Lawyers for 177 Waco bikers are muzzled, but the McLennan County, Texas district attorney keeps talking, writes Tamara Tabo at Above the Law.
Posts Tagged ‘Texas’
Medical roundup
- Surprised this story of interstate lawsuit exposure hasn’t had national coverage: “Texas docs threaten to stop seeing New Mexico patients” [Hobbs, N.M., News]
- More on the Daraprim episode and the fiasco of FDA generic-drug regulation [Watchdog, earlier here and here] More: Ira Stoll/N.Y. Sun;
- Warrants, HIPAA be damned: Drug Enforcement Administration agents pose as Texas medical board to get at patient records [Jon Cassidy/Watchdog, Tim Cushing/TechDirt via Radley Balko]
- Litigation finance and champerty: the reaction is under way [MathBabe, earlier on pelvic and transvaginal mesh surgery speculation]
- No longer alas a surprise to see JAMA Pediatrics running lame, politicized content on topics like “youth gun carrying” [Jacob Sullum]
- “Shame, blame, and defame”: in alcohol regulation as in other public health fields, government-funded research can look a lot like advocacy [Edward Peter Stringham, The Hill]
- More adventures in public health: study finds dry counties in Kentucky have bigger problems with methamphetamine [Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post “WonkBlog”]
October 7 roundup
- News on legal policy front: Center for Class Action Fairness, founded and run by longtime Overlawyered co-blogger Ted Frank, merging into Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ted and all [CEI]
- Arnold Kling isn’t cheering Brookings Institution’s defenestration of well-known economist Robert Litan at Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s behest. More: Sean Higgins, John Fund;
- Proposed anti-soft-drink laws favored by Michael Bloomberg & Co. have been mostly shot down, but New York Times eager to credit politicians anyway for the drop [more: Jacob Sullum];
- We interrupt the campaign season propaganda-fest with news of an actual issue sighting, on regulatory reform [Ira Stoll, Veronique de Rugy on Jeb Bush plan] After Obama initiative to eliminate red tape, agencies added $14.7 billion in regulatory costs [Sam Batkins, American Action Forum]
- Qualified immunity: “Shooting a 68-Year-Old Who Poses No Threat Violates Clearly Established Law” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- If you’ve read Steve Teles’s article on upward redistribution (as you should), read Michael Greve’s reaction and Ilya Somin‘s too;
- East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases in one fell swoop [Joe Mullin/ArsTechnica, related on popularity of East Texas among trolls]
Rating states on legal climates
“West Virginia courts have a well-deserved reputation for favoring plaintiffs, but the state’s Supreme Court may have gone too far this year when it said drug addicts who broke the law to obtain narcotics could sue the doctors and pharmacies who supposedly fed their addiction.” Rulings like that, writes Daniel Fisher, are one reason West Virginia perennially ranks at the bottom in the U.S. Chamber’s ranking of state legal climates, and did again this year. Louisiana, Illinois, and California are other cellar-dwellers, while Alabama and Texas, despite extensive reforms and the success of business-oriented candidates in many judicial races, also languish in the lower ranks with continuing problems such as the litigation atmosphere of east Texas [Lou Ann Anderson/Watchdog Arena] More: Bob Dorigo Jones. Related, from ALEC: State Lawsuit Reform.
School and college roundup
- Far-reaching, legally dubious new mandate: 37-page “Dear Colleague” letter from Washington launches new “education equity initiative” directing local schools to ensure all children “equal access to educational resources” [R. Shep Melnick, Education Next and WSJ]
- “‘Tag is not banned,’ [the school district] insisted.” [Fred Barbash, Washington Post; Lenore Skenazy; Mercer Island, Wash.]
- University of Texas now blurs racial preferences into “holistic” admission review, Supreme Court should take look [Ilya Shapiro]
- Feds vs. due process: Michigan State case goes well beyond itself-notorious OCR Dear Colleague letter [KC Johnson; related Hans Bader on Tufts and other cases] Emily Yoffe: not so fast on latest “one in five” study [Slate; more, Stuart Taylor Jr.] “You cannot build justice for women on injustice for men.” [powerful Wendy McElroy speech debating Jessica Valenti]
- Trashing copies of a student paper to keep content from being read? 171 Wesleyan students/alums: “Go for it!” [Popehat, Scott Greenfield] “Editorial independence remains a huge priority for us” says the Wesleyan Argus editor. Doesn’t sound as if her adversaries see it that way [Robby Soave, Reason]
- Robert Klitzman: Institutional Review Boards at research institutions could benefit from transparency and respect for precedent [via Zachary Schrag]
- Donald Trump’s battle with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman over proprietary “Trump University” [Emma Brown, Washington Post]
The Prosser jukebox
The late Prof. William Prosser, whose enormous influence on modern tort law has made him an occasional target of my windmill-jousting, wrote a parody song “The Common Law of Texas” in the early 1960s to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” Kyle Graham found it and nominates North Carolina, Oregon, and Hawaii as states that currently follow their own path on common-law tort doctrine.
