Author Archive | Orin Kerr

If you read the VC, you probably don’t care about the Scott Peterson trial. It doesn’t raise any interesting legal issues, and worse, gets the uberannoying Nancy Grace on TV all the time. Still, it’s possibly worth noting that while some are suggesting that we may be heading towards an end of capital punishment in […]

The Supreme Court gave some relief to police officers in the Ninth Circuit today in two criminal law cases: Devenpeck v. Alford and Brosseau v. Haugen. Devenpeck was reversed 8-0, with the Chief not participating. Brosseau was reversed 8-1, with Justice Stevens dissenting.   Brosseau is a per curiam summary reversal of a Ninth Circuit opinion […]

Law prof Ian Ayres of Balkinization writes: Thank you Instapundit. The New York Times writer, Christopher Shea, saw my earlier post on Criminalizing Reckless Sex, when Glen[n] Reynolds linked to it. And the Times Sunday Magazine included the idea in today’s “The Year in Ideas” issue. Instapundit — where the New York Times looks for […]

Criminal law geeks around the country are wondering whether tomorrow morning the U.S. Supreme Court will release its opinion in United States v. Booker and United States v. Fanfan, the cases that consider how last year’s blockbuster opinion in Blakely v. Washington applies to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. I haven’t blogged on Blakely issues because […]

Slashdot links to a press release announcing a new trademark lawsuit:   The American Chemical Society filed a complaint on Dec. 9 against Google Inc. in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint contends that Google’s use of the trademark “Scholar” for its Google Scholar literature-search engine constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition.  A […]

Brian Leiter, who knows a few things about rankings, describes the Legal Affairs Top 20 Legal Thinkers poll as a “meaningless publicity stunt”: The list of candidates is–to put the matter gently–absurd, not because there aren’t substantial “legal thinkers” on the list (there are some), but because there are far too many on the list […]

Marty Lederman reports that Chief Justice Rehnquist plans to administer the oath of office to President Bush on Inauguration Day.

The New York law Journal reports:   The explosion at a Long Island Railroad station that injured Helen Palsgraf not only made her family name a household word — at least in households with lawyers — it also began what some of her descendants call a curse.  In the eight decades since the New York Court of […]

The Associated Press reports that this week the Senate approved by voice vote a new privacy law, the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, that the President is expected to sign shortly. The law basically prohibits intentionally taking a picture of someone naked or in their underwear, without their consent, if at that time the person reasonably […]

Is the new academic group blog Left2Right turning into a liberal Volokh Conspiracy? Majikthise thinks so. I won’t believe it until I see multiple links to You Can’t Say That! or its L2R equivalent. If it happens, though, I say we merge — it seems the conspiratorial thing to do.

While many librarians are worried about the Patriot Act, they should be worried more about a much more serious threat: The Internet.

Legal Affairs is having a contest to see how many people will visit their website to help out friends, former professors, favorite bloggers, and ideological compadres — er, rather, to determine who are the Top 20 Legal Thinkers in America.   Specifically, the poll asks you to vote for “the country’s most influential and important legal […]

If King Solomon’s Casino doesn’t do it for you, try this Weird Al meets Outkast way of celebrating the Jewish holiday. Warning: there is sound, although that’s the point. And it’s also kinda warped. My favorite line: “Sheh-vitz [of Manischewitz] and a kosherized pickle” in lieu of “shake it like a Polaroid picture.” Runner-up: “Oy […]

An amusing site, even if you don’t find patent law very funny.

An interesting story, and a bit surprising to see it in the New York Times.