First, a disclosure: I hate reality TV. And I never even heard of "Jon & Kate Plus 8", the popular TLC reality series, until a week ago. Apparently, it is a reality show about Jon and Kate Gosselin, a Pennsylvania husband and wife, as they raise their eight young children, including 8-year-old twins and sextuplets who just turned 5. An interesting legal … Read More
How NOT To Avoid Jury Duty
The court was not amused.
Prop 8 Court Challenge Primer
Today is the day of oral arguments in California Supreme Court, as justices hear challenges to Proposition 8, which passed by citizen vote last election. Prop 8 prohibits gay marriages. Four of the seven justices were convinced last spring that a prohibition on same-sex marriage violated a "fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship." But that is not the … Read More
Time To Change The Fourth Circuit
This op-ed piece in the New York Times reminds me: we can (and should) do something about the Fourth Circuit. The article is written by Judge Wilkinson, a staunch conservative, and a main driving force that gives the Fourth Circuit the reputation as being the most conservative in the country. The Fourth Circuit is the federal court of appeals (one … Read More
The Truth About That McDonald’s Hot Coffee Lawsuit
It came up in a conversation I had the other day: the lady who sued McDonald's because her coffee was too hot. It's always the example tossed out by people whenever there is a discussion about frivilous lawsuits. Now, there are frivilous lawsuits filed everday. But the McDonald's Hot Coffee Lawsuit is not a very good example. Here's what most people … Read More
Change I Can Believe In
The Office Of Legal Counsel is an important executive position. The OLC gives legal advice to the president and, by extension, the executive branch. Among other things, it informs the CIA and the Department of Interior what it judges to be permissible under the laws, and its opinions are binding. Most people had never heard of the OLC before the Bush … Read More
Speedy Trials? Not In These Bad Economic Times
This is bad: The economic storm has come to this: Justice is being delayed or disrupted in state courtrooms across the country. Financially strapped New Hampshire has become a poster child for the problem. Among other cost-cutting measures, state courts will halt for a month all civil and criminal jury trials early next year to save $73,000 in jurors' per … Read More
It’s A Control Thing
Orin Kerr asks "Why Do Conservatives Care So Much About The Courts?". He notes that a public survey shows that: When it comes to how they will vote in November, Republican voters say that the type of Supreme Court Justices a candidate would appoint is more important than the War in Iraq. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found … Read More
Obama Change (Gitmo Version)
Already Obama is gearing up to reverse the Bush position with respect to Gitmo detainees. Unlike Bush, who doesn't believe in the right to a speedy and fair trial is part of those God-given rights that we hold to be self-evident, Obama is… …quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to … Read More
The Latest Drudge-Driven Attack
Hyped by a Drudge article, the conservative websites and the McCain campaign are attacking Obama over this, a radio interview on September 6, 2001, by then state legislator Barack Obama. You can hear a heavily edited version on Youtube (this is what the conservatives are drooling over, but if you click on my first link, you'll see access to the entire … Read More
Greenwald Is Good Today
He’s on a rant about the Justice Department under the Bush Adminsitration — people who seem to think they work for the President and not for the people of the United States: The core attribute of the Justice Department is independence, not allegiance to the President as "client." The President has his own lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office. … Read More
Necrophilia In Wisconsin
Hi, guys. It’s quite obvious, looking at you, why you are unable to have sex with an actual living girl…. And I know, man. We’ve all been there, especially at the awkward pimply face age. But, I gotta tell you, digging up girls to have sex with? So, not cool. Their intended victim was a 20 year old nursing assistant … Read More
Modern Day Salem
Via Volokh, an interesting case (pdf) from Texas involving the exorcism of demons from a teenage girl: On Friday evening, before her parents left town, Laura [Schubert, a 17-year-old congregant,] attended a youth group activity at Pleasant Glade in preparation for a garage sale the next day. The atmosphere during this event became spiritually charged after one of the youth … Read More
Happy Birthday Myth
You know that thing about "Happy Birthday" being copyright protected? Turns out, not true so much: "Happy Birthday to You" is the best-known and most frequently sung song in the world. Many – including Justice Breyer in his dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft – have portrayed it as an unoriginal work that is hardly worthy of copyright protection, but nonetheless … Read More
NC Man On Death Row Freed
This is the kind of thing that makes my blood boil: For the second time in two months, an innocent man is being released from North Carolina’s death row. Levon "Bo" Jones spent 13 years on death row after being convicted of the 1987 murder of Leamon Grady. Federal judge Terrence Boyle vacated Jones’ conviction and death sentence in 2006 … Read More