The Law Blog Central Orbiter

Welcome to the Law Blog Central Orbiter

Inspired by PlanetPlanet's feed reader and aggregator and by Six Apart's Project Comet initiative, the Jurisdynamics Network presents the Law Blog Central Orbiter. The Orbiter aggregates the latest posts from the blogs digested on Law Blog Central. The posts are presented in reverse chronological order. The Law Blog Central Orbiter even has its own RSS feed, which you are invited to download by clicking here: . We hope that you enjoy the Orbiter and will visit often.

July 25, 6:32 AM / Essentially Contested America / Bush's Criminality & Restoring Constitutional Government
Now that the catastrophic Bush-Cheney administration is slowly drawing to an end, talk of investigating this administration criminal abuse of power are beginning to echo throughout the nation. "The last several years have brought a parade of dark revelations about the George W. Bush administration,..

July 25, 4:00 AM / TaxProf Blog / Tax Analysts Hosts Conference Today on Tax Shelters and Penalties: Reasonable Cause, Opinion Letters, and Other Issues
Tax Analysts hosts a conference today on Tax Shelters and Penalties: Reasonable Cause, Opinion Letters, and Other Issues: Dennis Donohue (Chief Senior Litigation Counsel, Tax Division, Department of Justice) N. Jerold Cohen (Partner, Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan) Lee Sheppard (Contributing...

July 25, 3:45 AM / TaxProf Blog / More on the McCain and Obama Tax Plans
Angry Bear: Goolsbee Hammers McCain on Fiscal Policy While Holtz-Eakin Ducks The Atlantic: McCain And Obama On Taxes: Take 2 Economists for Obama: McCain Still Lying or Ignorant About the Effect of Tax Cuts Report from the Duel of Economic...

July 25, 3:40 AM / Feminist Law Professors / “F Files” Interview with Robert Jensen
Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here . Part 3 is here . Part 4 is here . Part 5 is here . Part 6 is here .

July 25, 2:34 AM / Adjunct Law Prof Blog / Employee Who Announced Intention To Resign Still Eligible To Vote In Union Election
Magic Beans, Inc., 352 NLRB No. 197 (July 18, 2008), is an interestng case. An employee who announced his intention to resign and did resign after the election was found eligible to vote. Why? Because he was an employee on...

July 25, 2:33 AM / Adjunct Law Prof Blog / Award of $850,000 Reduced To $200,000 In NYS Employment Discrimination Case
Award of $850,000 by the NYS Division of Human Rights held excessive and reduced to $200,000 Matter of New York State Dept. of Correctional Servs. v New York State Div. of Human Rights, 2008 NY Slip Op 06246, Decided on...

July 25, 2:32 AM / Adjunct Law Prof Blog / Parent Unsuccefully Challenges School's First Grade Placement Decision of School District
Appeal of VICKI GERGELY, ___Ed. Dep't Rep. ___, No. 15, 742 (April 14, 2008), is an interesting case and well worth a read for students of education law. A parent was apparently so unhappy with the selection of her daughter's...

July 25, 2:31 AM / Adjunct Law Prof Blog / NY Commissioner of Education Issues Decision Summarizing Student Residency Cases
Matter of Hoyt, ___Ed. Dep't. Rep. ___, No. 15, 771 (June 26, 2008), is an example of a common issue that arises in Education Law practices; student residency questions. The issue is important because students are entitled to a free...

July 25, 2:07 AM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Steve Bainbridge on Batman:
Steve Bainbridge responds to my post on Batman here, linking to an earlier post of his claiming that Batman actually causes more harm than good because he damages...

July 25, 1:58 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Bentele on Comparative Constitutionalism in South Africa
Ursula Bentele (Brooklyn Law School) has posted Mining for Gold: The Constitutional Court of South Africa's Experience with Comparative Constitutional Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Despite a long history of referring to foreign law in its opinions, the Supreme Court's recent citations to such ..

