How Appealing



Monday, January 29, 2007

“PBS Series Spotlights the Supreme Court’s Past and Present Personalities”: law.com’s Tony Mauro provides this review of “The Supreme Court” on PBS.

And Variety has published this review of the program.

Additional information about the program, including links to transcripts of the program’s four hour-long episodes and other reviews, can be accessed via this earlier post.

Posted at 9:00 PM by Howard Bashman



“Lawyer busted for DUI while driving to pick up client busted for DUI”: “The Obscure Store” links here to an article published Friday in The Wisconsin State Journal.

Posted at 8:00 PM by Howard Bashman



You can’t yet view it on TV, but you can now access the transcripts: The web site that PBS has created in connection with its forthcoming broadcast, this Wednesday night and next Wednesday night, of the program “The Supreme Court” provides access to the transcripts for all four hours of the show. You can access the transcripts at the following links: first hour; second hour; third hour; and fourth hour.

You can also access short video previews of each of the four hours via this link. And a related discussion guide for educators contains illustrations by Mark Alan Stamaty.

You can access via this link various newspaper reviews of the program.

Update: True, the final hour of the program on Wednesday, February 7, 2007 is up against a brand new episode of ABC’s “Lost,” but at least Comedy Central had the good sense to schedule “The Sarah Silverman Program” (reviewed here in the current issue of The New Yorker) for Thursday nights at 10:30 p.m. eastern time.

Posted at 4:00 PM by Howard Bashman



Pro se litigant defeats opposing counsel from Weil, Gotshal & Manges in an Enron-related appeal: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued this decision today. The ruling resolves the question of what action triggers the 15-day deadline for an appellant to file an opening brief on appeal from a bankruptcy court’s ruling.

Some background on the underlying dispute that gives rise to today’s decision can be accessed here. (This item notes that this particular pro se litigant is also a lawyer, but that doesn’t make him any less pro se, does it?)

Posted at 2:55 PM by Howard Bashman



“Killers face uncertain death; Strickland may be sympathetic to claims of mental retardation”: This article appears today in The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Yesterday’s newspaper contained three more death penalty-related articles, and you can access them via this link at the “Ohio Death Penalty Information” blog.

Posted at 2:27 PM by Howard Bashman



“I hope that the Executive Branch revisits this case and, if the facts truly are as they have been made to appear to us, will consider letting the defendants go after a more appropriate term of incarceration.” So writes Ninth Circuit Judge Richard R. Clifton in a concurring opinion issued today.

Judge Clifton’s concurring opinion begins:

I write separately to express my dismay at the consequences of the result we reach. Although I concur in the memorandum disposition and join fully in its legal analysis, I find the outcome of this case to be troubling.

Even the Government appears to accept that the terrible death of the victim here was an unintended consequence of the defendants’ act of burning down a house they viewed as theirs, in order to end a long-running family disagreement. It has not been disputed that the defendants acted without knowledge that the victim, previously seen getting into a car, had returned to the house and fallen asleep in a bedroom. Nothing reflects any intent on the part of the defendants to injure the victim or anyone else. Aside from this one episode, the defendants have had only a few minor brushes with the law. Yet the mandatory sentences of life imprisonment mean that the lives of these young people, aged 25 and 21 at the time of conviction, may be entirely squandered in prison. It is appropriate that the defendants be seriously punished for what they did, but these life sentences do not square with my concept of justice.

Today’s non-precedential opinion affirming the convictions and sentences can be accessed here.

Earlier press coverage of this case can be accessed here and here.

Posted at 2:18 PM by Howard Bashman



“Senate Termination of Presidential Recess Appointments”: The final version of Seth Barrett Tillman’s essay can now be accessed here at the Northwestern University Law Review’s “Colloquy” web site.

A response to that essay by Law Professor Brian C. Kalt, titled “Keeping Recess Appointments in Their Place,” can be accessed here (abstract with links for download) at SSRN (via “Legal Theory Blog“).

Posted at 11:10 AM by Howard Bashman



A federal appellate perspective on the Super Bowl, part two: In response to this post from earlier this morning, a reader emails:

I just read your interesting post on the superbowl & intra-circuit rivalries. With the understanding that you were just forwarding someone else’s post, it seems worthwhile to note that this superbowl will actually be the *third* between two teams from different states within the same federal circuit. (Although the second between two teams from different states *currently* within the same federal circuit).

The reason for this is that Superbowl VI was between Dallas and Miami. While of course those two teams are now in different federal circuits, at the time the game was played (1972), I believe both were in the 5th Circuit.

This reader is correct, as in 1972 the State of Florida was part of the Fifth Circuit. The Eleventh Circuit came into being on October 1, 1981.

