Tagged: civil rights

A Tiny Bit More on Qualified Immunity

Last summer, I made a little ‘splainer for the Washington Post briefly explaining how Qualified Immunity works (and doesn’t). [Link] This afternoon, a very nice reporter reached out to me for some followup. She’s doing a longer piece on QI, and had some questions specifically about the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence here. I dashed...

Q&A Dump

I’m on the road today, but I wanted to post something. So I’m going to cheat and cut-and-paste some recent Q&A posts from my Tumblr. If you’re looking for a longer read, go check out my comic, which just completed a long section involving how the Fourth Amendment plays out...

Why Become a Lawyer?

In today’s environment, where law schools are churning out way more lawyers than the market really wants, plenty of law students and recent grads are wondering if it’s really worth it. We’re asked this question, in various forms, all the time.  And we see it asked every day on various...

Supremes Punt, but Stevens AND Scalia Agree: It’s Time to Clarify whether Feds Can Still Prosecute Old Civil Rights Crimes

While the boys were still alive, they were chained to the engine block of an old Jeep, and to pieces of railroad track. Then the Klansmen dumped the boys in the river, where they drowned. One of the Klansmen later reported that Seale “would have shot them first, but didn’t want to get blood all over the boat.”

The boys were killed because they were black, and because Seale thought they might have been civil-rights workers.

Defense to Win All Remaining Supreme Court Cases

With only two more decision dates remaining in this Supreme Court term, we’ve got our eyes on four criminal cases yet to be decided. Either next Monday (June 22) or the following Monday (June 29), we should expect to hear from the Supremes. We’re going to make a prediction right...