Dahlia Lithwick got her start in Slate with the innovation of covering the Supreme Court almost entirely in terms of what jokes were told at the oral argument. Now, gossipy legal humor has entertainment value, and Lithwick’s essays had a legitimate role in the context of providing added value for an Internet magazine whose main advantage over competing media sources was the ability to put writing out there in a breezier and quicker fashion than a newspaper. But the legal analysis was often slipshod, and Lithwick would freely admit her ignorance and instead focus on which Supreme Court Justice she’d most like to hug or the build of the lawyers. Yet Lithwick has parlayed being the Slate “Supreme Court correspondent” into a regular gig doing serious analysis and op-eds in purportedly more serious media outlets. The results often aren’t pretty. Heather Mac Donald puts her thumb precisely on the problem and points out how vapid Lithwick’s analysis of Justice O’Connor’s career is (via Point of Law). Lithwick makes the mistake of criticizing O’Connor’s decisions as lacking sufficient empathy for the sympathetic losing party (though, as Mac Donald points out, Lithwick’s sympathy is inconsistent within the same paragraph in the op-ed). Legal reporting all too often has the flaw of describing cases as a question of picking the most deserving winner, divorcing this question from the real issue of the neutral application of legal rules; this is a problem that all too often trickles down to some judges and jury decisions. And it’s a sad commentary on the state of legal education when a Stanford Law graduate doesn’t give any signs of knowing better.
Posts Tagged ‘Dahlia Lithwick’
“Rape shield laws don’t work”
In “acquaintance rape” cases, especially, these laws unjustly deny defendants access to potentially exculpatory evidence. Yet they haven’t succeeded in protecting rape accusers’ reputations or right to privacy either, especially in runaway media events like the Kobe Bryant trial in Colorado: “high-profile rape trials allow the media to do far more damage than rape shield laws ever tried to mitigate”. (Dahlia Lithwick (acting this month as guest columnist), New York Times, Aug. 8).
Supreme Court to review ADA misconduct case
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Hughes Missile Systems violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it enforced an otherwise neutral policy against rehiring workers terminated for violations of its misconduct rules, even though one consequence was to deny a second chance for an employee terminated for past drug abuse, a protected disability. (Warren Richey, “Limits of disability act tested”, Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 8). See Sept. 16-17, 2002 for our earlier take on the case. More: Dahlia Lithwick, “Junkie Justice”, Slate, Oct. 8; Tony Mauro, “Supreme Court Weighs Workplace Rights for Ex-Substance Abusers”, Legal Times, Oct. 9. Update Dec. 13: Supreme Court rules.