July 25, 0:50 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Pierce & Snyder on Ethical Spillovers in Firms
Lamar Pierce and Jason Snyder (Washington University in St. Louis and University of California, Los Angeles - Anderson School of Management) have posted Ethical Spillovers in Firms: Evidence from Vehicle Emissions Testing on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this paper we explore how organizatio..

July 25, 0:40 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Brake on Subtle Sexism
Deborah L. Brake (University of Pittsburgh - School of Law) has posted Perceiving Subtle Sexism: Mapping the Social-Psychological Forces and Legal Narratives that Obscure Gender Bias (Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, Vol. 16, 2007) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This essay seeks to explain the D..

July 25, 0:14 AM / TaxProf Blog / John Gimigliano, Former Senior Tax Counsel on House Ways & Means Committee, Join KPMG
John Gimigliano (J.D. Cincinnati; LL.M. (Tax) Georgetown), former senior tax counsel of the House Ways and Means Committee and staff director of the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, has joined KPMG as the principal in charge of its newly formed...

July 25, 0:05 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Anderson on Alaskan Native Rights
Robert T Anderson (University of Washington School of Law) has posted Alaska Native Rights, Statehood, and Unfinished Business (Tulsa Law Review, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2007) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Alaska Native aboriginal rights to land and associated resources were never dealt with in a co..

July 25, 0:02 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Issacs on Patents & Due Process
Davida H. Isaacs (Northern Kentucky University - Salmon P. Chase College of Law) Shifting Constitutional Sands: Can and Should Patentholders Rely on the Due Process Clause to Thwart Government Action? (Florida State University Law Review, Vol. 35, p. 627, 2008) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: ..

July 25, 0:01 AM / Prettier Than Napoleon / Why economics should be mandatory in all schools.
You have a small business. Your product is so amazingly popular that every new batch you post on your website sells out in minutes and crashes your server. If you accepted all the requests for custom orders, the wait would be over a year long. Your product is so sought-after that people wait in line..

July 24, 11:24 PM / Prettier Than Napoleon / Hold on for one more day.
My five-year-old laptop is making loud rattly noises. Where can I go to get the fan checked on my Thinkpad? It might last for another year or so if I can get someone to pry out what is probably a hamster-sized lint ball from the intake vent.

July 24, 11:10 PM / Dorf on Law / The Banality of Karadzic and a Thought on Abu Ghraib
How was it possible, many people want to know, for infamous indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic to fool so many people for so long into believing that he was a soft and fuzzy alternative medicine guru? Perhaps Karadzic, a talented if evil politician, also simply has a gift for deception. Maybe, ..

July 24, 11:03 PM / How Appealing / "Justice Advised CIA in '02 About Legal Waterboarding"
"Justice Advised CIA in '02 About Legal Waterboarding": The Washington Post on Friday will contain an article that begins, "Lawyers for the Bush administration told the CIA in 2002 that its officers could legally use waterboarding and other harsh measures while interrogating al-Qaeda suspects, as l..

July 24, 10:54 PM / How Appealing / "Court: Colorado financial aid ban unconstitutional."
"Court: Colorado financial aid ban unconstitutional." The Denver Post today contains an article that begins, "Colorado violated the U.S. Constitution when it blocked taxpayer-funded financial aid to students at religious schools that the state calls 'pervasively sectarian,' a federal appellate cour..

July 24, 10:51 PM / Patent Docs / FDA Includes Genotyping Advisory in Black Box Warning
By Kevin E. Noonan -- One of the promises of the genomics revolution of the late 20th Century is the advent of personalized medicine. The belief was (and is) that the unfolding understanding of genetic variation stemming from sequence analysis of genes known or discovered to be involved in an indivi..

July 24, 10:48 PM / How Appealing / "Council's sectarian prayer ban upheld; Fredericksburg member may appeal to high court in bid to use Christ's name in blessing"
"Council's sectarian prayer ban upheld; Fredericksburg member may appeal to high court in bid to use Christ's name in blessing": This article appears today in The Richmond Times-Dispatch. And The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Virginia reports today that "City prayer policy upheld; Circuit cour..

