Legal minds on legal matters and whatever else strikes our fancy.
Prof. Samuelson has a thorough response to my post about John Adams and individual liberty. While it’s true I’m not a great admirer of Adams (I’m much fonder of his son), my point was not biographical or historical, but philosophical: democracy is an instrumental good, one that is valuable only insofar as [...]
At the Liberty Law Blog, Prof. Richard Samuelson argues that John Adams’ defense of religious liberty offers a model for our own day. Adams refused to write Article III of the Massachusetts Constitution—which provided for an established church—because it was inconsistent with his belief in religious freedom. Instead, Samuelson writes, “Adams punted,” [...]
Alvin Thomas is a federal inmate incarcerated in Kentucky, sentenced to 20-years imprisonment for cocaine distribution and possession. During the course of the prosecution, government lawyers initiated asset forfeiture proceedings against his property. Mr. Thomas asserts that because those efforts prevented him from using his assets to hire an attorney of his choice, the government [...]
Adam Liptak at the New York Times has this great piece about a petition for certiorari asking the Court to grant a case involving some Seattle police officers, who tasered a pregnant woman because she refused to sign a speeding ticket. The police officers won on qualified immunity grounds in a divided en banc decision from the [...]
In an article for The New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen writes that the recent decision in the Hettinga case has “unmasked” the continuing machinations of Rosen’s “Constitution in Exile” conspiracy. I say his conspiracy because in Rosen’s eyes, the widening circle of lawyers, judges, and law professors who are drawing attention to the many [...]
Illinois has one of the strictest laws in the country when it comes to people audio recording police officers in public. But then again, Illinois is also known for a long history of police corruption, and maybe the State thought it could prevent a few civil rights settlements by banning people from recording their interactions with police. Whatever the motivation behind the law, it doesn't [...]
Now that Rose is out for the remainder of the playoffs, the Bulls are mere mortals in a pool of mostly mortal teams. They were able to get by through the season without the reigning MVP from last year by playing outstanding defense, allowing everyone to get involved in the offense, and playing each game [...]