SCOTUSblog (Free subscription) | 3 hours ago
John J. O’Connor III, retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband, died on Wednesday, the Supreme Court announced. He was 79. The O’Connors have three sons, and six grandchildren.
SCOTUSblog (Free subscription) | 3 hours ago
Urging the Supreme Court to broaden its new review of government policy on transfers of detainees out of Guantanamo Bay, attorneys for four Chinese Muslim Uighurs filed a new case Tuesday evening. If the Court were to grant review, it would focus the Justices’ attention on two layers of dispute between the Executive Branch and [...]
SCOTUSblog (Free subscription) | 3 hours ago
This edition of “Petitions to Watch” features cases up for consideration at the Justices’ next private conference on November 13. As always, it lists the petitions on the Court’s paid docket that Tom has deemed to have a reasonable chance of being granted. Links to all previous editions are available in our SCOTUSwiki archive. Docket: 08-1564 Title: American [...]
Law.com - Inside Opinions: Legal Bl (Free subscription) | 2 hours ago
"The question of 'likelihood of confusion' is the signal test to determine if a trademark infringement claim is valid." So says the introduction to the excellent Likelihood of Confusion blog. Using that test, then, I ask you: Would you be likely to confuse a $30 pair of rubber shoes with a $50,000 sports car? That "likelihood" appears to be the fear of Porsche.Footnoted.org writes...
PrawfsBlawg (Free subscription) | 3 hours ago
The New York Times has an entertaining story about Justice Kennedy's recent appearance at the New York private school Dalton (think Gossip Girl with, hopefully, better music). The story reports that Justice Kennedy insisted on approving, in advance, any article in the school paper about his talk. There are the usual quotes from journalism experts complaining that this is no way to teach the students...
Abovethelaw.com (Free subscription) | 5 hours ago
* Judge Diane Cannon -- no relation to actress Dyan Cannon (who played a judge on Ally McBeal) -- benchslaps Sidley Austin for its brief in the high-profile case involving Northwestern University journalism students fighting a subpoena for their records and grades. [ National Law Journal ] * Speaking of journalistic freedom, was prior restraint applied to a high school newspaper -- by Justice Kennedy?...
Abovethelaw.com (Free subscription) | 1 hour ago
The American Bar Association has a plan to help out unemployed lawyers with their student loans. Seriously. An actual plan. The National Law Journal reports : The ABA wants the government to let unemployed graduates convert private loans into federal ones. The change could allow them to defer repaying those loans for as long as three years. The plan is so simple and helpful that I'm almost positive...
Conglomerate (Free subscription) | 1 hour ago
Isn't the real cost of Sarbanes Oxley the fact that it distracted policymakers and scholars with a debate over too...
Leiter Reports: A Group Blog (Free subscription) | 2 hours ago
First: Conservative rhetoric notwithstanding, the House bill is not a "government takeover." I wish it were. Instead, it enshrines and subsidizes the "takeover" by the investor-owned insurance industry that occurred after the failure of the Clinton reform effort in 1994....
Abovethelaw.com (Free subscription) | 3 hours ago
Sentencing Law and Policy (Free subscription) | 3 hours ago
The title of this post is the headline of this new NPR entry, which is itself a follow-up to this important new Los Angeles Times article discussing life on California's death row. The full headline for the LATimes piece captures...
Law.com - Inside Opinions: Legal Bl (Free subscription) | 3 hours ago
You've already ordered your U.S. Supreme Court baseball cards. Now it's time for all of you appellate law geeks aficionados to take the next step and get yourself some good oral arguments on iTunes to listen to while you work out. The Tex Parte Blog reports here that St. Mary's University School of Law will now be making recordings of Texas Supreme Court oral arguments available, for free, on iTunes...
Sentencing Law and Policy (Free subscription) | 4 hours ago
In this post yesterday I discussed some of the federal child pornography laws implicated by the acts of Former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean in making and distributing a "sex tape" at the tender age of 17. Following up these...
PrawfsBlawg (Free subscription) | 4 hours ago
I've posted a new paper with this title to SSRN. The article addresses the constitutionality and propriety of governments settling constitutional issues or claims by disposing of public properties through various forms of privatization or by taking the subject properties. Settlement-by-disposition has occurred with increasing frequency in Establishment Clause contexts. Salazar v. Buono, which was argued...
The Laboratorium (Free subscription) | 4 hours ago
Looks like someone took me up on my invitation. See also: bumper stickers....
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