Every year, the Mississippi Law Journal publishes a symposium issue on an aspect of the Fourth Amendment. The latest symposium issue is now available as a single .pdf file: William Rehnquist’s Fourth Amendment.
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City to Store Owner: You May Not Sell Brillo Pads
I expect that such restrictions are not uncommon, but I just noticed them for the first time, in Amina, Inc. v. City of Minneapolis (Minn. Ct. App. Jan. 29, 2008): During November 2005, relator applied for grocery, food manufacturing, and tobacco dealer business licenses from respondent to operate a convenience store and deli in North […]
“Srinivasan Confirmation Hearing A Love Fest”
So reports McClatchy’s Suits & Sentences blog: Sri Srinivasan seems assured of winning approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee, following the conclusion of a 90-minute confirmation hearing that featured lots of bipartisan praise and no particularly tough questions. With Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah saying he supports Srinivasan, and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of […]
CFPB Credit Card Complaint Database Analyzed
Recent Bloomberg story on the CFPB’s database for credit card complaints: When U.S. officials began collecting consumer complaints about credit cards, one goal was to identify patterns that could help them write rules protecting families with low and moderate incomes. Nearly two years later, it’s the well-to-do neighborhoods of Florida and New York that are supplying the […]
Marriage equality event in D.C.
My friend Greg Lipper suggests that some of you may be interested in this marriage equality event in D.C., Marriage Equality: What can we expect from the Supreme Court and beyond?. The panelists are: The Honorable John M. Ferren, Senior Judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Moderator Paul M. Smith, Jenner & Block (counsel […]
Will CISPA amendments hurt cybersecurity?
The House intel committee is amending CISPA to address privacy criticisms. Politico’s Tony Romm reports on some of the likely amendments: Still another amendment specifies clearly that CISPA won’t allow companies to “hack back” their hackers in pursuit of stolen trade secrets … Really? A government that can’t protect us is debating new measures to make […]
Remembering Salmon P. Chase
This afternoon, I return to DC from London where I spoke to the conference of the Liberty League on Sunday. It was a remarkable group of student and other attendees. It feels odd to be here on the day that Margaret Thatcher died. Last night I attended a performance of The Audience with the marvelous […]
Roger Ebert, Pornography, and the Art of Cinema
Roger Ebert died this past week. He was best known for his various reviewing gigs on TV, starting with his show teamed with Gene Siskel. Because Siskel was tall and Ebert was short, during the show Ebert sat on phone books to lessen the height difference. Another odd story about Ebert is that he once […]
Looking for Some Lost Relatives
Four years back, I post the following: Tonight marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, so I thought I’d recount the little I know about the closest relative I know of who was murdered, my great-grandmother’s sister, Chana Basia (Anna) (Tetenbaum) Bogusz. Chana Basia was the daughter of Hersk (Gersk, Herschel) Tetenbaum and Ester Malka Rubensztejn Tetenbaum of Szczuczyn, […]
GMU Vision Series Lecture
Tonight at 7:15 at the GMU Arlington Campus I will be giving a GMU Vision Series Lectures on “The Not-So-Good-Old-Days of Consumer Credit: How to Think About Consumer Credit and Its Regulation.” Thank you to Provost Peter Stearns for the invitation and the honor of providing this lecture. The lecture will be in the new […]
A Remembrance of My Father on Holocaust Memorial Day
Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. In 2009, I blogged about my father’s experience as a Holocaust survivor. My father died last May, and so I wanted to post a somewhat longer version of his wartime story in his memory. I have taken it from the eulogy that our family rabbi gave at my […]
Supreme Court clarifies standards for qualified immunity in civil rights cases — or does it?
My new post is up on the Reason Foundation web site. It’s about the Supreme Court’s decision last term in Filarsky v. Delia (decided almost exactly a year ago), which discussed whether a private attorney doing an internal-affairs investigation for a municipality was entitled to qualified immunity in an employee’s § 1983 lawsuit. Here’s an […]
Trevor Morrison Named New Dean of NYU Law
I don’t know why a normal person would want to leave being a regular law professor to become a law school dean. But, assuming that such moves tend to be voluntary, congrats to Trevor Morrison for being named the new Dean of NYU Law. That’s great news.
Does a Ban on Driving While “Using a Wireless Telephone” Prohibit Driving While Looking at a Map on a Smartphone?
Here’s an interesting question of statutory interpretation raised by the invention of smartphones. California law bans using cell phones while driving as follows: A person shall not drive a motor vehicle while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is specifically designed and configured to allow hands free listening and talking, and is used in […]
Interview with Stephen J. Harper, Author of “The Lawyer Bubble”
You can listen to the interview here. The book is newly-available here. Thanks to JDunderground for the link.