- Squatter sues homeowners from prison, gets default judgment [Eric Ross, KOAA; Colorado Springs. Colo.]
- “Judge Thomas Hardiman on the history of judicial independence” [Cato Audio of last year’s Constitution Day lecture]
- There really needs to be an off ramp at Child Protective Services by which an investigation of a family that proves unfounded can just end instead of cycling through more and more investigation [Lenore Skenazy]
- Authors, journalists, photojournalists challenge AB5 in court: “California’s Anti-Freelancer Law Violates the First Amendment” [Trevor Burrus on Cato amicus brief in American Society of Journalists et al. v. Becerra, Ninth Circuit]
- California’s legislature has long been itching to gut or repeal Proposition 109 (1996), in which voters banned race and sex preferences. Now they’re going to try to bring back the old identity-spoils system [Gail Heriot, RealClearPolitics]
- “Identifying #NeverNeeded Regulation after COVID-19” [Cato Daily Podcast with Caleb Brown and Matthew D. Mitchell, Mercatus Center]
Posts Tagged ‘judges’
Oops, indeed: Oklahoma judge says he mistakenly added three zeroes in opioid payout
Somehow missed blogging this when it happened last fall: “An Oklahoma judge who ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million for its role in the state’s opioid epidemic admitted in court on Tuesday that he made a $107 million math error. Judge Thad Balkman of Cleveland County said the portion of the award devoted to a treatment program for addicted babies should have been $107,683, not $107,683,000.” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal last October; earlier here and here on Oklahoma opioids public nuisance case] Not unrelated: “A dozen law firms are set to earn nearly $160 million in contingency fees in 15 opioid settlements involving two counties in Ohio and the state of Oklahoma, according to Law.com’s review of the contracts at issue in those settlements and emails provided by government officials.” [Amanda Bronstad, Law.com]
Constitutional law roundup
- Case reporting, contact tracing, location monitoring: “Disease Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment” [Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Lawfare]
- Unanimous Supreme Court spanks Ninth Circuit for its attempt to use immigration-law case to bring up (admittedly interesting) issue that neither party had presented and was not necessary to resolve the dispute [Ilya Shapiro and Michael Collins on U.S. v. Sineneng-Smith: “Neither Party Is Right, But the Ninth Circuit Is Wrong”]
- Judge Thomas Hardiman of the Third Circuit on the history of judicial independence [Cato audio]
- “While many scholars have studied Erie v. Tompkins, few have studied the facts of the case, and none have questioned Tompkins’s account. This article argues that Tompkins and his witnesses were not telling the truth.” [Brian L. Frye, SSRN 2018]
- Can procedurally valid constitutional amendments themselves be unconstitutional? [Mike Rappaport and followup post, both 2018]
- And now for something completely different: “Ayn Rand, Gary Lawson, and the Supreme Court” [Balkinization symposium last summer on Ken Kersch book Conservatives and the Constitution, more; unrelated but also about Lawson]
Panel wants to ban judges from membership in Federalist Society
“The Wall Street Journal reports that the Judicial Conference is thinking of prohibiting judges from being members of the Federalist Society. It’s too political — or so the Judicial Conference believes.
“If the Judicial Conference does ban judges from being members of the Federalist Society, it will need to do the same for the ABA. Unlike the Federalist Society, which takes no stand on any legal or political issue, the ABA weighs in on countless issues… [and] files amicus curiae briefs before the Supreme Court, again with a consistent slant to the left. The long march through the institutions infiltrated the ABA long ago.
“Similarly, membership in ‘affinity bar associations’ like the National Hispanic Bar Association and the National Bar Association (which is for African American lawyers), and the National Association of Women Lawyers will need to be prohibited. Those left-leaning organizations routinely take stands on controversial issues and file amicus briefs. The Federalist Society never does and never will.” [Gail Heriot; Wall Street Journal editorial board; earlier on Federalist Society and its critics here, here, etc.]
