Why is the other side of the debates I’m on always so hypocritical? They always jump on what my side says, and yet they willfully ignore all the faults on their own side. Let’s be honest about the double standard: The other side gets away with stuff that my side would never get away with. […]
Author Archive | Orin Kerr
Sarah Palin Signs on With Fox News
I don’t think that news is a surprise to anyone, but it’s still pretty interesting.
“Orthogonal, Ooh”
From the oral argument transcript today in Briscoe v. Virginia, a funny moment in the argument of University of Michigan law professor Richard Friedman: MR. FRIEDMAN: I think that issue is entirely orthogonal to the issue here because the Commonwealth is acknowledging – CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I’m sorry. Entirely what? MR. FRIEDMAN: Orthogonal. Right angle. […]
Liveblogging the California Same-Sex Marriage Case
Liberal blogger Teddy Partridge has been doing an amazing job liveblogging the day’s proceedings in the California same-sex marriage case over at The Seminal. Here are the four parts so far, with parts three and four the substantive ones: Part One, just an introduction to the scene. Part Two, the lawyers introduce themselves. Part Three, […]
Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks YouTube Broadcast of Same-Sex Marriage Trial
The Associated Press reports: The Supreme Court is blocking a broadcast of the trial on California’s same-sex marriage ban, at least for the first few days. . . . The high court on Monday said it will not allow video of the trial to be posted on YouTube.com, even with a delay, until the justices […]
McDaniel v. Brown
It’s dog-bites-man at the Supreme Court today. The Court once again has summarily reversed the Ninth Circuit in a habeas case. Today’s decision is here: McDaniel v. Brown. The Ninth Circuit’s divided decision (authored by Judge Wardlaw and joined by Judge Hawkins, with Judge O’Scannlain dissenting) is here. Our blogging software asks us to put […]
A Few Thoughts on the Olson-Boies Same-Sex Marriage Case
Like a lot of our readers, and my co-bloggers Dale and Jonathan, I’ve been following the Olson-Boies same-sex marriage case with great interest. I wanted to weigh in with three comments and a question. 1) I’m not so sure the Supreme Court will eventually take this case. A lot of people seem to think this […]
The DC 5-Cent Bag Tax
A new law recently went into effect in the District of Columbia, the “Anacostia River Clean Up and Protection Act of 2009”. The law does two things. First, it prohibits the sale or distribution of non-recyclable plastic bags in the District of Columbia at either the retail or wholesale level. Second, and more recognizably to […]
“When Scalia Was Able to Hold the Majority in Heller….”
Over at Court Beat, Joan Biskupic recently recalled a conversation she had with Justice Thomas in the course of writing her book on Justice Scalia: Thomas also observed that when Scalia was able to hold the majority in Heller (and largely keep criticism of colleagues in check), Scalia didn’t flaunt his big moment as the […]
Does the Fourth Amendment Allow Extraterritorial State Search Warrants?
Last week, an Ohio appellate court handed down an opinion on a rarely-addressed but increasingly important question: Does the Fourth Amendment allow a state judge to issue a state warrant to search property located outside the state? The case is State v. Jacob, 2009 Ohio 7048, 2009 Ohio App. LEXIS 5903 (2d Dist. December 30, […]
New Case on Computer Searches, Encryption, and Plain View: United States v. Kim
A federal district court in Texas recently handed down a new case on the scope of computer warrant searches that shows how important and yet uncertain the rules of computer search and seizure are these days: United States v. Kim, — F.Supp.2d —, 2009 WL 5185389 (S.D. Texas 2009). The case was handed down December […]
The White House Review of the Christmas Attack: A Quick Response to Jim
I have a different response than does my co-blogger Jim Lindgren to the recently-released White House summary of tentative findings as to how the counterterrorism community failed to detect and stop the Christmas attack. Jim is right that the government report does not give a full account, and it doesn’t give full credit to the […]
Declining Minority Enrollment Percentage at U.S. Law Schools, 1993-2008
This study reports that between 1993 and 2008, there was a 7.5% decrease in the proportion of African Americans enrolled in U.S. law schools. The study also reports a 11.7% decrease in the proportion of Mexican Americans during the same period. (Hat tip: Brian Leiter) I would guess the increasing importance of the U.S. News […]
“Newspapers and the Fourteenth Amendment: What Did the American Public Know About Section 1?”
George Thomas is a terrific and unusually fair-minded professor of criminal procedure at Rutgers Law School in Newark, NJ. I noticed today that he has a forthcoming article that tries to get a sense of the original public understanding of the Privileges or Immunities clause based on how the debates were covered in newspapers of […]
Bad Ideas in Airport Security, Slovakian Edition
If you have complaints about TSA, at least they haven’t pulled any stunts as dumb as placing real explosives in the luggage of innocent passengers as part of a security test. The BBC reports: Irish police have released a man held over an explosives find, after Slovak authorities admitted planting them in his luggage as […]