Legal Commentary

Snow Day!

Posted on January 28, 2008
Today our law school closed because of a record amount of snowfall in Spokane over the weekend. I imagine the students are psyched to have the unexpected day off, especially since it's bright and sunny so far today -- although the fun of the day off may be undermined a bit if we learn that we have to make up all the lost class hours from today...

New Scholarship (and Pretty PDFs)...

Posted on January 28, 2008
A while back, I blogged about the perils of my over-committed spring semester a year ago, including the various symposia to which I had promised contributions. As it turns out, two of those symposia (both from April 2007) have been published in the past few days -- Lewis and Clark's symposium on "Crimes, War Crimes, and the War on Terror," (with the articles available here), and Cardozo's symposium on the "Domestic Commander-in-Chief" (with the articles available here; scroll down to "Issue 3")...

On the Philip Morris Comment and Talking "Out of School"

Posted on January 25, 2008
Dan asks whether anything could be said in defense of the student comment on the Philip Morris case, or whether anyone can at least provide a more even-handed critique of it than some of the pile-on comments over at the VC. It must be Friday, because I've been thinking about this on and off all afternoon...

Who Knew?

Posted on January 25, 2008
Oy. The "Stop Snitching!" movement may find its roots in shul. Awkward.

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Cruel and Unusual? On the Harvard Law Review's Case Comment on Philip Morris

Posted on January 24, 2008
Over at Volokh.com, David Bernstein, while reserving extended comment, highlights a few excerpts from a case comment from the Supreme Court issue from November 2007 on the Philip Morris decision. See The Supreme Court, 2006 Term Leading Cases I. Constitutional Law C...

Why T-Mobile sucks and why phone service should be liberated from handsets

Posted on January 24, 2008
Sometimes I feel uncomfortably like a character on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Here's one reason why. I'm hoping that by relating this experience, it will prove useful for those of you contemplating changing your wireless service. I've generally been a fan of T-Mobile's service in the past, which is why a bit more than a year ago, I decide to buy the Blackberry Pearl from one of their stores and enter into a service agreement with them...

Hamilton on the Guarantee Clause

Posted on January 24, 2008
In a Findlaw column on Lopez Torres, Marci Hamilton revisits California Democratic Party v. Jones, in which the Court strikes down, on First Amendment grounds, California's Prop 193, which had tried to force parties to have open primaries. She thinks this was an unnecessary intrusion into state sovereignty -- but hints that there were alternative grounds to get rid of Prop 193's effect...

The "National Security Exception" to Bivens

Posted on January 24, 2008
Over at Opinio Juris, Roger Alford has the latest in a series of posts related to the Padilla v. Yoo suit and the more general issue of Bivens claims in terrorism cases. As Roger writes, "Whatever one thinks of John Yoo, I'm just surprised that there is not greater agreement that a Bivens claim for damages against government and military officials for alleged constitutional violations is a bad idea when it comes to government conduct in the waging of war...

Wisdom Sometimes Comes Free: The Atlantic Firewall Comes Down

Posted on January 23, 2008
The Atlantic Monthly, one of my long-time favorite magazines, has just announced that it will be removing its firewall, which means their archives are freely available for linking and viewing. If you're interested in Atlantic writings, here's some information about pulling things up: You can browse recent Atlantic content here...

Kissling & Michelman on the Roe anniversary

Posted on January 22, 2008
Here is an op-ed, in the Los Angeles Times, called "Abortion's Battle of Messages", by Frances Kissling (formerly with "Catholics for a Free Choice") and Kate Michelmen (formerly with NARAL-Pro-Choice America). Now, I believe that Roe was wrong and also that abortions which involve the intentional killing of a fetus are immoral...

If you wanted to imbibe with bloggers in New York ...

Posted on January 22, 2008
A guide to New York blogger bars. A related article at CNET.com.

Scholarship on the "Declare War" Power

Posted on January 22, 2008
In the hopes of expanding my teaching range in constitutional law this semester, I spent some time this weekend reading three very interesting articles in the November 2007 volume of the Cornell Law Review, in which the authors debate the constitutional power to declare war...

MLK and the Cognitive Dimension of Leadership

Posted on January 22, 2008
I'm a day late for a timely post honoring the legacy of Dr. King, but I attribute that to my delayed reaction to the fact that the Giants actually won Sunday night. (Are you sure? I'm really not dreaming?) Anyway, I am not usually one who likes to write "pointer" posts, i...

Tomorrow's Legal Ethics Exam Today

Posted on January 18, 2008
This is a fascinating story, in Saturday's Times: For 10 years, Leslie P. Smith, a Virginia lawyer, reluctantly kept a secret because the authorities on legal ethics told him he had no choice, even though his information could save the life of a man on death row, one whose case had led to a landmark Supreme Court decision...

After Long Silence

Posted on January 18, 2008
Many of my students and colleagues thought, for some crazy reason, that the holiday season would be a good time to visit family, go somewhere warm, or otherwise relax. Naturally, I thought it would be a great time to do this instead: As it turns out, oddly enough, spinal fusion surgery is less fun than a trip to the beach...

