Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, in this ABA Journal post, makes the case that this Supreme Court term will be a momentous one for the Kennedy Court. He notes that: Once more, as it has been for each of the last six years, it will be, from a practical perspective, the Anthony Kennedy Court. In ideologically divided [...]
Just how important are ineffective assistance of counsel claims to the administration of real justice in this country? And if we conclude IAC claims are vital to rectifying injustices committed on criminal defendants by incompetent attorneys, how far is society prepared to go to correct the errors of incompetent counsel? The Supreme [...]
The New York Times has been criminal justice heavy in the last week. The articles are so good that I wanted to share them here all in one place. First, there was a great piece on how tough sentences have given prosecutors unbridled discretion. In this federal system this is especially true [...]
This fall the brunt of my blog posts will change from covering the Supreme Court to covering law school. And many of my posts will be anecdotal, about my experiences in the first year of law school. I also plan to have some of my fellow classmates write posts for the blogs. [...]
I just finished up two weeks of law school orientation, during which I met quite a few of my classmates, many of whom asked me questions relating to law school. So I thought I’d provide a different kind of orientation—a “best of” listing of articles that helped me to understand law school [...]
Supreme Court practice has a language unto itself. One of the terms you will occasionally hear at the certiorari stage is that a petition has “vehicle problems.” Well, what does that mean? And what the heck is a vehicle? The Court doesn’t like to waste time. So when they consider granting a [...]
Professor Douglas Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy has a great post about the GOP Presidential debate. Professor Berman would like to ask three highly relevant questions to candidates who support limited government and free markets. Those questions are: Do you support the bill introduced by Ron Paul and Barney Frank to get the federal government [...]
The 2011 Supreme Court Term is about to ramp up and there are several intriguing criminal cases set for argument. The cases I’m most curious to see the Court confront are the ones that have so far flown under-the-radar. Let’s start with the ineffective assistance of counsel cases. IAC claims are the [...]
Loyalty. It’s devotion. It’s faithfulness. It’s considered one of the highest acts of life. And think about this: the opposite of loyalty is betrayal. The reason for all this loyalty talk is because I must define mine this week. In two days, I start first year orientation at the University of Washington [...]
In August of 2012, Crown/Random House will release my memoir entitled "Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Cases and Finding Redemption." Crown has started sending copies of the manuscript to people for reviews and blurbs. One of the first people they sent the manuscript to was Michael Santos. Mr. Santos is a [...]