The silence of the Texas bikers
Why aren’t we hearing more about the 177 arrested Waco bikers? ‘Cause there’s a big ole gag order in place [Tamara Tabo, Above the Law; earlier]
Too much occupational licensure
[New Jersey’s] licensed sector now covers about 20 percent of the workforce. Jobs as diverse — and sometimes as seemingly mundane — as barbers, movers and warehousemen, librarians, and career counselors can’t be done legally without getting state approval in New Jersey, usually by paying a fee, submitting personal information, and taking training or educational courses.
Nationwide, the share of jobs requiring licenses is even higher: 25 percent, up from around 5 percent in the 1950s. With economist Milton Friedman in the lead, libertarians have long criticized occupational licensure for restricting competition, limiting consumer choice, raising prices, and curtailing the opportunities of excluded workers, including many poorer persons and new workforce entrants. But more recently discontent with occupational licensure has spread broadly across the ideological spectrum, as with a Brookings study we linked in February. And now the Obama administration — citing Cato! — lends its weight with a new critique. [David Boaz/Cato, Tim Sandefur/Pacific Legal, Glenn Reynolds/USA Today, Stephen Slivinski/No Water Economists]
More: the city of Austin’s new ban on unlicensed household hauling will hurt informal laborers without helping homeowners [Chuck DeVore]
Police and prosecution roundup
- NYC Legal Aid lawyer “represented four defendants in a row who had been arrested for having a foot up on a subway seat” [Gothamist, including report of arrests for “manspreading”]
- Recommendations would expand federal role: “President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing” [Tim Lynch]
- Profile of Pat Nolan and momentum of criminal justice reform on the right [Marshall Project] Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan shows how Republicans are experimenting with criminal justice reform [Ovetta Wiggins, Washington Post]
- “Though we weren’t at any toll plazas, something was reading the E-ZPass tag in our car.” [Mariko Hirose, ACLU on New York monitoring of car transponders, presently for transport management purposes] DEA license plate tracking has been subject to mission creep [L.A. Times editorial via Amy Alkon, earlier]
- “Texas’s governor signs a bill that will end the ‘key man’ grand jury system, also known as the ‘pick-a-pal’ system.” [Houston Chronicle via @radleybalko, earlier]
- “There’s little dispute overincarceration is a problem demanding immediate redress. Except when it comes to sex.” [Scott Greenfield]
- Massachusetts SWAT teams retreat from position that they’re private corporations and needn’t comply with public records laws [Radley Balko, earlier]
July 8 roundup
- You could see this coming: ACLU says its support for RFRA religious accommodation laws no longer applies in discrimination law context [David Bernstein]
- Root causes of violence: California anti-videogame, anti-gun pol Leland Yee cops a racketeering plea after spectacular arms-smuggling sting [Shackford/Reason, plea agreement via Popehat, earlier]
- FDA’s trans fat ban will have litigation implications [Glenn Lammi, WLF] And we mentioned the palm-oil angle earlier: “Why Environmentalists Are Afraid of the FDA’s Attack on Trans Fats” [Jason Plautz, National Journal]
- An economic liberty decision: “Texas Supreme Court overturns licensing requirements for eyebrow threaders” [Houston Chronicle, Carrie Sheffield/Opportunity Lives, Eugene Volokh, David Bernstein on Don Willett concurrence rebuking Lochner-phobia]
- In trial-lawyer-sourced screed against class action reform, reporter David Lazarus seems to imagine bone break cases are currently sued as class actions [L.A. Times]
- NYC taxi commission: OK, we don’t actually need to pre-clear every update of ride-sharing app software [Kristian Stout/Truth on the Market, earlier]
- And thanks for Overlawyered mention: “Are happier lawyers, cheaper legal fees on the horizon?” [Glenn Reynolds, USA Today]