Author Archive | Randy Barnett

Here’s a run-down of the opinions in Scott v. Harris, the high-speed car chase case handed down by the Supreme Court today. (To repeat my interest in the case, I was co-counsel for petitioner Scott, the police officer who was sued.)   Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion, joined by all but Justice Stevens. Scalia’s first […]

Christopher Hitchens’ has a new book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I have not read it, but Slate is offering some lengthy teasers here. Here is just the beginning and conclusion of “Religion Poisons Everything” the first of three excerpts on Slate: There are four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it […]

The Washington Post posed the question to “some key figures in the Iraq debate,” and today’s paper reports their answers.

Yesterday, I received the following message from Amazon.com: Dear Amazon.com Customer, We’ve noticed that customers who have expressed interest in The Rights Retained by the People: The History and Meaning of the Ninth Amendment by Randy E. Barnett have also ordered The U.S. Constitution For Dummies by Michael Arnheim. For this reason, you might like […]

Over at the Chicago Faculty Blog, Saul Levmore has an interesting post today on the recently-resigned MIT admissions director who lied about her educational credentials.

Chief Justice Roberts’ dissent today in Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman ends with a serious zinger aimed at Justice Stevens.   By way of background, this case considered whether the Texas courts had misapplied “clearly established” U.S. Supreme Court law in a death penalty case. In the dissenters’ view — which I tend to think is right, although […]

As part of its new on-line debate series, the Federalist Society is posting a debate on Gonzales v. Carhart upholding the constitutionality of the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act. The debate is principally between Professors Doug Kmiec and Erwin Chemerinsky, but I added my 2 cents. Others such as John Chapman will be commenting later. […]

My colleague Nick Rosenkranz has a very interesting article in the latest issue of the Stanford Law Review (Vol. 59, No. 5, p. 1281, 2007) on the relevance of foreign law for interpreting and construing the U.S. Constitution. I read his paper in draft and found the connections he discovered between the founders and Condorcet […]

On Monday morning I plan to be at the Supreme Court to check out the oral argument in Brendlin v. California, which considers whether a traffic stop seizes passengers of the stopped vehicle in addition to its driver. I’ve blogged before that I think the answer is clearly “yes,” and I wanted to add a […]

In light of the discussion between Eugene and Orin, I though I would link to an essay I wrote for National Review Online on September 18th, 2001, Saved by the Militia: Arming an army against terrorism. After noting that it was the members of the general militia that prevented United Flight 93 from reaching its […]

Comments from an earlier thread suggest that many VC readers want to debate the broader question of abortion rights today. It didn’t fit into the earlier threads, so here’s an open thread to debate these important questions. As always, please keep it civil.

I just noticed that in all three decisions the Supreme Court handed down today, Justice Scalia and Justice Alito came down on opposite sides.

My Wall Street Journal op-ed on the Duke rape case is today’s featured article on OpinionJournal.com and available without subscription here. An excerpt: The crucial importance of defense lawyers was illustrated in reverse by the Duke rape prosecution, mercifully ended last week by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper’s highly unusual affirmation of the defendants’ […]

Specifically, it’s a video of the Kaye effect created by scientists at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. According to Wikipedia, the Kaye Effect is an unusual (and very shortlived) effect you can get when you pour a viscous liquid onto a surface and the surface shoots back a jet in the opposite direction. […]

The Yale Law Journal Pocket Part recently posted an interesting Call for Papers in response to the recent news stories about the XO board and anonymous Internet speech:   The Yale Law Journal Pocket Part is soliciting essays and commentaries on the role of law, policy, and extralegal tactics in regulating instances of cyber bullying, including […]