Author Archive | Randy Barnett

In my earlier post I offer this as Lesson Three for watching the upcoming Supreme Court confirmation hearings: LESSON THREE: Watch for an appeal to “precedent” to attack a nominee who may favor reviving the original meaning of portions of the text–e.g. the “public use” portion of the Takings Clause–that have been ignored for far […]

I recall very well the debates over the nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Both featured the most elevated public discourse over constitutional interpretation in my lifetime. Of course, both nominations were also marred by ugly personal attacks and false charges. For the upcoming nomination, we can expect both types […]

I discuss Justice O’Connor’s resignation on WBUR’s On Point radio show, which airs in Boston (and elsewhere) at 7:00pm ET. Here are the guests: · Warren Ritchie, covers the Supreme Court for the Christian Science Monitor · Randy Barnett, law professor at Boston University. In 2004 he argued the medical marijuana case before the high […]

This is from a press release from Freestar Media (an entity I know nothing about): Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private […]

Lisa Binder has arranged with CafePress to sell t-shirts and mugs with Justice Thomas’s soon-to-be famous line from his dissenting opinion in Kelo: “Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’’s interpretation of the Constitution.” Order yours here while they are hot. If your taste runs more towards Justice O’Connor, a quotation from her Kelo […]

On Slate, Emily Bazelon and David Newman summarize the records of judges reputed to be on The Supreme Court Short List. (Hat tip Instapundit.) Some useful background information, though the conventional wisdom (CW) about these matters is often wrong. I also think it is going to be very hard to predict whether any particular Bush […]

Jack Balkin has a great post on originalism over at Balkanization. I simply do not have the time at the moment to give it the type of reply it deserves, but Larry Solum already has on Legal Theory Blog. Check out both. Jack is responding to a post by Mike Rappaport on The Right Coast, […]

I admit that I hate John Grisham novels. I just cannot stand the prose. I used to like Scott Turrow well enough, especially his nonfiction 1L novel which came out when I was a 3L. Scott was a year behind me in law school so his 1L year was during my 2L year. Then he […]

In his dissent in Kelo (buried on page 14), Justice Thomas may well have written my all-time-favorite line of any constitutional opinion (perhaps, in part, because it does not seem to be written to be famous): “Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’’s interpretation of the Constitution.” Had this quote been available at the […]

NewsAlert Blog has put up one of my favorite passages from Lysander Spooner in honor of today’s Supreme Court decision in Kelo.

Next Thursday, June 30th, I will be participating in the American Constitution Society’s Supreme Court Review to be held at the National Press Club (and possibly also broadcast on C*SPAN). Other panelists include former U.S. Solicitors General Drew Days and Seth Waxman, former New York Solicitor General Preeta Bansal, Avis Buchanan of the DC Defender […]

I did not receive very much feedback on my live blogging of the AALS conferences on contract law. So I decided, as an experiment, to open comments on this post so readers have a single place where they can react to the previous posts on all six panels (which are chained to this post). Did […]

I am often in disagreement with John Derbyshire, so if you are like me you are likely to miss his lively NRO article on The Folly of Our Age: The Space Shuttle Program. Here is how it ends: My experience of pointless make-work, which is much more extensive than I would have wished when starting […]

I have now fixed the link to my review of Bob Hillman’s book, The Richness of Contract Law (not that anyone complained). The review is called, The Richness of Contract Theory, and here is the abstract: In his book, “The Richness of Contract Law,” Robert Hillman criticizes “highly abstract” or “unifying” contract law theories that, […]

At lunch Dick Speidel (Northwestern) gave a tribute to the late Allan Farnsworth that asked, would an aspiring jobs candidate who said that he wanted to emulate Allan’s career be hired? Good question. Speidel characterizes Farnsworth’s approach as “Law and Law.” At the end of his talk, he asks the audience to candidly answer the […]