- “I’m looking at Sarge, like, ‘What am I writing him for?’ The sergeant said, ‘Blocking pedestrian traffic.'” [Brian Doherty]
- “No one is innocent: I broke the law yesterday and again today and I will probably break the law tomorrow” [Alex Tabarrok, BLT]
- Alabama officials reviewing NTSB-funded weekend roadblocks where motorists were asked for breath, blood and saliva samples [Montgomery Advertiser] “Maybe the NTSB should become a Common Rule agency” [i.e., subject to Human Subjects Research rules; @MichelleNMeyer]
- New Jersey bill would require driver in some traffic mishaps to hand over cellphone to cop [S. 2783 (Holzapfel, Sen.) via @MeckReal]
- “In Dubai airport, three poppy seeds from a bread roll fell in a Swiss man’s clothes and got him four years in prison” [@SanhoTree on BBC 2008 report]
- “Hookup Shocker: The Sex Is Legal, but Talking About It Is a Felony!” [Jacob Sullum] “The Man Who Abused Me is Not on the Sex Offender List (The One who Saved Me Is)” [Free-Range Kids; related on registries, Michele Goodwin, Bill of Health]
- “Senator Ervin, ‘No-Knock’ Warrants, and the Fight to Stop Cops from Smashing into Homes the Way Burglars Do” [Radley Balko guestblogging at ACLU; yesterday’s post on Balko’s new book, and more (“7 Ways The Obama Administration Has Accelerated Police Militarization”)]
What Spitzer might be up to as NYC comptroller
Strong-arming gun makers to act against their perceived business interests, as well as those of their customers:
…in retrospect, there were a few clues that Spitzer was eying a job whose duties include managing the city’s pension funds…
In December, after the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Spitzer wrote a column in the online publication Slate arguing that pension funds should use their investing clout to pressure corporations such as gunmakers to act in the public interest.
New York City’s comptroller, Spitzer said in the interview, is “a significant player in terms of the pension funds and how those shares are voted. And when I speak with folks about corporate governance, the missing link in all of this has been ownership.”
Eliot Spitzer has long been a key player in efforts to intimidate lawful gun manufacturers through both strained litigation theories and hamhanded attempts at economic pressure. The NYC comptroller’s office, with its sway over billions in pension fund money, would present him with a large sandbox indeed.
New book: Radley Balko on militarized police
Radley Balko, often linked in this space, is out with a new book entitled Rise of the Warrior Cop, about the militarization of local police forces. [Reviews: Scott Greenfield, Diane Goldstein] A Salon excerpt details SWAT team raids over such offenses as sports gambling (“It [the Fairfax County, Va. 2006 shooting of football bettor Sal Culosi) wasn’t even the first time a Virginia SWAT team had killed someone during a gambling raid”) as well as dog shootings by police and aggressive actions against political protests. Balko has been devoting his Huffington Post column to such related topics as the police-industrial complex, and the ABA Journal also has an extensive treatment (related podcast).
“Can a Treaty Increase the Power of Congress?”
From Cato, with video: “In 1920, in Missouri v. Holland, the Supreme Court seemed to say, contrary to basic constitutional principles, that a treaty could increase the legislative power of Congress. That issue is now back before the Court in Bond v. United States, a case with deliciously lurid facts involving adultery, revenge, and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Cato has filed an amicus brief in the case, written by Nicholas Rosenkranz, based on his Harvard Law Review article on the subject.” Earlier here.
“BP tried to do right by the victims of the oil spill….”
“Then the lawyers pounced.” [Joe Nocera, “Justice, Louisiana Style,” New York Times, earlier]
Maryland court won’t toss contributory negligence
Some had urged the state’s highest court to abandon the old common-law standard in favor of a comparative negligence standard, but the court said any such move will need to come from the Maryland legislature. [Daily Record, earlier; Coleman v. Soccer Association of Columbia]
N.J. court: loss of ocean view in dune condemnation
New Jersey’s highest court ruled that a Harvey Cedars couple do not have to be compensated for the loss of an ocean view, as distinct from the loss of actual land, after the government condemned a strip of their beachfront for a dune restoration project. Relevant factor: the dune restoration is believed to have saved the couple’s home when Hurricane Sandy hit, and that benefit could properly be offset from the taking. [MaryAnn Spoto, Star-Ledger; earlier; edited/corrected to reflect comment]
More from reader TD in comments: “The reporter absolutely got it wrong. The court agreed the loss of a view could be a taking, but that it needed to be offset by the benefit incurred because the dune would presumably prevent future flooding. The lower courts had not allowed for the offset.”
Law schools roundup
- “Law school plotted to sabotage its own students?” [Steele, Cassandra Burke Robertson, Caron on Phoenix allegations]
- Bryan Garner’s take on law reviews [Green Bag]
- Washington & Lee’s innovative practice-oriented third year has drawn much attention, but job placement results lag [Deborah Merritt via Alice Woolley]
- “Law school sues for liability insurance coverage” [VLW on Liberty U., Miller-Jenkins kidnapping case]
- The business of one high-flying law school: documents shed light on NYU [Joe Patrice, Above the Law]
- Concussions: NFL players’ union to fund $100 million Harvard project, including HLS, on football and health [Cohen, Prawfs, with further thoughts from a notorious gadfly on lobbying by lawprofs]
- John O. McGinnis and Russell Mangas, “An Undergraduate Option for Legal Education” [IRLE/SSRN]
- Toward more sensible law school rankings? ABA makes it harder to count higher expenditures themselves as a plus [Above the Law]
The return of Eliot Spitzer
I have a few things to say about it at Cato at Liberty (& welcome Reihan Salam, Abby Schachter, Scott Greenfield readers).
P.S. “Eliot Spitzer wants New Yorkers to give him the one thing he has never shown anyone else: forgiveness.” [John Dickerson] “Spitzer: Prostitution Should Remain Illegal, ‘Fundamentally Wrong'” [Daniel Halper, Weekly Standard]
“…in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.”
In Argentina, famed for agricultural bounty, government folly leads to shortages of wheat [Bloomberg; original Milton Friedman quote]