Fifth Circuit: basing judges’ fund on fines and fees violates due process
Orleans Parish, Louisiana (= county, in this case coterminous with the City of New Orleans) funnels the revenue from many criminal fines and fees into a judicial services fund which, while it does not pay judges’ salaries, does cover many related expenses including staff salaries, conferences and office supplies. Judges themselves help determine the volume of inflow to the fund by their rulings in cases. Now a unanimous Fifth Circuit panel has ruled that given the fund’s substantial dependence on such revenue, the parish “failed to provide a neutral forum” and thus violated defendants’ constitutional right to due process [Nick Sibilla/Forbes, ABA Journal; opinion in Cain v. White]
July 31 roundup
- If you regard Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh as “very decent, very smart individuals,” are tired of party-line confirmation bloc votes, and don’t favor adding to the line-up of nine Justices, you have a co-thinker at the Supreme Court [John McCormack, National Review; Nina Totenberg/NPR interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg]
- “Manhattan federal judges are getting fed up with notorious copyright ‘troll’” [Alison Frankel, Reuters; ABA Journal; Mike Masnick, TechDirt; Richard Liebowitz]
- Idaho, though far from California, still falls under the Ninth Circuit’s distinctive body of law protecting homeless encampments against municipal authority [Steve Malanga, City Journal, earlier here, here]
- “Liability for User-Generated Content Online Principles for Lawmakers” [53 individual and 28 institutional signers including many names and groups familiar in this space; TechFreedom] “Comments on Sen. Hawley’s ‘[Ending] Support for Internet Censorship Act'” [Eric Goldman] And the Missouri senator’s latest: “Josh Hawley Wants To Appoint Himself Product Manager For The Internet” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- Jury convicts south Texas judge charged with bribery, conspiracy and other crimes [Lorenzo Zazueta-Castro, McAllen Monitor; Fred W. Heldenfels IV, Corpus Christi Caller-Times/Texans for Lawsuit Reform (“The fact that a judge under indictment for accepting bribes can run for higher office and win should be a major red flag for Texans.”)] Michigan Supreme Court removes Livingston County judge over long list of ethical violations, criminal charges also pending [Andy Olesko, Courthouse News]
- “Auction Winner Learns Why Property Was Such a Great Deal: It’s Only 12 Inches Wide” [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar]
June 12 roundup
- Moving against emerging litigation analytics and prediction sector, France bans publication of statistical information about individual judges’ decisions on criminal penalty [Artificial Lawyer, ABA Journal, David Post]
- Eugene Volokh analyzes Washington high court’s unanimous ruling against Arlene’s Flowers and Barronelle Stutzman in same-sex marriage refusal case [Volokh Conspiracy, earlier on case here and here]
- “Small claims court for copyright” idea would likely worsen the problem of copyright trolling [Mike Masnick, Techdirt]
- Activists push laws and pledges intended to push charitable foundation giving (yet) further to left [James Piereson and Naomi Schaefer Riley, Washington Examiner]
- Review of new book by libertarian economist David D. Friedman, “Legal Systems Very Different from Ours”: pirates, prisoners, gypsies, Amish, imperial Chinese, Jewish, Islamic, saga-period Icelandic, Somali, early Irish, Plains Indians, 18th century English, and ancient Athenian [Michael Huemer, Reason]
- If the Supreme Court is going to let police stop your car on a pretext, they should at least insist that there *be* a pretext [Jonathan Blanks on Sievers v. Nebraska Cato cert petition]
Unexpected moments in jury duty
“It must be extremely rare… for a judge to be summoned for jury duty in a case over which he or she will be presiding. But that happened in the UK not long ago— and the judge then had trouble getting out of it.” [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar]
Supreme Court roundup
- Will the liberal wing’s success at piecing together 5-4 majorities survive Justice Kennedy’s departure? [Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson, Bloomberg] Fundamental restructuring of Supreme Court becomes a popular campaign issue with Democrats, and the dangers in that [Ilya Shapiro, Washington Examiner] More: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh differ often, we can see clearly now [Jonathan Adler and update]
- Federalist Society video on stare decisis with Roger Pilon, and related by Pilon on constitutional stare decisis;
- The high court decides relatively few admiralty/maritime cases but has heard more than one of them this term; one artist’s whimsical illustration [@CourtArtist on Twitter]
- In writing opinions, “the justices should be careful about naming politicians, especially when they name in order to make a point about the political process.” [Josh Blackman, The Atlantic]
- A constitutional right to religious exemptions from otherwise applicable laws? Eugene Volokh still backs Scalia’s logic on that, but it’s looking as if Court’s conservative wing may not. Cleanup in the Lemon aisle: Michael McConnell on Maryland Peace Cross case [Volokh Conspiracy]
- New resource: database of all Supreme Court nomination hearing transcripts that are yet available (with Kavanaugh’s still to come) [Shoshana Weissmann and Anthony Marcum, R Street]
May 1 roundup
- U.K.: Whole Earth 3 Nut Butter recalled for not displaying a “contains nuts” warning on the jar [Katie Morley, Telegraph]
- “Community College Reportedly Bans Pro-Second-Amendment Banner with Picture of Rifles” [Eugene Volokh]
- More on the dubious “hate crimes have surged” narrative, from Will Reilly of Kentucky State, who has a new book out [Nolan Finley, Detroit News, earlier]
- In Lamps Plus v. Varela, Supreme Court rules courts should not read class arbitration mechanisms into arbitration agreements that do not explicitly provide for them [Morrison & Foerster; Joshua Dunlap, Pierce Atwood/JD Supra; Charlotte Garden, SCOTUSBlog] More: Federalist Society teleforum with Prof. Henry Allen Blair:
- “Judge tosses law firm’s suit seeking $9.75 million bonus fee in Chicago divorce case” [ABA Journal]
- Hot courtrooms and immigration judges: “A 10°F degree increase in case-day temperature reduces decisions favorable to the applicant by 6.55 percent. This is despite judgments being made indoors, ‘protected’ by climate control.” [Anthony Heyes and Soodeh Saberian via Tyler Cowen]