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“[T]he medal recognizes ‘those legal giants among us who have altered the landscape of California jurisprudence.’ It is conferred on people ‘who, through a career of extraordinary service, have made significant contributions to the quality of justice and legal scholarship in our state.’” An eminently well-earned honor for a superb judge (and, I’m pleased to […]

read the title of a post from our friendly rival at Above the Law, and the plea has led us to fall behind by (at current count) 313 votes. So we plead right back: Please vote for your favorite law blog — whatever that might happen to be — at this page; the rules allow […]

Majid Khan is a CIA detainee. In meetings with his attorneys, Khan has apparently made allegations concerning his treatment during his detention. Yet such information, even as detailed by Khan himself, is presumptively classified, and his attorneys are apparently barred from relating Khan’s claims to Congress. Marty Lederman finds this “absurd,” and I am inclined […]

To see the posts on this subject from beginning to end (rather than in the blog-normal reverse order), click here.

Finally, let me close this series of posts with a thought about the particular damages award in Snyder, and what it says about the danger of leaving these questions to juries. The jury awarded $8 million in punitive damages to the plaintiff in Snyder v. Phelps, but it also awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. […]

I’ve tried to explain recent posts why I think this particular verdict against the Phelpsians is unconstitutional, because the intentional infliction of emotional distress tort and the invasion of privacy tort can’t properly be used to punish such speech. But may a legislature permissibly enact statutes banning funeral picketing, perhaps by analogy to many jurisdictions’ […]

I’ve argued in earlier posts that the verdict against Phelps should be set aside because the intentional infliction of emotional distress tort is facially overbroad and thus unconstitutional as applied to speech. The tort might be constitutional if a court limits it to applying only to otherwise unprotected speech (such as threats, fighting words, and […]

The Snyder v. Phelps jury held defendants liable not just for intentional infliction of emotional distress, but also for invasion of privacy. “Invasion of privacy” covers several torts, but the ones alleged here were “intrusion upon seclusion” (because the picketing was outside a funeral, albeit 1000 feet away) and “publicity given to private life” (apparently […]

I just blogged about why the intentional infliction of emotional distress tort is unconstitutional, at least unless it’s limited to otherwise unprotected speech (such as threats or fighting words) — which it hasn’t been. Here I want to explain why it’s proper to focus on the constitutionality of the law generally, and not just on […]

I’m blogging today about the recent $10.9 million verdict against the Phelpsians for their offensive picketing 1000 feet away from a military funeral. Since there are lot of doctrines and questions in play here, I’ll try to post separately about several separate aspects of the issue. I should also say up front that I think […]

Who should you support for President? The Presidential Candidate Selector quiz is here.

Maxwell Stearns and I are developing a new course book, Public Choice Concepts and Applications in Law. We are planning to publish the book (with West) in early 2009 and are looking for volunteers who might be interested in teaching some or all of the chapters during the Spring 2008 or Fall 2009 Semesters. The […]

I blogged before about how much easier it was to get FIOS internet than Comcast Internet. However, while my internet service has been excellent, Verizon is losing a lot of my good will due to its billing customer service. I won’t go through all the gory details, but Verizon hasn’t responded to emails, when I […]

I see that the secretive and powerful movement to think of all constitutional amendments in terms of four models — and then, importantly, to focus on why no one model can work and the merits of using different models in different contexts — has taken on new life with a recent lecture by Mark Tushnet. […]

A reader passes along this link to a discussion of waterboarding by Malcolm Nance at Small Wars Journal. Nance appears to have much more knowledge of waterboarding, and how it has been utilized in military training, than most who opine on the subject. It seems to me his perspective should be taken quite seriously. He […]