- Why did Chevron subpoena a lawprof/blogger who took opposite side in Ecuador case? [Kevin Jon Heller, Opinio Juris]
- “Paleo Diet Lawsuit Dismissed By Court in Blow to Free Expression” [Brian Doherty, Reason; earlier here, etc.]
- “[National Hispanic Media Coalition] Renews Call for Federal Government to Study Hate Speech in Media” [Volokh]
- Call for “oversight board of regional experts” to direct more YouTube takedowns [Ann Althouse]
- No more dirty looks: North Carolina students now face possible jail time for what they say about teachers online [Reason]
- Popehat sampler: “Schadenfreude Is Not A Free Speech Value; Holmes’s fire-in-theater quote the most “pervasive lazy cheat in American dialogue about free speech”; “Zampolit Angela McCaskill, Report For Reeducation.”
- EU “terror” web-muzzle schemes: “We should start to freak out, but in a sort of preliminary way” [Ars Technica]
Posts Tagged ‘North Carolina’
Law enforcement and prosecution roundup
- Small favors dept.: police chiefs group supports use of drones, but concedes they probably shouldn’t be armed [USA Today; more on drones, Michael Kirkland, UPI, Paul Enzinna, PoL]. Earlier here, here, and here.
- Gibson Guitar settlement with feds controls what it can say about the case. Dangers in that, no? [Harvey Silverglate, earlier here, here, etc.]
- “Mission Creep Leads TSA to Racially Profile in Pursuit of Non-Terrorists to Arrest” [Virginia Postrel]
- Guestblogging at The Agitator, William Peterson outlines doubts about prosecutions that include the pursuit of Victoria Sprouse on mortgage-fraud charges in North Carolina, abuse accusations relating to the Creative Frontiers school near Sacramento, and the conviction of Courtney Bisbee at the hands of Maricopa County D.A. (and Overlawyered favorite) Andrew Thomas in Arizona;
- Canada: “Pay your dog license on time or we’ll arrest your wife!” [Sherwood Park News via @derekjamesfrom]
- “Overcriminalization, the comic” [Ted at PoL; plus videos from NACDL]
- “Police enlist young offenders as confidential informants. But the work is high-risk, largely unregulated, and sometimes fatal.” [Sarah Stillman, New Yorker]
Against North Carolina Amendment One
Patrick at Popehat, who lives in Durham, N.C., interviewed his neighbors Gale and Elizabeth, who are a same sex couple, “about how Amendment One would affect them. This is what they had to say.” Earlier here (conservatives who oppose Amendment One include John Locke Foundation president John Hood) and here (most North Carolinians don’t realize measure would ban legal recognition of civil unions and domestic partnerships).
P.S. More from Richard Painter. And Gene Nichol (UNC Law) writes about the other time North Carolina amended its constitution to restrict marriage, which was back in 1875 [News & Observer]
May 3 roundup
- Salute to Bill Childs, who blogged with distinction at TortsProf, on departing academia for private practice [Sheila Scheuerman and Chris Robinette]
- North Carolina voters who know that Amendment One would ban civil unions oppose the measure by 22 points; unfortunately, most don’t know that [Greg Sargent, WaPo; earlier] Patrick at Popehat proposes 5 things Tar Heels can do to help defeat it;
- Cellphone app to hail nearby taxi? DC government searches for a way to keep that illegal [Julian Sanchez, Cato at Liberty]
- Can’t the left-wing Alliance for Justice be at least minimally consistent on Supreme Court ethics? [Freedman, Legal Ethics Forum]
- On lawyer jokes [David Conway and commenters, Law and Liberty]
- “2,000 patents have been granted for shaped pasta” [Doctorow; see also Martin Weiss (“It pays to noodle around in the lab”)]
- Texas barratry law trips up state rep [Southeast Texas Record, ABA Journal]
April 25 roundup
- Eugene Volokh on civil liberties problems with the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization [first, second posts]
- More coverage of the “N.C. vs. diet advice blogger” story we noted in February [Sara Burrows/Carolina Journal, Brian Doherty/Reason]
- A case for an administrative alternative to asbestos litigation [Michael Hiltzik, L.A. Times] More on administered compensation funds [Adam Zimmerman, Prawfs]
- Scuttle-the-boat insurance fraud scheme goes amusingly wrong [Lowering the Bar]
- “To lower prices at the pump, abolish the boutique fuel regime” [Steven Hayward, Weekly Standard]
- Supreme Court denies certiorari in NYC rent control case [Trevor Burrus, Cato; earlier here and here] But it does grant cert in Cato-backed property rights action [Ark. Fish & Game v. U.S.; Shapiro]
- New Zealand’s innovative public policies: left, right or something else? [Eric Crampton] Let’s be more like the Scandinavian countries [Tim Worstall, UK] Don’t forget loser-pays…
North Carolina Amendment One
The proposed constitutional amendment, which would ban legal recognition of nonmarital relationships, is opposed by figures that include John Locke Foundation president John Hood; Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.); noted foes of same-sex marriage David Blankenhorn and Elizabeth Marquardt (ban “goes too far“); and not least by Patrick at Popehat, who says, regarding the likelihood that the “parade of horribles” conceivable from the ban would ever come to pass in North Carolina, remembers the days “when I was represented in the United States Senate by Jesse Helms and John Edwards, simultaneously.”
Related: Moorfield Storey blog on Hayek and gay marriage.
“Chapel Hill Cell Phone Ban Draws Ire of Business Owners”
I’m quoted in this Carolina Journal article by Karen McMahan. “Chapel Hill became the first municipality in the nation to issue such a far-reaching ban when the town council enacted the measure March 26 by a 5-4 vote. The law goes into effect June 1.” Earlier on distracted driving here, etc.
Alienation of affections in North Carolina
Kyle Graham asks why that variety of “heartbalm” action remains a vital and frequently used tort in the Tarheel State, but not elsewhere, though it remains on the books in ten or so other states. “The popularity of the tort in North Carolina suggests, at least to me, the importance of inertia and claim consciousness in tort law.”
Distantly related: demise of Breach of Promise to Marry laws linked to rise of engagement rings [Margaret Brinig via Matthew O’Brien via Sullivan]
Occupational licensure vs. free speech
Is a pattern developing in North Carolina? First an official in that state sought an investigation of a man who prepared a traffic analysis for a neighborhood group agitating for traffic signals, on the grounds that he was practicing engineering without a license. [News & Observer] Now a blogger who offers dietary advice based on his own struggles against diabetes faces possible charges of practicing nutrition without a license [Diabetes Warrior; via Radley Balko, earlier]
January 5 roundup
- Big business vs. free markets again: light bulb makers “fuming” over GOP effort to restore consumer choice [Sullum] Large grocery chains like DC’s bag tax [Tim Carney]
- Eeeuw! Bystander can sue train fatality victim whose body part flew through air and hit her [Chicago Tribune]
- “Recommended Cell-Phone Ban Comes as ‘Shocking,’ ‘Heavy-Handed’ To Some” [Josh Long, V2M]
- “Exploding churros are newspaper’s fault, Chilean court rules” [AP]
- In New Jersey and North Carolina, GOP friends of trial bar block legal reform bills [Armstrong Williams, Washington Times]
- Kozinski vs. ill-prepared lawyer in case of Sheriff Arpaio vs. newspaper that covered him [The Recorder; Phoenix New Times case]
- Federal judges block cuts to in-home personal care services in California, Washington [Disability Law, San Francisco Chronicle, KQED]