- Per The Economist, long-awaited Justice Department rules decreeing ADA accessibility for websites (earlier here, here, etc.) expected any day now, “in June. For example, each picture must have text describing it, so that screen-reader programs can tell blind people what is there.” Individual enforcement actions, as against Peapod, aren’t waiting [DoJ press release] Settlement with MOOC firm signals DOJ plans to deal with online education providers [Cooley] Contributor believes it’s a snap to include online captioning in all online Harvard and MIT courses, so what’re they waiting for? [Time]
- Rest of the Economist article is of interest too, especially on ADA filing mills in Florida and elsewhere;
- In Sheehan v. San Francisco, Ninth Circuit created right to ADA accommodation in confrontations with law enforcers, SCOTUS reversed on other (qualified immunity) grounds [Mark Pulliam, City Journal; Richard Re, Prawfs]
- Commemorations of 25th anniversary of the ADA — here’s what I had to say about the 20th — include plans “to hold [various Chicago institutions] publicly accountable for their commitments” to, inter alia, “increase civic engagement around disability issues” [Michael Waterstone, Prawfs]
- Sacramento: “Squeeze Inn owner joins fight against costly ADA lawsuits” [KCRA]
- Spread of fake service dog paraphernalia alarms groups that work with actual service dogs [BBC]
- Intended class-action plaintiff sues McDonald’s over new style Coca-Cola Freestyle dispensers, saying touchscreen format unfair to disabled users [BigClassAction.com]
R.I.P. Vincent Bugliosi
Prosecutor/author Vincent Bugliosi, most famous for prosecuting Charles Manson and for the true-crime book he wrote about the case afterward, “Helter Skelter,” has died at age 80. I wrote a mostly favorable review of Bugliosi’s bestselling 1996 book on the O.J. Simpson case, Outrage.
143 Texas bikers in jail
Some of the 143 jailed bikers no doubt played a guilty role in a spectacular motorcycle club shootout that left nine dead at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. Some say they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, including a 30 year old volunteer firefighter who says he has no criminal record and tried to hide during the violence. In either event, no one important seems to care, although some defense-lawyer and civil-liberties types grouse about an “unprecedented…wholesale roundup of people” for “being at the scene of a crime” under a principle of “Let’s arrest them all and sort it out later.” Bail for many has been set at a prohibitive $1 million apiece, and no formal charges have been brought. “Under Texas law, a grand jury has 90 days to indict those in custody before they are entitled to reduced bonds.” Police say they consider the matter to be one of organized crime and that an investigation is ongoing. [Molly Hennessy-Fiske, L.A. Times] More: Scott Greenfield. Update: Texas Tribune (bail process crawls forward, more commentators raising questions about process).
June 10 roundup
- Alan Dershowitz, Harvard lawprof, suing TD Garden over slip and fall in bathroom three years back [Boston Globe]
- “Harsh Sanction Proposed For Attorney Who Blogged About Probate Case” [Mike Frisch, Legal Profession Blog]
- Maryland veto sets back reform: “Governor Hogan, Civil Asset Forfeiture Is Inherently Abusive” [Adam Bates, Cato]
- “‘Vape’ bans have little to do with public health” [Jacob Grier, Oregonian in February]
- Academics prosper through expert witness work, part one zillion [Ira Stoll]
- Sounds good: call for civil procedure reform includes fact-based pleading, strict discovery limits, case-specific rules, and more [Jordy Singer, Prawfs, on recommendations from American College of Trial Lawyers Task Force on Discovery and Civil Justice and Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System]
- Draft plan would arm FTC with vast power over data practices [James C. Cooper, Morning Consult, via @geoffmanne]
Paid leave laws often backfire
Laws prescribing maternal and child care leave and benefits often backfire on their intended beneficiaries, reducing employer willingness to hire workers expected to take the benefits. That’s not exactly news to those familiar with the economic way of thinking; what’s noteworthy is that it’s something being reported in the New York Times, which cites a law in Spain that entitles parents to ask for reduced hours and has led to a reduced willingness to employ mothers, and a child-care mandate in Chile that has been followed by a decline in starting wages for women, as well as much noncompliance. “A broader analysis of 22 countries found that women were more likely to work when these types of policies are in place, but their jobs more likely to be ‘dead-end’ positions and less likely to be managerial posts.” America’s own Family and Medical Leave Act, often thought to be less burdensome because leave is unpaid, has not been exempt from the logic: “Women are slightly more likely to stay employed, but receive fewer promotions because of the law, according to research cited by the New York Times.” The Times says the “three American states — California, New Jersey and Rhode Island — that offer paid family leave finance it through employee payroll taxes,” which tends to make it a little more explicit that the cost of the benefits is coming largely out of compensation packages. [Nicole Kaeding, Cato; Claire Cain Miller, “The Upshot,” New York Times]
“Legal profession admits undocumented immigrants”
At least in New York and California, if not every state. [John Steele, Legal Ethics Forum] Curiously uncontroversial, no? In 2012 we noted: “Among the trip-ups are that lawyers are sworn by oath to uphold the laws of the land; that federal law bars the granting of state professional licenses to illegals; that federal law makes it unlawful to offer employment to them; and that clients might find themselves in a pickle were their attorneys whisked away on zero notice to face deporation.” More: Scott Greenfield.