July 24, 10:42 PM / How Appealing / "Court backs Pledge of Allegiance refusal"
"Court backs Pledge of Allegiance refusal": The Palm Beach Post today contains an article that begins, "A federal appeals court has upheld the right of former Palm Beach County student Cameron Frazier to refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in school, but it did not settle the broader quest..

July 24, 10:21 PM / Patent Docs / IPO Reports on Rising RCE Filings
By Donald Zuhn -- The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) reported today on data compiled by Esther Kepplinger, the Director of Patent Operations for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, which the IPO believes "has received little attention and has contributed to misunderstanding of patentin..

July 24, 10:12 PM / Patent Docs / USPTO News: PTO to Extend and Expand Peer Review Pilot
By Christopher P. Singer -- In a July 16, 2008 press release, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced it will extend the duration, increase the maximum number of applications, and expand the scope of applications eligible to participate in its Peer Review Pilot program. The extension and expa..

July 24, 9:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / The Libertarian Law and Economics of Batman:
I recently saw the new Batman movie, which is quite good. Overall, I have a much more favorable view of the Batman mythos than of the rival Superman. Unlike Superman, who...

July 24, 9:06 PM / Conglomerate / Timp
We had a wonderful hike on Timpanogos Trail to Emerald Lake today. The trail was surrounded by wildflowers ... and waterfalls ... and snow ... and mountain goats! Can you see them? By the end of the day, I was exhausted, blistered, and sunburned. We finished the day with dinner at the Foundry Grill..

July 24, 7:31 PM / TaxProf Blog / U.S. News Responds to Case Dean's Call to "Just Say No" to Rankings
Robert Morse, Director of Data Research at U.S. News & World Report, responds to the forthcoming National Law Journal op-ed by Gary J. Simson, Dean at Case Western (which fell ten places in the U.S. News overall rankings last year...

July 24, 7:08 PM / Feminist Law Professors / AIDS and WOC
According to the CDC: Early in the epidemic, HIV infection and AIDS were diagnosed for relatively few women and female adolescents (although we know now that many women were infected with HIV through injection drug use but that their infections were not diagnosed) [1]. Today, women account for more..

July 24, 7:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Secession, Ignorance, and Stupidity:
A recent Zogby/Middlebury Institute poll shows that 22% of Americans believe that "any state or region has the right to peaceably secede and become an independent republic." Belief in states'...

July 24, 6:50 PM / Feminist Law Professors / Arrgh.
This . And this . –Ann Bartow

July 24, 6:23 PM / Feminist Law Professors / The Third Circuit has thrown out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS for Janet Jackson's “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl.
Per this AP story: … The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity. Ninety million people were watching the Super Bowl when s..

July 24, 6:04 PM / Feminist Law Professors / Female Olympians, Raise Your Backsides
Speaking of Olympians , today USA Gymnastics announced the members of the 2008 U.S. Women's Olympic Gymnastics Team. Coverage here . I find the accompanying team photo (at top, above) quite annoying. Why are the athletes in the front row bending at the knees and lifting up their backs..

July 24, 6:03 PM / ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society / Virginia City Council Policy Against Sectarian Prayer Upheld By Appeals Court
A federal appeals court has rejected a Virginia town council member’s First Amendment challenge of city council policy requiring only nondenominational prayers at council meetings. The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court Appeals ruled July 23 that the Fredericksburg city council’s policy of allow..

July 24, 5:54 PM / Concurring Opinions / One More Triumph of the Individual Health Insurance Market
We already know that the individual health insurance market (which includes about 18 million Americans) does a terrific job of rescinding the policies of those who get sick, if they happen to have made a small error on their original application. Now insurers are prying into pharmaceutical records ..

July 24, 5:29 PM / SCOTUSblog / First detainee plea to come to U.S.
In the first effort to win release into the U.S. — to the Washington, D.C., area — of a Guantanamo Bay detainee, lawyers for a member of a Chinese Muslim minority have asked a federal judge to order the Pentagon to free him immediately. The individual is Huzaifa Parhat, whose case is..

