Today’s iteration of a longstanding Supreme Court tradition is Stanton v. Sims (per curiam), a qualified immunity decision summarily reversing Judge Reinhardt’s decision in Sims v. Stanton, 706 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 2013) (Reinhardt, J., joined by Silverman and Wardlaw), a slightly earlier version of which you can find here. For those interested, here is […]
Author Archive | Orin Kerr
VC Bloggers on Twitter
Back in March, I decided to try Twitter again. It seems to have stuck this time. I’ve tweeted about 550 times, around twice a day. Some of my tweets are only links to blog posts, so it’s stuff you’re getting by reading the VC. But I’ve found that Twitter is also useful to link to […]
Two Posts at Lawfare
I recently mentioned how much I like the Lawfare blog. That post led to an invitation to write for Lawfare, and I’ve decided to post there on occasion on national security law issues. My tentative plan is to link to those posts from here when I do. In that spirit, here are my first two […]
Number of LSAT Test-takers Continues to Drop
Dan Filler reports: LSAC has now released data about the number of people who sat for the October LSAT. The total number of takers was down 10.9% from October 2012. The number of first time takers was down roughly 13% from last October.
Snowden’s Latest
There appears to be a new Snowden leak every few days — continuing for how long, we don’t know — and the latest is pretty interesting. From the Washington Post: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say. If I understand the story correctly, NSA’s monitoring is occuring overseas, catching the […]
Is There a Doctor on Blog? Seeking a Second Opinion in Jackson v. Pollion
Here’s a question for the medical professionals in the VC audience. In his opinion earlier this week in Jackson v. Pollion, Judge Posner criticizes the magistrate judge and district judge for reaching the wrong conclusion about whether the plaintiff’s failure to receive his hypertension medications for three weeks could have a significant impact on the […]
Keller and Greenwald Debate the Future of Journalism
An interesting discussion.
Law Dean’s $666 Faculty Pay Raise “In Effect” Called Professors Satan, Complaint Alleges
Paul Caron has the scoop: The AAUP Chapter at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the State of Ohio alleging that the law school retaliated against certain faculty in the award of merit raises in 2013 and 2014 because of their union activities. Faculty were placed in four merit […]
Reply Brief Filed in United States v. Auernheimer
Readers who are following the Weev case, aka United States v. Auernheimer, the Third Circuit appeal I am litigating pro bono, might be interested to know that we filed our reply brief today. You can read the reply brief here. If you’re interested in reading the rest of the briefs, our opening brief is here, […]
Erin Murphy on Maryland v. King
The forthcoming Supreme Court issue of the Harvard Law Review will feature an essay by NYU Law professor Erin Murphy on the Supreme Court’s recent Fourth Amendment case on DNA searches, Maryland v. King. Professor Murphy’s essay, License, Registration, Cheek Swab: DNA Testing and the Divided Court, argues that King is likely to have an […]
Third Circuit Requires Warrant for GPS Monitoring and Limits Good-Faith Exception in United States v. Katzin
By Orin Kerr on October 23, 2013 3:30 am in Fourth Amendment, Good Faith Exception for Changing Law, GPS Surveillance
Today the Third Circuit handed down United States v. Katzin, an important cases on three related issues of Fourth Amendment law: first, whether the installation of a GPS device requires a warrant; second, the scope of the Davis good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule; and third, who has standing to suppress the evidence from the […]
The Relevance and Readership of Student-Edited Law Reviews: Another Response to Liptak
Like Will Baude below, I was underwhelmed by Adam Liptak’s essay in the New York Times on the longstanding criticisms of law reviews. To add a few more problems with Liptak’s essay: (1) Liptak suggests that the readership of law reviews has dropped and will continue to drop. I don’t see this. Sure, the circulation […]
A Rule of Thumb in Law Blog Comments
Understanding of the law and confidence in one’s conclusions about it are inversely related.
The Fourth Amendment and “Dude, Where’s My Car?”
Here’s an interesting Fourth Amendment question decided by the 8th Circuit last year in United States v. Cowan, 674 F.3d 947 (8th Cir. 2012): If the police have a suspect’s car keys, and the key fob has an electronic button that sets off the car’s alarm when pressed, can the police press the button to […]
Lavabit Challenges Contempt Order in the Fourth Circuit: An Analysis of Its Arguments
Today Lavabit filed a brief before the Fourth Circuit challenging a civil contempt order for its refusal to turn over its encryption key that the government wants to enable the government to conduct surveillance of Edward Snowden. I think Lavabit faces a very uphill battle, and in this post I’ll explain why. First, a bit […]