Author Archive | Orin Kerr

Yes, it’s true. Part two of the New York Times investigative report on military tribunals is out today, and it is very much worth reading. Among other things, it touches on areas of disagreement within the Bush Administration on what to do with Guantanamo and whether to set up military tribunals:   [S]ome officials at the […]

Brian Leiter offers some comments on Richard Posner’s recent Legal Affairs article, Against the Law Reviews.

Today’s New York Times has a very interesting investigative report on how the Bush Administration decided to set up military trubunals to try captured Al Qaeda suspects. The article spends a lot of time on the process of the decision rather than its substance, and isn’t without its underlying view of the merits, but it’s […]

You’ll have to read it to believe it. (Hat tip: Talkleft.)

Dahlia Lithwick has a new article up at Slate, Supremely Scary: The Sudden Outbreak of Supreme Court Horror Stories, much of which pokes fun at op-ed writers who argue that the outcome of the Presidential election will have a profound impact on the future of the Supreme Court. Lithwick makes the point that while Bush […]

it’s probably best not to sell it on eBay where everyone can see it. (Hat tip: Drudge)

Let’s assume that Al Qaeda is planning attacks in the United States in the next few weeks to coincide with the U.S. election and the holy month of Ramadan. We all hope that is not true, of course, but let’s assume, somewhat morbidly, that it is. What kind of attacks might be planned?   I don’t […]

Please join me in welcoming AntitrustProf Blog, hosted by lawprof Shubha Ghosh. (Hat tip: Larry Solum)   Some day, there will be groups of law professor blogs covering every specialty area. If you want to see the latest ideas coming from the legal academy, you will start by reading blogs, not law reviews. For now, however, […]

“The objective in staffing is never to assemble the best possible team. It is to assemble the best possible team that supports the president.”    — an unnamed former Bush Administration official, explaining why the White House vetoed some of Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s staff picks and why Comey himself “has erred too much on […]

A new draft of mine was posted on SSRN today; it is a short symposium essay called Virtual Crime, Virtual Deterrence: A Skeptical View of Self-Help, Architecture, and Civil Liability. (To download it, click on the link and scroll down to the “download” button.) The essay is forthcoming in the inaugural issue of the Journal […]

The problem with giving people crack cocaine in exchange for registering voters is that you just can’t trust crackheads to follow the rules. Details here.

Eugene’s excellent post on Wikipedia below led me to look through Wikipedia for its entries on some topics that I think I know pretty well. My very tentative conclusion, based on a just few sample queries, is that I hope no one relies on Wikipedia for anything very important. Its entries seem to be a […]

It’s not every day that you read a news story on Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29, but here’s one from today’s Boston Globe. (Hat tip: Howard.) Rule 29 allows a trial judge to find a criminal defendant not guilty as a matter of law; as long as the judge makes clear that she is […]

Here’s one to put in the “things you find when for some strange reason you decide to google your first name” file:   Orin is a nonphysical entity that I connect with through conscious channeling. I experience Orin as a being of great love, wisdom, and compassion. He never tells people what to do or how […]

Some VC readers know about Memeorandum, but in case you don’t, you should. The site is a very cool idea: it gathers links to major news stories along with links to blogospheric coverage of those stories collected from a politically diverse set of blogs. Check it out.