July 24, 5:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Our Litigious Society, in 1884 Montreal:
Thanks to Sasha for the translation, from Lebeau v. Turcot, 7 Legal News 259 (1884) (emphasis added):...

July 24, 4:52 PM / Discourse.net / Taddeo Vows to Beat Ros-Lehtinen
This is the video I was talking about in my earlier post — the Taddeo campaign found a way to convert it. I think it shows that Taddeo is hitting her stride as a speaker....

July 24, 4:32 PM / Sports Law Blog / Aaron Zelinsky's "Let Iraq Play"
We received an excellent submission from Aaron Zelinsky, a rising 2L at Yale Law School, concerning today's IOC decision to ban Iraq from Olympic participation. * * * Let Iraq Play After months of public outcry, with the Olympics mere weeks away, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) took drama..

July 24, 4:19 PM / Lessig Blog / Dems unite on Network Neutrality
Matt Stoller at OpenLeft has been collecting positions from Democratic candidates about network neutrality. As he reports today , every single Democratic challenger supports open access. Check out the table, including contributions (or for most, the lack of contributions) to the candidates from tel..

July 24, 4:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Interesting Case Involving Evidence of Defendant's and Witness's Being Muslims:
Here's an excerpt from last week's State v. Rankin (N.C. App.) (some paragraph breaks added):...

July 24, 4:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Killing of Sexual Partners as Mere Manslaughter:
When can killing a sexual partner or a former sexual partner qualify as mere "voluntary manslaughter" rather than murder under American law? Some of the comments to my honor killing...

July 24, 4:00 PM / Underbelly / Obama: Some Hopes and Concerns
Last week’s meme: if the economy is in such a mess, how come we aren’t doing so badly ( link )? New meme: if Obama is so popular, how come he is up less than ten points in the polls? The Wall Street Journal offered a characteristically thorough and fair-minded review of the evidence on this top..

July 24, 3:34 PM / TaxProf Blog / A Special Day for Tax Profs
July 24 is indeed an important day for Tax Profs: Sarah Lawsky (George Washington) waxes eloquently on her receipt of the new CCH 2008-2009 Federal Income Tax Code and Regulations Selected Sections book: It's purple! It's not that I love...

July 24, 3:28 PM / Concurring Opinions / Banning the Big Mac and More
Los Angeles, California, is famed for odd approaches to the world that then catch on. According to the Wall Street Journal , L.A. is now trying to ban fast-food in a specific portion of the city where obesity rates are at 30%, nine points above the rest of the city and about four and half points ab..

July 24, 3:24 PM / Info/Law / On Max Mosley's Privacy Verdict
Big news in London, where Max Mosley, president of the body that oversees Formula One auto racing, won a large court victory against the British tabloid News of the World . The case has garnered enormous attention in Britain, partly because it was seen as potentially an important decision about the..

July 24, 3:02 PM / TaxProf Blog / Time Magazine on Northwestern's Two-Year J.D.
Time Magazine: Fast-Tracking Law School, by Kristina Dell. For more, see Brian Leiter (Chicago) and Larry Ribstein (Illinois). See prior TaxProf Blog coverage here, here, here, and here.

July 24, 2:58 PM / Legal Profession Blog / State Residency Sufficient
The Supreme Court of Nevada has held that a candidate for a district judgeship satisfies residency requirements by being a resident of the state, not the district where judge will sit if elected: We conclude that NRS 293.1755(1) imposes a...

July 24, 2:46 PM / ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society / Military Commission Proceeding Against Salim Hamdan: The Military Commission Trial Shows Its True Colors
by Aaron Zisser, the Kroll Family Human Rights Fellow at Human Rights First, who is in Guantánamo to monitor the proceedings in the terrorism case against Salim Hamdan. See Monday’s , Tuesday’s , and Wednesday’s posts. Additional reporting by Frank Kendall is available here..

