Author Archive | Randy Barnett

Alberto Gonzales’s future is a hot news story right now, and finding a new angle on this story must be a big challenge for reporters. But this can also push reporters to get creative to find any angle they can, however weak. I think Adam Zagorin’s story today in Time Magazine is a good example […]

TPMMuckraker has posted Albert Gonzales’s written testimony for Tuesday’s hearing about the U.S. Attorney firings. The gist of the testimony: Gonzales was basically out of the loop on who would be fired and why. Gonzales told Sampson to make up a list, and Gonzales approved Sampson’s list a year or two later without asking about […]

The Miles Davis Quintet of 1964-1968 is justly celebrated as one of the most important jazz groups of all time. Miles picked four of the most extraordinary young musicians playing at the time — Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums — and they […]

I wanted to add one more round to the exchange Eugene and I were having about whether a defendant charged with a federal computer intrusion crime can assert a “hacking back” defense. I’m still of the opinion that defendants cannot assert such a defense, and I wanted to respond specifically to Eugene’s most recent post […]

I enjoyed Eugene’s post below about “digital self-help,” although I have a very different take on the question.   First, I highly doubt that a defendant can assert a “digital self-help” claim in a prosecution brought under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030. Eugene is right that federal criminal statutes generally do not […]

My new and relatively brief (25 pages) essay, The People or the State?: Chisholm v. Georgia and Popular Sovereignty, is now available for download on SSRN. It is the basis of the John E. Sullivan Lecture I will be giving at Capital Law School in Columbus, Ohio on April 13th. In an important respect, the […]

Professor Michael Dorf, of Columbia Law School, had an interesting post on Dorf on Law yesterday on the Raich case that mirrors some of my thoughts in today’s Journal. The court also rejected her substantive due process claim, largely on the strength of Washington v. Glucksberg. The court plausibly read Glucksberg to require a narrow […]

I have an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on the Raich case that the editors entitled, Reefer Madness (link good for 7 days). I explain why the rejection of Ms. Raich’s constitutional claim highlights a serious problem with the Supreme Court’s current approach to protecting liberty under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth […]

In a ruling issued this morning, the Ninth Circuit rejected our Due Process Clause and medical necessity claims. The opinion is here. I will have more comment on this later, but there are three hopeful aspects of its opinion. First, the panel went out of its way to suggest that Angel appears to qualify for […]

National Review Online this morning has a symposium on Rearming: The D.C. gun ban gets overruled featuring John Eastman, Cam Edwards, Alan Gura (lead counsel for the plaintiffs), Dave Koppel, John Lott, Nelson Lund, Clark Neily (another attorney for the plaintiffs), and me. Here is my take on the likelihood the case will be reversed […]

This article in yesterday’s Washington Post, Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web, about law graduates whose employment prospects were possibly impaired by anonymous posts brought to mind a growing concern of mine. Although it is not nearly so disturbing as being the subject of malevolent and hurtful anonymous posts, I find it troubling nonetheless. […]

If you are a student with libertarian curiosity, you should consider attending a thought-provoking summer seminar organized by The Institute for Humane Studies. The faculty present their ideas and expect to be challenged by students, as well as by other professors, inside and outside the classroom. There is lots of time for informal interaction. Lectures […]

Over on the Right Coast, Mike Rappaport has a nice post on Hayek’s description of common law judging. This is from the middle of his post: . . . [Don] Boudreaux gives the example of a high school cafeteria, where individuals save their seats by putting their books down on a seat before they get […]

I saw the Beatles “Love” CD at Virgin Records and thought, “Just what I don’t need, another Beatles anthology.” Much as I loved the Beatles, thanks to my Ipod, I have grown very tired of their recordings. But when I saw this was a “remix,” I decided to give it a try since I liked […]

Some religious people–dubbed “pacifist-aggressives” by Eugene Volokh–attempt to use the force of law to make other people live according to a pacifist philosophy. In a new article for America’s First Freedom, I address the claim that the New Testament compels pacifism. Some caveats: 1. It’s a large PDF file. 2. The article presumes, for the […]