Non-Elite Interdisiciplinary Scholars

Posted on January 17, 2008
Brian Tamanaha has started the conversation about whether non-elite schools should hire interdisciplinary scholars. Here's the summary: First and foremost, as argued above, there is no evidence that it will make their students better lawyers. Second, it costs a lot of money to go interdisciplinary, and (because non-elite schools are tuition driven) this money will come out of the pockets of the students...

Selling Out

Posted on January 17, 2008
I had the good fortune to attend a "City Arts & Lectures" event last night. Randy Kennedy was "conversing" with Chris Edley about Sellout, Kennedy's new book about people (presumably minorities or other non-white-hetero-males) that become enemies of their own people...

Racial Profiling and the Exclusionary Rule

Posted on January 17, 2008
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals filed an interesting and potentially important decision this week in U.S. v. Nichols, 2008 WL 123815 (6th Cir., Jan. 15 2008). Charged with possession of a firearm, Nichols claimed ?racial profiling? when the police conducted a warrant check on him, but the Fourth Amendment could provide no remedy even if the claim was true because Nichols had not been searched or seized yet...

Revisiting Powerpoint, again...

Posted on January 16, 2008
As the new semester here began last week, I used my tried and true method of teaching big classes with powerpoint slides. (For some reason I can't access the permalink to my Sept 1/05 post about why I love powerpoint, but you can find some reflections by Kristin Hickman here and the original post in the archive here...

If You want to satisfy some gossip cravings, Sarkozy-Bruni is the way to go

Posted on January 16, 2008
Oh, L?Ennui. Seriously, I simply don?t understand why Americans are fascinated by the lives of dull pathetic kids like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. I do get the cravings for some voyeurism into other people?s love lives. But the French have it so much better...

Ah, Democracy

Posted on January 16, 2008
Although most San Franciscans' thoughts about February 5th focus on the presidential primaries, it wouldn't be California if we didn't also have to wade our way through a handful of ballot measures. My favorite is Prop C, an effort by the "Light Party" to get Alcatraz Island back from the federal government to build a "Global Peace Center"...

We Raise Our Glass, You Bet Your Ass...

Posted on January 16, 2008
The NYTimes headline that jumped off the screen at me this morning was the news that the Broadway production of Rent will close on June 1, a little over 12 years (or "Nine hundred thirty thousand, one hundred eighty minutes," as the Times lede appropriately points out) after it opened in February 1996...

Creative Writing and Essay Questions: Some Examples

Posted on January 15, 2008
Last week I asked PrawfsBlawg readers to submit examples of essay questions that were more than just a fact pattern. I was looking for essays that told a good story, that had a narrative structure, that presented an interesting dilemma. I'm happy to report that a few prawfs have emailed in some great examples...

Did Judge Alex Misstate the Law?

Posted on January 14, 2008
Over at BLT, Tony Mauro has a great report up on the argument in Preston v. Ferrer (the "Judge Alex" case), by far the less outwardly interesting of the two cases the Supreme Court heard today. As Tony recounts, there were serious fireworks during the argument of Judge Alex's lawyer, Eric Brunstad, including several suggestions by the Justices that Brunstad's merits brief affirmatively misstated the law...

The Good Student Who Writes the Bad Exam

Posted on January 14, 2008
I'm (finally) almost done grading my three (!) classes from last semester (note to self: that really wasn't the best idea you've ever had there, Steve). I like to think I would have finished yesterday if it weren't for my new best friend Eli "turning the corner" (for the 93rd time, which means we're back at 90 degrees)...

Laptops in class, redux

Posted on January 14, 2008
At Concurring Opinions, Donald Braman discusses Larry Mitchell's (glowing) report on his recent experience with "laptopless" law-classes. Braman notes, among other things: One cautionary note about going laptopless for those who are considering the move -- it can leave both students and professors feeling a bit exposed...

"Neurolaw"

Posted on January 14, 2008
The latest edition of the radio program, "Justice Talking", is called "Neurolaw: The New Frontier." (Click here to listen, or read more.) Here's the "overview": Some lawyers are using brain scans showing defects to argue that their clients aren?t responsible for criminal behavior...

Live Blogging from my Stomach -- Butterflies

Posted on January 14, 2008
One of the greatest things about reading blogs for me is the ability to access content exactly when it's relevant. Sometimes that means blogging about something that just happened, and sometimes that means blogging live from a conference. I particularly like posts like this one, because the reader can feel as though she's sitting right next to Larry Solum at the Southern Political Science Association meeting...

A Gonzaga v. Doe Reality Lesson

Posted on January 14, 2008
I imagine most of us, for each class we teach, have a list of favorite and least-favorite cases. For Federal Courts (by far my favorite class to teach), the latter list is far longer than the former, and includes, near the top (perhaps second only to this one), the Supreme Court's 2002 decision in Gonzaga University v...

Hello ...

Posted on January 13, 2008
I'm very excited to be invited to start the new year with a return visit to PrawfsBlawg. I teach criminal law, criminal procedure, constitutional law and ethics at Gonzaga Law School, although my online musings for 2008 may extend well beyond these topics -- not that they haven't already in the past...

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