July 24, 2:38 PM / Crooked Timber / Michael Chertoff, Euroweenie
Kevin Drum links to an unusually stupid (by which I mean ‘unusually stupid, even by the standards of the Corner') post by Byron York on Obama's Berlin speech. It's a small passage from Obama's Berlin speech, but this formulation, common in some circles, grates on some ears, like mine: The ter..

July 24, 2:37 PM / Concurring Opinions / Taking Inequality Personally, Take 2
Frank's post yesterday on the sources of intellectuals' hostility to capitalism reminded me of Robert Nozick's essay, published ten years ago, "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism." Here is the money passage: Intellectuals now expect to be the most highly valued people in a society, those with t..

July 24, 2:23 PM / Althouse / Obama talks to Berlin "as a citizen — a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world."
Text. ... Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen -- a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.... [O]n the twenty-fourth of June, 1948, the Communists chose to blockade the western part of the city. They cut off food and supplies to ..

July 24, 2:21 PM / Concurring Opinions / Fraying the Social Contract
The bail out of Bear Sterns (and before it, Long Term Capital Management) is a bad thing. As Dave (and President Bush) points out , we seem to be enabling financial addicts, giving more money to those who have demonstrated their ability to invest it badly. Perhaps the domino effect of a BS failure ..

July 24, 2:10 PM / Paul Hirsch Law and Science / More Sockeye
Scott Learn writes in the The Oregonian about the better than average Sockeye run in the Columbia and up the Snake.

July 24, 2:08 PM / Consumer Law & Policy / The Questionable "Services" of Debt Settlement Firms
by Greg Beck David Giacalone has an eye-opening post on debt solutions services, which, for a fee, offer to negotiate with creditors to reduce a consumer's debt. One such service is NetDebt , a for-profit company that promises to reduce consumers' debt by ("in some cases") as much as 50%. In return..

July 24, 2:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Service Nation States that It Does Not Support Mandatory National Service:
I recently had a conversation with Tim Zimmerman, a spokesman for Service Nation, in which he emphasized that he and the organization he represents do not support mandatory national service. Co-blogger...

July 24, 2:06 PM / Althouse / "I'll probably... peel off until the cake."
Out of context Obama quote of the day. Yesterday's was: They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives, something that will relieve a chronic loneliness or lift them above the exhausting, relentless toll of daily life. They need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, i..

July 24, 2:00 PM / TaxProf Blog / Field: Checking In on "Check-the-Box"
Heather M. Field (UC-Hastings) has posted Checking In on "Check-the-Box" on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Eleven years ago, new regulations dramatically changed the manner in which the federal income tax system determines how business entities are taxed. These new...

July 24, 2:00 PM / TaxProf Blog / Rifkin: An Overview of the "Tax Gap"
Dave Rifkin (Attorney-Advisor to Tax Court Judge Juan F. Vasquez; Adjunct Professor, Georgetown) has posted An Overview of the "Tax Gap" on SSRN. Here is the abstract: When taxpayers underreport their income, understate their income, or fail to file their...

July 24, 1:57 PM / The Situationist / Social Psychology and the Unconscious: The Automaticity of Higher Processes
The cognitive revolution of psychology in the 1970s began to give way to the early findings of automaticity in the 1980s, which were spearheaded by Situationist contributor John Bargh, whose dissertation on automatic social perception won the Dissertation Award from the Society of Experimental Socia..

July 24, 1:56 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / DHSâS BORDER FENCE WILL SPLIT CAMPUS
"The Bushites like to bill themselves as conservative, freedom-loving patriots. But what theyâre doing in Brownsville, Texas, is the exact opposite. ... DHSâs autocrats assert that they can build the fence wherever they want, with or without university consent, and they are proceeding with..

July 24, 1:56 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / From Migrant Worker to Brain Surgeon
"Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University, talks about his incredible, and improbable, journey from his birth in Baja, Mexico, to his time as a migrant worker to his work today as a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital in Baltimore, Ma..

July 24, 1:56 PM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / What If The Pilgrims Needed Visas?
Speech by Amb. George Bruno (ret.), July 13, 2008. [Link to audio.]

