Author Archive | Paul Cassell

My colleague Amos Guiora has written yet another interesting paper, this one regarding the circumstances in which a state can take preemptive or anticipatory actions against a non-state actor. Contrary to the limitations that some international law scholars seek to impose, Guiora contends that a state should be allowed to take preemptive action to protect […]

Here’s a (redacted) copy of the actual affidavit supporting various search and arrest warrants in the Spitzer case. It gives a better feel for the seriousness of the allegations than some of the general speculation I’ve seen elsewhere.

Over at Crime and Consequences, Kent Scheidegger has this intriguing post on the connection between incarceration and crime rates. Expanding on a graph that I presented depicting crime rates vs. incarceration rates from 1978 to 2006, Kent goes one better and shows crime rates vs. prisoners back to 1960. The correlation is striking — as […]

With the recent discussion about advice to aspiring federal law clerks, I thought I might drop my quick thoughts on what federal judges may be looking for when they hire clerks (having hired law clerks as a federal district court judge for the last five years). Judges are basically hiring law clerks to do one […]

The troubles faced by the Cape Wind in Massachusetts do not seem to have deterred folks from proposing additional offshore wind projects along the Atlantic Coast. In addition to proposals for wind farms off of Delaware, there are three potential projects off of New Jersey. If a pilot project is successful — and there are […]

Where should suspect terrorists be tried? In treaty-based international courts? Traditional Article III courts? Or, as my colleague Amos Guiora argues, in special domestic terror courts? The on-line version of Penn Law Review (called cleverly PENNumbra) has this interesting on-line debate between Guiora from Utah and John Parry from Lewis and Clark. Parry points to […]

As Orin points out in a recent post, one out of every hundred adults in now behind bars in country. The source for this factoid is the Pew Center on the States, which released its report “One in 100” to much fanfare. The Pew Center claims that we are not really getting anything in return […]

My colleague Amos Guiora has co-authored this interesting paper on “voluntary human shields”. The paper tries to give some guidance to military commanders on what sorts of rules of engagement might be proper when operating in a world where a civilian might be friend, foe, or innocent bystander. It seems like this will be problem […]

There is an interesting effort underway to build a new legal search engine. The new engine — PreCYdent is up and runing, and getting some quite positive reviews — here and here for example. PreCYdent was founded by my brother-in-law Tom Smith, who blogs at the Right Coast, and Antonio Tomarchio, a mathematician from the […]

As Kent Scheidegger notes over at Crime and Consequences,the U.S. Supreme Court has granted cert in Herring v. United States, No. 07-513. The Question Presented is: Whether the Fourth Amendment requires evidence found during a search incident to an arrest to be suppressed when the arresting officer conducted the arrest and search in sole reliance […]

Here at the law school at Utah, we have a fun student organization called the Jackie Chiles Law Society. Seinfeld fans will recall that Jackie Chiles is the fast-talking lawyer character who appeared several times. The students here use the Society to look at how pop cultural portrays attorneys and whether those portrayals are accurate. […]

Well, it’s nice to be aboard. I’m excited to be a part of this great group — thanks Eugene for thinking of me. I noticed that when I was introduced as a co-conspirator, a few readers wondered whether I really left my old job as a federal district court judge here in Salt Lake City […]