Associates Mind – Keith Lee: ” Back in 2014, a Twitter exchange with Judge Dillard prompted an article on AboveTheLaw discussing the reliability of Wikipedia as a resource. Last year, I updated my research here, Is Wikipedia A Reliable Legal Authority? (2017 Update). It’s 2018, so let’s see how some recent opinions cite (or reject) Wikipedia as an authority…Is Wikipedia… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Courts
What The District?! Explore How Your Voting District Has Evolved
ACLU – “For better or worse, the way Congressional districts are drawn can determine who wins elections, which communities are represented, and what laws are passed. Explore how your own district has changed (sometimes dramatically) over time.” Most state legislatures have the power to draw new congressional district boundaries. Enter your zip code and you… Continue Reading
Prisons of Poverty: Uncovering the pre-incarceration incomes of the imprisoned
Prison Policy Initiative: Prisons of Poverty: Uncovering the pre-incarceration incomes of the imprisoned – “Correctional experts of all political persuasions have long understood that releasing incarcerated people to the streets without job training, an education, or money is the perfect formula for recidivism and re-incarceration. While the fact that people released from prison have difficulties finding… Continue Reading
From gun kits to 3D printable guns, a short history of rogue gun makers
Prof. Timothy D. Lytton: “Gun rights activist Cody Wilson got a green light from the Trump administration in June to publish digital blueprints on the internet that will enable anyone with a 3D printer to make a plastic gun. A federal judge blocked distribution of those blueprints. But thousands of people have already downloaded them.… Continue Reading
Washington State AG leading multistate lawsuit to block criminal access to downloadable 3D printed weapons
Washington State Office of Attorney General – Downloadable guns make weapons easier for criminals to obtain: “Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced he is leading a multistate lawsuit to block a Trump Administration action that gives criminals and terrorists access to downloadable, untraceable and undetectable 3D-printed weapons. This lawsuit is being filed in federal court… Continue Reading
The Essential Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh Reader: What Cases Should You Read?
The Essential Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh Reader: What Cases Should You Read?, CRS Legal Sidebar, July 25, 2018 “Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, whom President Trump has nominated to fill the impending Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement from the Court, has amasseda voluminous record of judicial writings during his legal career.… Continue Reading
Judicial Opinions of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and his very bigly paper trail
CRS report via FAS – Judicial Opinions of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, Michael John Garcia, Coordinator, Acting Section Research Manager, July 23, 2018. “On July 9, 2018, President Trump announced the nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) to succeed Supreme Court… Continue Reading
District Court denies motion to dismiss case re Trump hotel profits from foreign and state officials
The New York Times: “A lawsuit accusing President Trump of violating the Constitution by maintaining a financial interest in his company’s Washington hotel cleared a critical hurdle on Wednesday when a federal judge allowed the case to move forward. In the first judicial opinion to define how the meaning of the Constitution’s anticorruption clauses should… Continue Reading
Federal Motor Vehicle Product Liability Litigation Up 89%
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “The latest available data from the federal courts through June 2018 show that new federal motor vehicle product liability lawsuits have risen sharply. During four out of six of the past months, the number of new cases filed set new records. So far during the first nine months of FY 2018,… Continue Reading
State Constitutions in the Era of a Shifting Supreme Cour
“The Rockefeller Institute of Government and the Government Law Center at Albany Law School recently hosted “How Can State Constitutions Respond to a Shifting Supreme Court?” to examine the role state constitutions can play if the Supreme Court begins to roll back federal protections. With the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and the… Continue Reading
Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate Questionnaire released to the public
BuzzFeed News: “On June 27, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his plan to retire from the US Supreme Court around midday. Later that same afternoon, White House counsel Don McGahn called Judge Brett Kavanaugh about replacing him. That’s according to the timeline that Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace Kennedy, laid out in a Senate… Continue Reading
Trump leaving lasting legacy throughout judiciary
Boston Globe [paywall]: “President Trump is not only poised to put his conservative imprint on the Supreme Court, but he’s restocking vacancies throughout lower US courts at a historic clip, ensuring a judicial legacy that will last decades. Trump has appointed 44 judges since taking office — including more appellate judges than any president in… Continue Reading
