March 5 roundup

  • U.S. Commission on Civil Rights commissioners Gail Heriot, Peter Kirsanow: Administration’s new policy on race and school discipline likely to make schools more chaotic [Robby Soave, Daily Caller, 2011 related, earlier here, etc.]
  • French court: fan club members suffered legally cognizable emotional damage from Michael Jackson’s death [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
  • “The Newkirk incident demonstrates why cameras in the courtroom are a bad idea” [James Taranto, includes bonus New York Times disgrace]
  • Claim: advocates stymied firearms research over most of past two decades. Accurate? [Fox News]
  • Another look at the CPSC’s war on former Buckyballs CEO Craig Zucker [Jim Epstein, Reason, earlier]
  • Chris Christie use of monitorships in white-collar prosecutions draws renewed scrutiny [New Republic, earlier]
  • In which I am included in a list with George Will and Heather Mac Donald, all very flattering etc. etc. [Charles C. W. Cooke, NRO]
  • D.C.: disbarred lawyer sat for years as workers comp judge [Washington City Paper]
  • “German home-school family won’t be deported” although Supreme Court declines to hear asylum appeal [AP; discussion in comments earlier]

2 Comments

  • RE: Cameras in the Supreme Court.

    The argument seems to be that because there was a disruption that was captured on camera, cameras should be forever banned from the Supreme Court. I would say that it was precisely because there are no cameras in the courtroom that the incident became news. The headlines were not “protest at the Supreme Court” but rather “Video of Supreme Court Taken.”

    It wasn’t the images that made the news, but rather the rarity of those images.

    The question really is “in this day and age where cameras are so ubiquitous why does there need to be an exception for courts? If courts have ruled that police and other public officials can be filmed doing their jobs, why are judges and courtrooms exempt?

    “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” – Plato

  • Re: Firearms research and federal funding:
    I saw one article that mentioned such a ban, and within 5 minutes I had no trouble finding dozens of journal articles published since the “ban” where the research was funded by the NIH or other federal funding.