July 24, 1:46 PM / Concurring Opinions / Boarding, Bed-Hiding, and Other Dangers of Appearing Poor
The US's troubled ER's came into media focus again recently as a woman waiting for care collapsed and was ignored by hospital personnel: Zachary F. Meisel and Jesse M. Pines have done a great job exposing how our health care finance system plays an important role in such tragedies: [W]hat's largely..

July 24, 1:36 PM / ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society / Appeals Court Finds Unconstitutional Colorado Denial Of Student Financial Aid To Christian College
Colorado higher education officials acted unconstitutionally when they denied state student financial aid to a private Christian college, ruled a federal appeals court. The Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded Wednesday that it was unconstitutional for Colorado to exclude the religious col..

July 24, 1:14 PM / Legal Profession Blog / Mikhail on Moral Intuition and Vining on Scientism versus Narrative
Posted by Jeff Lipshaw For the two or three of you out there who actually read my posts on issues relating to law, ethics, business, and moral theory, or the far greater number who'd like to read something good, let...

July 24, 1:10 PM / Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog / The United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division's Cartel Enforcement: Appraisal and Proposals
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol John Connor of Purdue University's Applied Economics Department offers some important thoughts on DOJ's cartel enforcement program in his paper The United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division's Cartel Enforcement: Appraisal and Proposals. ABSTRACT: This...

July 24, 1:00 PM / TaxProf Blog / Burnett: International Tax Arbitration
Chloe Burnett (University of Sydney) has posted International Tax Arbitration, 36 Australian Tax Rev. 173 (2007), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Cross-border tax disputes are usually channelled through the "mutual agreement procedure", an informal negotiation between the tax authorities...

July 24, 12:56 PM / WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com / And Now, a Few Words About a (Re)structured Investment Vehicle
When we can, we like to expose and elucidate niche or novel areas of legal practice, from space law , to doping law , to foodborne illness law . The mystery of these practices makes them alluring; and, for serious law dawgs, even sexy. They excite us. And then there's restructuring. With its strang..

July 24, 12:53 PM / Legal Profession Blog / Brothers Charged
The Illinois ARDC has filed a complaint alleging ethics violations by two brothers in connection with their representation of an estate and the widow of the deceased. One is charged with receiving a $100,000 loan from the widow for a...

July 24, 12:07 PM / The Volokh Conspiracy / Excellent article on Hofstader's Social Darwinism in American Thought:
Tim Leonard of Princeton has posted a very interesting and important paper on Hofstader's influential book, and what he calls the "myth of Social Darwinism". Leonard points out, among other...

July 24, 12:00 PM / TaxProf Blog / Senate Holds Hearing Today on Tax and Financing Aspects of Highway Public-Private Partnerships
The Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure of the Senate Finance Committee holds a hearing today on Tax and Financing Aspects of Highway Public-Private Partnerships. Here are the witnesses scheduled to testify: Edward D. Kleinbard (Chief of Staff, Joint...

July 24, 11:53 AM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / State Laws Related to Immigrants and Immigration: Jan. 1 - June 30, 2008
"State legislatures continue tackling immigration in a variety of policy arenas at an unprecedented rate. So far this year, 1267 bills have been considered in 45 state legislatures and at least 175 laws and resolutions have been enacted in 39 states. A total of 190 bills and resolutions have passed ..

July 24, 11:53 AM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / When Americans Get Deported Illegally
"A man named Robert, who has an Hispanic last name, served nearly two years in prison, was deported, got caught re- entering, was sentenced to three years in prison, served more time, and then was finally sent to an immigration judge. He was later informed that he had been a citizen since 1983." San..

July 24, 11:42 AM / Law & Humanities Blog / Kafka's Knowledge of Law
Arnold Heidsieck, University of Southern California, has published "Fictional and Non-Fictional Uses of Administrative, Civil, and Criminal Law by Kafka and His Friends." Here is the abstract. Kafka studied these three branches of law with several then-prominent academic teachers. But it was his ext..

