- “On what planet is it remotely constitutional to *raid someone’s home* and forbid them from speaking about it?” [Julian Sanchez on new at-length National Review account of Wisconsin John Doe raids; my earlier writing on the raids at Cato and here; Scott Shackford, Reason; Walker opponents still defending John Doe proceeding, to praise from (updated) left-leaning national Alliance for Justice and Center for American Progress]
- Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoes bill to provide more transparency in state’s hiring of outside counsel [Legal NewsLine]
- BuckyBalls gone, Zen Magnets still standing: “Two Cheers for 10th Circuit’s Temporary Stay of CPSC’s New Magnet Safety Standard” [Mark Chenoweth, WLF]
- Arkansas governor vetoes “right of publicity” bill [Volokh]
- NY Times profiles prolific privacy lawsuit filer Jay Edelson, whose class action firm we’ve met before;
- Recusal motion gamesmanship from trial lawyers at Illinois Supreme Court [Richard Samp, WLF]
- Law faculty diversity: Republican women “were — and are — almost missing from law teaching.” [James Lindgren, SSRN via TaxProf; more from Lindgren]
Archive for 2015
CDC’s Frieden in denial about good news on vaping
Actual cigarette smoking among teens, the kind that requires inhaling carcinogenic products of combustion, is down a startling 25 percent in one year and nearly 42 percent since 2011. The reason is the rapid substitution of vaping or e-cigarettes, which hold singular promise as a harm-reduction measure for those drawn to the nicotine habit. Great news, right? Not if you listen to Thomas Frieden of the Centers for Disease Control, who’s doing his best to disguise good tidings as bad so as to stoke the officially encouraged panic about vaping. New York Times columnist Joe Nocera nails Frieden on the issue [h/t @jackshafer], providing a model of appropriately skeptical press scrutiny of someone who hardly ever gets subjected to that. More on Frieden; David Henderson on how FDA hostility to vaping could slow the shift from more-toxic alternatives; related, Greg Gutfeld on California ads trashing e-cigs.
P.S. Andrew Stuttaford thinks Frieden’s not in denial, he knows better.
Miss child support payment, go to jail
And good luck making those payments once you’ve lost your job or license. The Walter Scott shooting in South Carolina has focused belated attention on the “deadbeat-dad” rules crafted variously to please budget hawks, women’s rights advocates, and conservatives, which in practice can pile hopelessly large obligations on low-earning fathers, enforced in some states not only by jailing but also by deprivation of drivers’ and occupational licenses instrumental in earning a living. I’ve got more at Cato at Liberty, following up on New York Times coverage.
Traffic and road law roundup
- Driver’s license suspensions, which many states use to punish unpaid court debt and other offenses unrelated to driving skill, can accelerate spiral into indigency [New York Times]
- Your war on distracted driving: woman says she received $200 ticket “for putting on lip balm at a red light.” [KLAS Las Vegas, Nev.]
- “Of Course We Have No Ticket Quotas, But ….” [Lowering the Bar; Edmundson, Mo., in St. Louis County; Mariah Stewart, Huffington Post on revenue generation in Berkeley, Mo., and other neighboring towns; Scott Greenfield (“Ferguson: Where Everyone’s a Criminal”)]
- Yet more on St. Louis County: it started with a “defective muffler” stop in Florissant [Riverfront Times]
- NYC: “Speed cameras lead to surge in tickets and $16.9M in revenue for city” [NY Daily News]
- New Los Angeles parking signs explain it all for you, also recall design of craps table [Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing]
- Virginia: “How Police Drones and License-Plate Readers Threaten Liberty” [A. Barton Hinkle; related, Jim Harper/D.C. Examiner]
“FBI overstated forensic hair matches in nearly all trials before 2000”
“The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.” The overstatement of forensic matches favored prosecutors. “The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death,” of whom 14 have either died in prison or been executed. “The FBI errors alone do not mean there was not other evidence of a convict’s guilt.” [Spencer Hsu, Washington Post]
“Why Are Nevada State Senators Trying To Eviscerate The State’s Anti-SLAPP Statute?”
Is there someone in particular they’re hoping to shut up? [Popehat]
Labor and employment roundup
- Lefty argument du jour: government benefits for working poor subsidize low-wage employers. Oh? [Adam Ozimek via Tyler Cowen] Similarly: Tim Worstall; Michael Strain, WaPo; Coyote;
- “OSHA’s Latest Reporting and Recordkeeping Mandates: More Burdens with Few Benefits” [Eric J. Conn, Washington Legal Foundation]
- “EEOC: New York City owes underpaid minority female employees $246 million” [NY Daily News, NY Post (“de Blasio administration offered no evidence to contest the charges, the commission said”), Jon Hyman]
- Will the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal require countries to adopt minimum wage laws? [Simon Lester, Cato]
- House hearing on Obama executive order blacklisting contractors over labor violations in unrelated areas of their business, or at subcontractors [witnesses and testimony, Walberg statement, press release, video, SHRM]
- Sixth Circuit retaliation decision confirms need for kid-glove handling of employees who file discrimination complaints [Jon Hyman]
- Spontaneous protest doesn’t come cheap: SEIU spent $24 million in 2014 on fast food/retail wage movement [WLS Chicago 7]
LinkedIn dodges a legal bullet
Sorry, class action lawyers, but LinkedIn’s “References Searches” function does not constitute a consumer credit reporting agency [ESRCheck]
CPS vs. free-range parents: are there Constitutional issues?
Per Ilya Somin, there might be: “In two landmark cases in the 1920s, Meyer v. Nebraska and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Supreme Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects parents’ and guardians ‘to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.'” Meyer struck down a ban on instruction of students in foreign languages before eighth grade, while Pierce struck down a ban on private and religious school education. While authorities presumably have wider leeway to regulate pedestrian activity on public streets than instruction that may take place within private homes, churches, or schools, a degree of regulation that forcibly substitutes the state’s judgment for parents’ on debatable issues of child-rearing might cross a line.
The idea of a Constitutional right of parental autonomy appears to be alive and well on both conservative and liberal sides of the Court, but some may be surprised at which current Justice has written most critically of the idea: Antonin Scalia, because of his dislike for “substantive due process” theory and in general its protection of individual rights not enumerated in the Constitution. In a 2011 article I haven’t had a chance to read, David Wagner traced the Scalia-Thomas conflict and apparently also looked at whether Scalia continues to count as a holdout given what might be a softening of his views on the issue.
Related: Lenore Skenazy on Scotland’s scary Named Person child advocacy scheme [earlier on which], and interviewed by Joel Mathis at Philadelphia Magazine. Earlier on Child Protective Services.
Doonesbury and disrespect, cont’d
Reminder: as you lie bleeding to death on your office floor for drawing satire, Garry Trudeau will sneer at you for “punching down.” Greg Lukianoff and Patheos’s “Terry Firma” weigh in on the “Doonesbury” cartoonist’s sad contribution to the Charlie Hebdo discussion. Earlier here.