on the Keisler nomination below raise many issues that I have addressed in prior posts on this blog (see here, here, here, and here). To recap my take on things: 1) I believe the Senate should be relatively deferential in confirming judicial nominees, focusing on qualifications rather than ideology; 2) […]

The Washington Times reports on New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s preparations for a potential independent White House run: The mayor has told close associates he will make a third-party run if he thinks he can influence the national debate and has said he will spend up to $1 billion. Earlier, he told friends he would […]

Another showdown over judicial nominations is looming on the horizon. In 2006, President Bush nominated Peter Keisler to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and renewed the nomination earlier this year. Keisler is eminently qualified for a seat on the Court, but Senate Democrats may oppose his confirmation nonetheless. […]

At Balkinization, Marty Lederman makes the case that the U.S. Attorney firing scandal is really a faux “voter fraud” scandal. Brian Tamanaha’s post on the rule of law (as opposed to rule by law) is worth reading too.

Today, in Valentine v. United States, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled on Kenneth and Jimmy Ray Valentine’s challenges to their convictions. The court unanimously rejected all of their ineffective assistance of counsel claims, with the exception of Jimmy Ray Valentine’s claim that his trial counsel thwarted his […]