July 24, 11:39 AM / Discourse.net / The Whisper Campaign Against Taddeo
In The Democratic Campaign Against Progressive Democrat Annette Taddeo fearless Matt Stoller puts in writing some stuff that I was hearing at Netroots Nation from some others — but only on condition I not write it down. So let’s look closer at a subtle campaign against Ros-Lehtinen’..

July 24, 11:02 AM / Althouse / An L.A. meetup?
I'll be blogging from L.A. soon, and as discussed here — where you gave me so many good tips — I may do a meetup with blog readers. If you think you might come, email me at my gmail address (annalthouse) so I can see if the numbers are there and, if it's going to happen, give you the time and pl..

July 24, 10:58 AM / Feminist Law Professors / True and Amazing Travel Story
I flew back from Stockholm yesterday and was upgraded to Business Class, which was a nice surprise. After I got settled in my aisle seat, a women asked me to change seats so that she could sit with her (adult) daughter. I agreed a little grumpily, since this meant I had to pull my luggage out of th..

July 24, 10:55 AM / Legal Profession Blog / No Discipline Against Defunct Firm, No Suspension For Lawyers
An order entered yesterday by the Supreme Court of New Jersey reviewed a Disciplinary Review Board report that had censured a defunct law firm for violations of supervisory responsibilities, fee sharing, improper compensation for employment recommendations and failure to report...

July 24, 10:50 AM / Workplace Prof Blog / Lurie's Recent Employee Benefits Articles
Alvin Lurie has been busy publishing articles on the ERISA and employee benefits front. The first article, It's a PIP - Or Is It?, concerns "an idea that has been wafting about in legislative halls and hearing rooms, in print...

July 24, 10:27 AM / Legal Profession Blog / Taking Case Violated Duty Of Competence
The Maryland Court of Appeals suspended an attorney for 90 days for ethical violations in two matters. The second matter is the interesting one - the client had filed a pro se suit against Montgomery County Crime Solvers claiming $500,000...

July 24, 10:22 AM / Workplace Prof Blog / Shapiro on Reserval Rates in Employment Disputes
Carolyn Shapiro (Chicago-Kent) has an interesting post up on the Empirical Legal Studies blog on reversal rates in employment disputes in three recent empirical articles: An article recently posted on SSRN provides some interesting data about how employers and employees...

July 24, 9:48 AM / PrawfsBlawg / Still more on religiously affiliated schools and institutional pluralism
I really appreciate the recent posts -- by Paul, Jason, and Gordon -- on religiously affiliated law schools and law schools' "missions" generally. (For what it's worth, Paul's experience at the religiously affiliated law school at which he recently visited is -- whaddya know! -- very much like my ow..

July 24, 9:46 AM / Concurring Opinions / Purple!
This was not a planned blog post, but I'm so excited I just have to share: I just got my 2008-2009 Federal Income Tax Code and Regulations Selected Sections . It's purple! It's not that I love purple so much, but I absolutely love getting the new code and regs. I'm a CCH gal myself, though certainl..

July 24, 9:34 AM / Underbelly / Jumping Jacks in Every Garage!
I don't suppose there is anything too over-the-top about this guy wanting to be a Congressman. But when he says "I want the respect of a Congressman..." Thanks, John.

July 24, 9:30 AM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / DHS proposes to exempt portions of BCI from TECS
"The Department of Homeland Security is proposing to amend its regulations to exempt portions of a system of records from certain provisions of the Privacy Act. Specifically, the Department proposes to exempt portions of the Border Crossing Information from one or more provisions of the Privacy Act ..

July 24, 9:30 AM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / Mom's arrest leaves kids abandoned on highway
"An illegal immigrant arrested on a traffic violation last month was forced to leave her three children on the shoulder of Interstate 85 in the middle of the night -- where they were alone and stranded for eight hours." Times-News, July 23, 2008.

