I heard Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick speak last week about her experiences covering the Court. Dahlia said that one of the main differences between the Court’s first 150 years and the current Court is that the latter are not nearly as tough, because none of them are former politicians. Then I read Justice [...]
We are fortunate to have my wife, Ann Marie, guest blogging today about an important issue: eating disorders. If you unaware of my wife’s story, here it is: She struggled with anorexia for twenty years. At several points, she dropped down to 60-some pounds and was on the verge of death. But [...]
I enjoyed a personal treat last week. On Thursday, I was fortunate enough to meet and listen to Dahlia Lithwick, who gave a lecture at Creighton law school. For those of you that follow the Supreme Court, you probably already know that Ms. Lithwick is the Senior Editor of Slate magazine and [...]
On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear argument in DePierre v. United States, 09-1533, and decide a long-running dispute on what Congress meant by the term “cocaine base” for purposes of imposing mandatory minimum sentences under the federal narcotics statute. In 1985, Maryland basketball star Len Bias died of a cocaine drug overdose [...]
If you are a lover of music, pay attention. On February 18th, Radiohead released their eighth studio album entitled, The King of Limbs. Rather than a big CD release, the band released the album on their website in electronic format only. You can purchase it here. The CD will hit record stores on March 28th. [...]
Last week a number of distinguished organizations released a new report meant to urge Congress and the President into making substantive changes to the way this country deals with crime. In my last post, I pointed out the strengths of the report. In this post, I want to discuss a few items that [...]
Last night, I read through most of the report entitled, Smart on Crime: Recommendations for the Administration and Congress. The goal of the report is to provide “analysis of the problems plaguing our state and federal criminal justice systems and a series of recommendations to address these failures.” For the most part, [...]
The New York Times’ reporting has been legal-heavy in the past week. Emily Bazelon, normally of Slate, covered the subject of shaken-baby syndrome and how that crime is proved in court. Adam Liptak discusses the possibility that the Supreme Court could lose its reputation for impartiality if the Court rules in a partisan way on the Obama [...]