Pew Research Center Report: “While the economy remains the dominant issue in this fall’s midterm elections, the issue of abortion has increased markedly in importance among Democrats following the Supreme Court’s decision ending the federal guarantee of a right to legal abortion in the United States. A majority of registered voters (56%) say the issue… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Courts
The Interpretation of Law
Tobia, Kevin and Slocum, Brian G., The Interpretation of Law (August 10, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4186956 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4186956 “Courts increasingly presume that law should be interpreted according to what it communicates to an ordinary reader. Textualists view this as a strict requirement, creating a bright line between favored “textual” interpretive canons (reflecting objective linguistic… Continue Reading
Pitching the Difficult Case: Working With Prosecutors
Via LLRX – Pitching the Difficult Case: Working With Prosecutors – Jerry Lawson provides ideas and examples showing how investigators can successfully pitch difficult cases—ones that look unattractive on the surface. Lawson approaches the topic from his perspective as a former federal prosecutor and counsel to federal criminal investigators, but most of the ideas apply just… Continue Reading
The Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant: A Legal Introduction
Follow up to previous posting, Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago, which included links to government documents pertaining to the FBI search and NARA’s repeated requests to secure the return of classified government documents, please see CRS Legal Sidebar The Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant: A Legal Introduction, August 23, 2022: “The Federal Bureau… Continue Reading
How Sonia Sotomayor Became the Conscience of the Supreme Court
The Nation: “While the rest of the country was reeling from the Supreme Court’s decision in June to take away the right to abortion, Justice Sonia Maria Sotomayor was working. As her conservative colleagues planned victory tours and dinners at Morton’s, Sotomayor crafted dissents. She and her team of clerks worked to the last moment… Continue Reading
You don’t have to be a spy to violate the Espionage Act – and other crucial facts about the law Trump may have broken
Via LLRX – You don’t have to be a spy to violate the Espionage Act – and other crucial facts about the law Trump may have broken – Joseph Ferguson, Co-Director, National Security and Civil Rights Program, Loyola University Chicago and Thomas A. Durkin, Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Loyola University Chicago are both attorneys who… Continue Reading
What Is the Supreme Court Hiding?
Politico: “When Stephen Breyer stepped down from the Supreme Court in June, he was obliged to pack up 28 years worth of memos, draft opinions, correspondence, notes and other real-time documentation of his tenure. But he was under no obligation whatsoever when it came to the question of what to do with the papers after… Continue Reading
What Do Law Professors Believe about Law and the Legal Academy? An Empirical Inquiry
Martínez, Eric and Tobia, Kevin, What Do Law Professors Believe about Law and the Legal Academy? An Empirical Inquiry (August 5, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4182521 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4182521 “Legal theorists seek to persuade other jurists of certain theories: Textualism or purposivism; formalism or realism; natural law theory or positivism; prison reform or abolition; universal or… Continue Reading
Free Law Project Makes It Even Easier to Add PACER Documents to Its Free Database
LawSites: “One way to avoid the cost of downloading documents from the federal courts’ PACER database is by getting them instead from the RECAP Archive, a database of millions of PACER documents and dockets maintained by the Free Law Project. But before you can get a document out of RECAP, the document had to have… Continue Reading
Constitutional Limits on States’ Power over Foreign Affairs
CRS Legal Sidebar – Constitutional Limits on States’ Power over Foreign Affairs, August 15, 2022 – “The Constitution gives the federal government the primary power to manage the United States’ foreign relations. Article I, Section 10 prohibits states from engaging in a set of activities that implicate international affairs, while the Supremacy Clause, Foreign Commerce… Continue Reading
Climate Liability Suits: Is There a Path to Federal Court?
CRS Legal Sidebar – Climate Liability Suits: Is There a Path to Federal Court? August 12, 2022: “Many of the most prominent court cases related to climate change in recent years have been decided by federal courts, including the Supreme Court, based on federal law. A growing number of cases,however, allege state-law claims against fossil… Continue Reading
A Century of Business in the Supreme Court, 1920-2020
Epstein, Lee and Gulati, Mitu, A Century of Business in the Supreme Court, 1920-2020 (August 3, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4178504&stream=top “A decade and a half into its life, we ask: How pro business is the Roberts Court? Using a simple objective measure – how often does business win in the Court when it is… Continue Reading
