Apr 20 2013
The argument is raging on all the news channels. Do we have to read Dzhokar Tsarnaev his Miranda rights? Sen. John McCain and others are insisting that he can be treated as “an enemy combatant” or that the “public safety” exemption can be applied. While I disagree that both premises are valid, that’s not the …
Mar 29 2013
As I read the various arguments made before the US Supreme Court in the two gay marriage cases heard this week, and with Roman Catholic Easter coming up this Sunday, I can’t help but wish we could resurrect my personal legal Jesus, Earl Warren, to replace John Roberts as Chief Justice for awhile. Justice Warren …
Mar 20 2013
In a stunning blow to large publishers, the United States Supreme Court overturned two lower courts in determining that the copyright law did not prevent a Thai student-entrepreneur named Supap Kirtsaeng from buying cheaper, legally-obtained versions of various textbooks in Thailand, bringing them to the US, and then re-selling them to his fellow students here …
Jan 14 2013
Where were you on February 22, 2006? You probably don’t remember, but that auspicious date was the last time Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said anything at all at an oral argument before the High Court. Supreme Court arguments are of course the most complex, high-level appellate advocacy in the country and probably the world. …
Sep 22 2012
Yesterday I had the privilege of judging a Quarter-Final round of the New York Law School Froessel Moot Court Competition. The competition seeks to recreate a Constitutional law argument before the US Supreme Court and this year’s problem focused on the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause. Specifically it involved whether a school could punish students …