It’s not every day that you read a published appellate opinion that says “evidence at trial in this case was not sufficient to satisfy the jurisdictional element of the offense of conviction,” and then goes on to affirm the conviction. But that’s what happened in the Second Circuit’s decision Wednesday in United States v. Corey […]
Author Archive | Will Baude
Apply for the Stanford Constitutional Law Center Academic Fellowship
These days it has become more and more common for those who are interested in becoming law professors to pursue an academic “fellowship” first, spending 1-2 years in the academy reading and writing before going on the tenure-track job market. (As many as 78% of last-year’s tenure-track hires had a fellowship, according to Prawfsblawg.) To […]
Social Security Administration Takes Different View of Marital Choice of Law
Chris Geidner (my go-to source these days for post-DOMA legal developments) reports that the Social Security Administration has now developed policies for paying benefits to couples in same-sex marriages. Most interestingly, the SSA has bucked the trend in other executive agencies of paying benefits to all couples whose marriage was validly celebrated. Instead, the SSA […]
Reflections of the Judge Who Sentenced Future-D.C.-Circuit-Clerk Shon Hopwood
Shon Hopwood may be the most famous law student currently enrolled at the University of Washington. Hopwood spent time in federal prison for bank robbery, reformed, found a passion for the law, wrote a book about it, and will be clerking on the D.C. Circuit for Judge Janice Rogers Brown — an incredible redemption story. […]
Do Corporations Have a Right to Sell Kosher Meat?
I’ve seen some skeptical responses to my previous post about corporations and free exercise, of which Dahlia Lithwick’s and David Gans’s are emblematic. My point, recall, was that the Third Circuit’s logic led to the conclusion that churches don’t have free exercise rights, and that even though the Third Circuit said that that didn’t have […]
Today’s Argument in United States v. Cannon
While I am reprising themes from prior posts, I thought I would also note that the Fifth Circuit heard argument today in United States v. Cannon, a case on the constitutionality of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Prevention Act — whose justification under the Thirteenth Amendment I discussed here. Josh Blackman has a detailed account […]
Second Thoughts on Civil Unions and Federal Law
Last week, I had a post that was skeptical of the claim that current law requires the federal government to recognize state civil unions as marriages. Reading through this brief recently filed by the state of New Jersey, I am no longer so sure. (The brief is a defense of New Jersey’s civil union law […]
The Missing Part of The Washingtonian Signing Bonus Story
I’ve seen several links to the Washingtonian piece on Supreme Court signing bonuses. The interesting claim in the piece is that hiring Supreme Court clerks is a “gamble,” because it’s possible they’ll leave after a very short period of time but keep all the money. (“So how can a law firm ensure it’s betting on […]
Steve Sanders on The Obligation to Recognize Out-of-State Marriages
IU Law Professor Steve Sanders has a post on the ACS Blog discussing Obergefell v. Kasich, the S.D. Ohio decision I blogged about earlier that required Ohio to recognize a marriage from Maryland — a marriage performed on a jet that had touched down in Maryland for the ceremony. Sanders is quite critical of the […]
Civil Unions and Federal Law
A commenter to my last DOMA/choice-of-law post asks– why not just have federal law recognize all state-law civil unions? Why insist that a legal union be labeled “marriage” to count federally as a marriage? There are two slightly different versions of this question, which in my view have different answers. Version one: Under current law, […]
Dorf on “Lifetime” Warranties
When a product has a “lifetime” warranty, what does that actually mean, and whose lifetime is it referring to? Mike Dorf has some interesting reflections. (I confess I’d always assumed, without really thinking about it, that it meant the lifetime of the purchaser, which Dorf dismisses as “absurd” and “preposterous.”)
Cozen O’Connor v. Tobits: A Questionable Resolution of Some Complicated Choice of Law Problems
Thanks to the ever-alert Chris Geidner, I saw this post-DOMA decision by a federal district court in Pennsylvania, which is a good example of how complicated the post-DOMA choice-of-law problems can be (and how hard it is to get them right). The case is an interpleader action dealing with ERISA problems (bear with me!) arising […]
Skepticism About the Third Circuit’s Rejection of Organizational Free Exercise Claims
The Third Circuit today split with the en banc Tenth Circuit (and less directly, some other courts) in rejecting a Free Exercise and RFRA challenge to the contraceptive coverage mandate. The majority decided that a closely-held, secular, for-profit corporation cannot assert Free Exercise or RFRA rights at all, and also that its members cannot assert […]
Joey Fishkin on “Shenanigans” After Section Five
Joey Fishkin has an excellent post on some of the many voting changes that previously-covered jurisdictions are implementing (or may implement) now that they are not covered by Section Five of the Voting Rights Act. He devotes particular attention to some suspicious-sounding “shenanigans” (his word) in Beaumont, Texas, and makes the general observation: [T]he greatest […]
Republicans Dispute Federal Power to Regulate Abortion
By Will Baude on July 25, 2013 5:03 pm in Abortion, Commerce Clause, Federalism, Fourteenth Amendment
Politico has a story about Marco Rubio’s attempted sponsorship of federal anti-abortion legislation. Apparently the bill is being delayed, however, by a dispute about federal power to regulate abortion: Rubio and 27 other Republican senators signed onto a bill from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in 2011 that would require lawmakers to point to which piece […]