Author Archive | Randy Barnett

I am sitting at counsel table in the courtroom next to Marina Sirtis. They are now rehearsing the testimony of an expert witness. I am using my laptop as a prop so I will have it throughout the shoot and can blog as long as I have battery and something to say. They have blocked […]

James Runcorn is having a bit of trouble getting enough extras as background for the courtroom scenes. One benefit is that you will probably be seated while waiting for shots. You won’t get paid, but you do get named in the end credits and IMDB credit. If you live in LA and want to head […]

Was here at 6:30 am for breakfast before the 7am call. Just a few crew members ate the breakfast, which was basic dorm food. Well. before dorms upgraded the food. I am now in a conference room set off the courtroom that is serving as the green room waiting to be called to wardrobe and […]

In the previous post I mentioned Walter Koenig, who as screenwriter is the moving force behind the film, Marini Sirtis and Richard Hatch. Here are some other principal cast members: Courtney Peldon (“Boston Public”), Eric Avari (“Stargate”), Jay Acovone (“Providence” “Stargate”), Patricia Tallman (various “Star Treks”), Gary Graham (“Alien Nation”), and Richard Herd (“Seinfeld”). Only […]

In 2004, I blogged about what it was like to attend The Night Before, a pre-Oscars party at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and a year later I updated it here. Yesterday, I sent to Aspen the revised manuscript for Constitutional Law: Cases in Context, a new constitutional law casebook I have been working on for […]

I have had great luck with the press, having never been burned by a reporter using an embarrassing quote that I did or did not say. But this Cybercast News Service story on the Right to Arms panel at the Brookings Institution on Monday really led some people astray. At Brookings, I made the point […]

Here’s the conclusion of Siege of Paris: The creepy populism surrounding high-profile defendants, a moving piece by Christopher Hitchens: I cannot imagine what it might be like, while awaiting a prison sentence for a tiny infraction, to see dumb-ass TV-addicted crowds howling with easy, complicit laughter as Sarah Silverman (a culpably unfunny person) describes your […]

Here is the description from the TED website: Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that […]

The story of how the Federalist Papers came to be written is well-known, but I thought readers might like to read Madison’s own account, which is found in the Detached Memorandum: The papers, so entitled, were written in the latter part of 1787, & the early part of 1788 by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and […]

In the course of finishing my casebook on constitutional law, I was reading James Madison’s “Detached Memorandum” that was discovered in 1946. It ranges over many topics including that of monopoly, in which category he includes the protection for authors and inventors that, on his motion, was included in the Constitution. The passage makes clear […]

The Wall Street Journal’s ECONOBLOG has a very interesting debate between economists Mario Rizzo (NYU) and Richard Thaler (Chicago) on the following question: Driven by research in behavioral economics that suggests people don’t always act in their own best interests, some economists are arguing for new policies that would challenge traditional “hard” tools for changing […]

Three Federalisms, a new very short (10 pages) piece of mine is now up on SSRN. It was prepared for a Symposium on Checks and Balances Today: The Reality of Separation of Powers, held at Loyola University Chicago School of Law in March. Download it here. Here is the abstract: Debates over the importance of

Einer asks the question, why are the elite schools doing more lateral hiring now, especially of younger professors, than they used to? One possible explanation rests on two factual assumptions. First, that the credentials typically relied upon by elite schools for entry level appointments–e.g. elite law school diploma, stellar grades, law review, Supreme Court clerkship, […]

George Lucas, ruthless ardent defender of his intellectual so-called property rights, is about to launch a redesigned website providing hundreds of Star Wars™ video clips along with the software to create mashups.

At 1am central time, Phillip Workman was executed for the murder of Lieutenant Ronald Oliver. Of note, Workman was the first capital defendant to be executed since the state of Tennessee’s revised its lethal injection protocol so as to ensure the process does not cause unnecessary pain and suffering during execution. The NYT reports: Philip […]