Free speech roundup
- Weirdly, Europe is more willing to legislate against pro-ISIS views than openly to argue against them [Nick Cohen]
- City of Inglewood, Calif. sues for copyright infringement over videos by critic of Mayor Butts [CBS L.A., Volokh, Paul Alan Levy]
- “Department Of Justice Uses Grand Jury Subpoena To Identify Anonymous Commenters on a Silk Road Post at Reason.com” [Ken White/Popehat, Wired, Scott Greenfield]
- Bans on the singing of sectarian songs, as in the Scotland case mentioned here recently, are perhaps less surprisingly also a part of law in Northern Ireland [Belfast Telegraph, BBC] UK government “now arresting and even jailing people simply for speaking their minds” [Brendan O’Neill]
- Broad “coalition of free speech, web publishing, and civil liberties advocates” oppose provisions in anti-“trafficking” bill creating criminal liability for classified ad sites; Senate passes bill anyway by 99-0 margin [Elizabeth Nolan Brown; more from Brown on bill (“What, you mean grown women AREN’T being abducted into sex slavery at Hobby Lobby stores in Oklahoma?” — @mattwelch), yet more on trafficking-panic numbers]
- Group libel laws, though approved in the 1952 case Beauharnais v. Illinois, are now widely regarded as no longer good law, but a Montana prosecutor doesn’t seem aware of that [Volokh] No, let’s not redefine “incitement” so as to allow the banning of more speech [Volokh]
- Supreme Court’s ruling in Elonis, the “true threats on Facebook” case, was speech-protective but minimalist [Ilya Shapiro, Orin Kerr, Ken White, Eugene Volokh]
Jailed for missing school: the problem with truancy laws
My new piece at Reason begins:
We’ve seen it happen again and again: libertarians are derided over some supposedly crazy or esoteric position, years pass, and eventually others start to see why our position made sense. It’s happened with asset forfeiture, with occupational licensure, with the Drug War, and soon, perhaps, with libertarians’ once-lonely critique of school truancy laws.
In his 1980 book Free To Choose, economist Milton Friedman argued that compulsory school attendance laws do more harm than good, a prescient view considering what’s come since: both Democratic and Republican lawmakers around the country, prodded by the education lobby, have toughened truancy laws with serious civil and even criminal penalties for both students and parents. Now the horror stories pile up: the mom arrested and shackled because her honor-roll son had a few unexcused sick days too many, the teenagers managing chaotic home lives who are threatened with juvenile detention for their pains, the mother who died in jail after being imprisoned for truancy fines. It’s been called carceral liberalism: we’re jailing you, your child, or both, but don’t worry because it’s for your own good. Not getting enough classroom time could really ruin a kid’s life.
My article also mentions that a bill to reform Texas’s super-punitive truancy laws has reached Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, following the reported success of an experiment in San Antonio and pressure from a Marshall Project report. Finally, truancy-law reform is looking to become an issue across the political spectrum — but libertarians were there first. (cross-posted from Cato at Liberty).
Post-trial maneuvering in a discrimination verdict
In March a San Francisco jury returned a defense verdict in Ellen Pao’s widely publicized sex discrimination suit against Kleiner Perkins. As so often when a lawsuit story sounds over, however, that’s been just the prelude to further wrangling over a possible settlement: Kleiner says Pao has demanded $2.7 million in exchange for not pursuing an appeal, while Kleiner, citing a spurned pre-trial offer that it says triggers the operation of California’s offer-of-settlement law, has asked a court to order Pao to pay nearly $1 million in expert witness fees and other costs. Davey Alba at Wired reports and quotes me on several aspects.
Last week CBS radio quoted me on another high-profile discrimination suit, EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores LLC, the headscarf accommodation case:
Environment roundup
- Coming this Thursday, June 11: Cato conference marks tenth anniversary of eminent domain/property rights case Kelo v. New London, with Ilya Somin, author of new book The Grasping Hand [register or watch online, David Lat interview and more on Somin’s book here, here (with link to full post series at end)]
- EPA spent tax money on social media campaign to generate public comments supporting its planned regs [Eric Lipton and Coral Davenport/New York Times (“The Obama administration is the first to give the E.P.A. a mandate to create broad public outreach campaigns, using the tactics of elections, in support of federal environmental regulations before they are final,” despite series of DoJ opinions deeming similar efforts unlawful), Nicole Kaeding/Cato, D.C. Examiner] Agency has used its Clean Water Act authority to grab power “over just about any creek, pond, prairie pothole or muddy farm field that EPA says has a ‘significant nexus’ to a navigable waterway.”[WSJ/Kitsap Alliance, also M. Reed Hopper/Todd Gaziano background; Karen Bennett and John Henson, Federalist Society “Engage” on federalism angle]
- Advances against Ebola, cancer, blindness: “Animal Testing and Its Gifts To Humans” [Frankie Trull, WSJ/Emory Yerkes Primate Center]
- “Tax Increment Financing Is The New Urban Renewal” [Scott Beyer]
- Cato files amicus brief supporting property owners who say restrictions on prairie dog habitat exceed Congress’s powers under Interstate Commerce Clause [Trevor Burrus and Roger Pilon, Cato]
- Former hunt saboteur and director of the League Against Cruel Sports: U.K.’s “ban on hunting with dogs has done nothing for animal welfare and should be repealed.” [Jim Barrington, Our Kingdom]
- Drought forced Australia to develop a sophisticated water market. When will California learn? [David Henderson]