The Supreme Court heard a very important argument this week in the case of Maryland v. Shatzer. It was one of those situations where the oral argument makes a huge difference in the outcome of the case. We read the briefs earlier this month, and remarked to colleagues that both...
For the record, our position on gun control is to use both hands, relax, and control your breathing. But let’s talk about the law. Last year, the Supreme Court historically decided that the Second Amendment gives individuals a constitutional right to possess firearms. The ruling, in District of Columbia...
Last year, for reasons we’re not entirely clear on, Hamas-led Palestinians started firing rockets and mortars at civilian populations in Israel. Israel put up with it for a while, but then after Christmas it finally responded with a bunch of air strikes on targets in the Hams-controlled Gaza region, and...
On our first day as a young Manhattan ADA, we were assigned to the office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for NYC. The purpose of Special Narcotics is to investigate and take down large-scale drug trafficking across the city. There were two parts to the office — the Special Investigations...
The LSAT is essentially the law school entrance exam in the United States. One’s score on that test is a big factor in determining which law school one will get to attend (if any). The law school one attends has an enormous influence on what sort of jobs will be...
The “Prosecutor’s Fallacy” is one example of why we think Statistics should be a required course in college. Let’s say the police have the DNA of a rapist. Only 1 in 3,000,000 people chosen at random will match that DNA sample. Your DNA matches. At your trial, the DNA expert...
We were surfing the net just now, and came across an excellent blog by Jonathan Kirshbaum, called “Habeas Corpus Blog: Keeping Track of the Great Writ for New York State Prisoners.” You can check it out here. What particularly caught our eye was yesterday’s post on Davis, which started off...
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on how companies are starting to insist on flat fees for legal services. In the economic recession, companies are starting to complain that lawyers billing by the hour (or the tenth of the hour) only creates incentives for those lawyers to work inefficiently...
We love Alan Dershowitz. And we love Justice Scalia. So at first we were intrigued to hear that Dersh had challenged Scalia to a debate over his recent dissent in Davis. (See our post on it here.) But it turns out that Dersh is just being disingenuous. Pity. Quick recap:...
We’ve asked it before, but what the heck is going on with some of these federal prosecutors nowadays? There was the whole Ted Stevens fiasco over the winter, when the feds actively withheld exculpatory evidence and witnesses in their rush to convict the former Senator. Then the 7th Circuit directed...
The Supreme Court did something today it hasn’t done for generations — it took an “original writ” of habeas corpus (a request made directly to the Supreme Court itself, instead of first filing it in a lower court), and then it ordered a federal District Court to hold a...
We’ve seen too many appellate briefs that suck. They’re too hard to follow, demand too much effort to figure out, and give clerks and judges every reason to stop paying attention. There’s no excuse for such bad writing. There are tons of books and treatises out there on how to...
No law today. Let’s have a police procedural for a change. We’re in the mood for some white-collar stuff, so here goes. Forget about the Madoff case. Most financial crimes are nowhere near as headline-worthy, nor do they involve such massive amounts of other people’s money. But smaller scams...
In a series of predawn raids this morning, the FBI arrested the boss of New York City’s carpenters’ union and nine other men. The 29-count indictment alleges a scam whereby construction contractors paid bribes to union officials, in return for which they were allowed to use cheaper non-union labor. The...
The D.C. Circuit weighed in today on an important issue that has split the circuits evenly: whether a sentencing court can give extra time in prison, to increase the opportunity for rehabilitation of the prisoner. Some circuits say it’s fine, some say it’s prohibited by law. -=-=-=- 18 U.S.C. §...
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