July 24, 9:30 AM / Bender's Immigration Bulletin / NYC landlord enjoined from evicting Latino tenant
"[D]efendant's refusal to renew plaintiff's lease based on his immigration status, violates the protections afforded by both the Rent Stabilization Law and the New York City Human Rights Law, and, as such, it is highly likely that plaintiff will ultimately prevail on those claims. ... [T]his action ..

July 24, 9:14 AM / Brian Leiter's Law School Reports / More on Northwestern's 24-Month JD
Here. The best line comes at the end, from Geoffrey Stone (Chicago): "Northwestern gets more tuition with less teaching."

July 24, 9:09 AM / Legal Theory Blog / Anderson on Bobbitt on Terror & Consent
Ken Anderson has a review of Phillip Bobbitt's Terror and Consent in the Times Literaty Supplement. Here is a taste: [T]he success of Terror and Consent as an argument depends largely on whether “market” and “state” can be corralled together as Bobbitt proposes, or whether, instead, the cat..

July 24, 9:08 AM / Concurring Opinions / Criminalization Evidence
Catherine Dodds, who has been doing research on the psychosocial impact of HIV prosecutions in the UK on people with and at risk of infection, sent these comments: We are finding that some men with a positive diagnosis are less likely to disclose their HIV status (socially or sexually) for fear tha..

July 24, 9:03 AM / SCOTUSblog / Recent Cert. Petition on Aggravated Identity Theft
On Tuesday, we filed this cert. petition in Flores-Figueroa v. United States . The petition asks the Court to resolve a 3-3 circuit split over the mens rea requirement of the federal “aggravated identity theft” statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1). That statute provides a mandatory 2 y..

July 24, 9:02 AM / Conglomerate / More Rankings (Herein of Blogs)
Paul Caron has updated his quarterly law prof blog rankings . Glom comes in 17th in visitors and 19th in page views (aggregated over the last 12 months (July 07-June 08)). Seems pretty respectable . . . much better than coming in the top five. According to Leiter , fou..

July 24, 8:54 AM / Concurring Opinions / More Comments on HIV Criminalization
The video posted by Kaimi is pretty funny, but it makes the point negatively as well as positively. The negotiation is extensive, involving everything from sexual positions to meeting the parents, but there is still no mention of STDs or protection. Matthew Weait, who has written brilliantly on the..

July 24, 8:47 AM / WSJ.com: Law Blog - WSJ.com / Report: Iraq Banned from Olympics, a Lawsuit to Follow?
A decision today by the the International Olympic Committee to uphold a ban on Iraqi teams at the 2008 Beijing Games exposes a rift in Iraq's government, and may lead to a lawsuit. The IOC said the Iraqi government missed the deadline to address accusations of political interference in the country'..

July 24, 8:40 AM / Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog / The Viability Of Antitrust Price Squeeze Claims
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Herb Hovenkamp of the University of Iowa Law School and Erik N. Hovenkamp, University of Iowa - Department of Economics, B.S. Candidate 2009 (I am guessing this is Herb's son) have written on The Viability...

July 24, 8:21 AM / Legal History Blog / Call for Papers: Justice and Public Space(s) in the Western World, from Antiquity to the Present
Call for Papers:Justice and Public Space(s) in the Western World, from Antiquity to the Present An international conference organized by the Centre interuniversitaire d’études québécoises (CIEQ) and the Centre d’histoire des régulations sociales (CHRS) Montreal, May 7 and 8, 2009 Due date fo..

July 24, 8:20 AM / Althouse / "I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do."
It's Giles Coren, getting "mightily pissed off" about copy editing — over the deletion of the word "a" — and with good reason. (Via Metafilter .) I completely understand the sentiment, and I love the thoroughly British tone of the complaint letter. There is no length issue. This is someone thin..

July 24, 8:15 AM / Voir Dire / The 4 day work week comes to Utah
More on this development at The Conglomerate . An academic friend in Utah informs me that, sadly, this does not apply to state academic institutions.

July 24, 8:04 AM / Althouse / You can stop envying your neighbor's granite countertops now.
Or have you already sprung for this expensive kitchen upgrade that may be the equivalent , cancer-wise, of smoking? blog advertising blog advertising