“The record clearly shows that the defendants are fools, but that is not the same as being incompetent.” So writes the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a ruling issued today addressing whether the defendants in a criminal case were properly allowed “to represent themselves and assert an absurd legal theory wrapped up in Uniform Commercial Code gibberish.”

“Business method patents nearly bite the dust; Reflecting on Justice Stevens’ lost majority opinion in Bilski“: Tom Goldstein has this post at “SCOTUSblog.”

Second Circuit issues ruling in In re Novartis Wage and Hour Litigation: Are pharmaceutical sales reps entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act if they work more than 40 hours per week? That’s the question that a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided today.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York had ruled in favor of Novartis, holding that drug company sales reps are not entitled to overtime pay due to FLSA exemptions for “outside salesmen” and “administrative employees.”

Today’s Second Circuit ruling disagrees, thereby reinstating the sales reps’ claims for overtime pay. Among other things, the Second Circuit notes that pharmaceutical sales reps don’t actually sell anything to anyone.

In coverage of today’s ruling, Bloomberg News reports that “Novartis AG’s Salespeople Covered by Wage Laws, U.S. Appeals Court Rules.”

“Bad news for Obama: Conservative Justice Kennedy tells pals he’s in no rush to leave Supreme Court.” The New York Daily News contains this article today.

“Free Speech in Question When Talking Out of School”: This article appeared Saturday in The Wall Street Journal.

Alphabetize this! Sure, it may be a zillion degrees outside, and, yes, my son and I attended last night’s Phillies-Braves game, but nevertheless appellate briefs demand to be finalized and filed (as on Friday I filed one in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania and today I’m filing one in the Third Circuit).

Given that this began as, and remains, an “appellate” blog, the following question presents itself — How should unusual case names be alphabetized in an appellate brief’s table of authorities? For example, assume you cite the following four cases in your appellate brief:

United States v. Jones;

United States v. $154,362.05 in U.S. Currency;

United States v. 75 Broken Television Sets; and

United States v. Smith.

How should those cases be alphabetized in the brief’s table of authorities? We will leave the question of how to alphabetize case names that begin with “In re”; “Ex parte”; etc. for a later post. Readers with informed views on this question are invited to respond to this post via email. Thanks much!

Update: I will run a post later featuring reader responses, which have already begun to arrive. Perhaps in a follow-up post, i will also ask for reader input on how to “alphabetize” cases that have identical names.

“Defendants Squeezed by Georgia’s Tight Budget”: Adam Liptak has this new installment of his “Sidebar” column in today’s issue of The New York Times.