Category Archives: Posts

Guess I Won’t Be Counting Stevens’ Circuit Court Opinions

Posted on 3 October 2011 by

Retired Associate Justice John Paul Stevens will likely not be hearing cases in the federal appeals courts, he told Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “David [Souter] and Sandra [Day O'Connor, his fellow retired colleagues] have enjoyed it,” Justice … Continue reading →

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Postscript: Immigrant visas for the right price

Posted on 13 September 2011 by

As a postscript to my last post, I wanted to highlight another round of reader comments on Andrew Sullivan’s Dish blog about how much it costs to file for immigration benefits. Below is one Dish commenter’s application for lawful permanent … Continue reading →

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Immigrant visas for the right price: the immigration tariff Idea

Posted on 1 September 2011 by

The idea to dramatically reform American immigration law and replace it with an “immigration tariff” has generated a fair amount of discussion in recent weeks. Noticed by Alex Nowrasteh, and first proposed by the Nobel Prize in Economics-winning Gary Becker, … Continue reading →

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Catching up on the week’s news: SB 1070 and Healthcare Reform

Posted on 13 August 2011 by

Two big developments in simmering policy and legal controversies this week. First, the State of Arizona filed a certiorari petition with the Supreme Court, asking the Court to review the injunction that a federal judge imposed prohibiting the enforcement of … Continue reading →

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John F. Kennedy’s A Nation of Immigrants

Posted on 11 August 2011 by

The other day I obtained A Nation of Immigrants by John F. Kennedy, from my university’s wonderfully large main library. First written in the 1950s when he was still a senator, it contains a short history of immigration in America (including … Continue reading →

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Justice Department sues Alabama over its state immigration law

Posted on 3 August 2011 by

The Justice Department on Monday filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, alleging that Alabama’s recently-enacted state immigration law, referred to as H.B. 56, is unconstitutional. A short summary from the New York … Continue reading →

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1066 and All That: 1994 Pa. Supreme Court Decision Gets Really Historical

Posted on 2 August 2011 by

Yesterday I was going along, reading a 1994 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision, Commonwealth v. Leet, 537 Pa. 89, 641 A.2d 299 (Pa. 1994). The case deals with whether a sheriff in Pennsylvania can make warrantless arrests for violations of the … Continue reading →

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No Rest for a Retired Justice: The First Circuit Decisions of David Souter

Posted on 29 July 2011 by

You would think that retirement for a Supreme Court justice would be quite relaxing: after years of reading briefs and working on opinions, a justice would be able to relax and take a break from all of the work of … Continue reading →

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Wikipedia? In a judicial opinion? (Pt. II)

Posted on 27 July 2011 by

Previously, I had highlighted some of the more acceptable uses of Wikipedia in judicial opinions, according to Lee Peoples’ article, The Citation of Wikipedia in Judicial Opinions. I promised a look at some of the questions Joseph Gerken would want … Continue reading →

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Wikipedia? In a judicial opinion? (Pt. I)

Posted on 18 July 2011 by

You’re going along, reading a judge’s opinion or a brief in a case, following the analysis or the argument, when a citation stops you cold. Not just any citation. But a citation to Wikipedia. “Uhh, ok,” you think to yourself. … Continue reading →

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