Posted at 10:55 AM by Howard Bashman



“Update on the Sixth Circuit Litigation Challenging the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program”: Marty Lederman has this post today at the “Balkinization” blog. Marty’s post notes that the three-judge Sixth Circuit panel scheduled to hear oral argument on Wednesday consists of “Judges Alice Batchelder (appointed 1991), Ronald Gilman (appointed 1997) and Julia Smith Gibbons (appointed 2002).”

On Saturday, The Cincinnati Enquirer published an article headlined “ACLU frustrated in case opposing phone taps.”

Posted at 10:50 AM by Howard Bashman



A federal appellate perspective on the Super Bowl: Attorney Elliot Regenstein, who practices law in Chicago, emails this morning:

I don’t know if you follow these things carefully, but nobody else has noted that this year’s Super Bowl will be only the second ever between two teams from different states within the same federal appellate circuit (the first being Super Bowl IV, an intra-8th Circuit tussle). It’s at most the fourth Super Bowl involving teams from within the same circuit — XXIX (49ers over Chargers) clearly qualified, and XXV (Giants over Bills) might, depending on where you count the Giants.

It guarantees that the 7th Circuit will pick up its fifth Super Bowl title, tying it for second with the 3d and the 5th but behind the 9th (which has 8). Those rankings count the two New York Giants titles with the Second Circuit, which of course is a debatable point. The Sixth Circuit remains the only federal appellate court not to win a Super Bowl title; the Lions and Cleveland Browns have never made it, the Bengals are 0-2, and the Titans are 0-1. Every other circuit has at least two titles.

I thank my correspondent for sending this along. You can access at this link a list of the outcomes of the previous 40 Super Bowls.

Posted at 10:24 AM by Howard Bashman



“Unabomber’s act still affects Prof. Gelernter; Computer science prof. opposed to publishing prisoner’s writings”: This article appears today in The Yale Daily News.

Posted at 9:28 AM by Howard Bashman



“Madame Justice”: At her “Legalities” blog, Jan Crawford Greenburg has a post that begins, “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a speech Friday night that she didn’t like being ‘all alone on the Court,’ according to [an] account by the Associated Press.” The post also mentions Jan’s book tour, which gets underway tonight in the Chicago area. Details here.

Posted at 9:04 AM by Howard Bashman



“Decorum on Appeal: When Judges Are Under Attack.” This week’s installment of my “On Appeal” column for law.com begins, “Some judges are crooked. Others are idiots. And some ignore or distort the facts and applicable law to reach results more to their liking than the facts and law, honestly portrayed, would allow.”

Posted at 8:44 AM by Howard Bashman



“Journalists to take stand in Libby’s perjury trial; Defense might rely on their testimony to show Libby didn’t deliberately lie about Plame case”: This article appears today in USA Today.

Posted at 8:42 AM by Howard Bashman



“Series shines a light on Supreme Court”: The San Jose Mercury News today contains this review of the PBS program “The Supreme Court,” scheduled to air this Wednesday night and next Wednesday night.

I have collected additional reviews in posts you can access here and here.

Posted at 8:40 AM by Howard Bashman



“Case pits bald eagle against sacred rites; American Indian tests strict federal protection”: This article appears today in The Chicago Tribune.

Posted at 8:35 AM by Howard Bashman



“Woman’s crusade against bar spawns free speech case; Anne Lemen just wants to say what she pleases about a Balboa Island restaurant and bar; A court has forbidden her to, and that sets up a dispute over prior restraint”: Today in The Los Angeles Times, Maura Dolan has an article that begins, “The most important free speech case now before the California Supreme Court carries neither the heft of the Pentagon Papers nor the emotion of Nazis seeking to march in Skokie, Ill.”

Posted at 8:30 AM by Howard Bashman



“Stay extends death-row record”: The Washington Times today contains an article that begins, “The man who has been on the Texas death row longer than anyone else in history was saved from scheduled execution last week by the U.S. Supreme Court with no specific reasons given for the intervention.”

Posted at 8:15 AM by Howard Bashman



“Author Takes On Civil Liberties Of 1812”: The Hartford Courant today contains an article that begins, “Matthew Warshauer is not entirely happy that his first book – a study of Andrew Jackson’s suspension of civil liberties in wartime – has gotten national attention. On the one hand, he was excited to read the 5,000-word review in last week’s New Yorker that calls his book ‘lucid and well-researched.’ On the other hand, Warshauer understands that his book’s popularity is tied to post-Sept. 11 civil liberties violations.”

I previously linked here to that review.

Posted at 8:07 AM by Howard Bashman



“Potshot at Guantanamo lawyers backfires; Big firms laud free legal aid for detainees”: This article appears today in The Boston Globe.

Posted at 8:05 AM by Howard Bashman



“Home Is Where Her Hog Is; A couple of years ago, a petrified little pig escaped the butcher, thanks to its new owner; Now the Herndon woman is fighting a zoning law to keep her 140-pound pet at her house”: The Washington Post contains this article today.

Posted at 8:03 AM by Howard Bashman