How Appealing



Monday, July 31, 2006

“‘Super Lawyers’ and ‘Best Lawyers’ Hire Big Guns to Battle Ad Ban; Publishers of legal surveys fight back against unique ethics ruling”: law.com provides a report that begins, “Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America have retained attorneys with gravitas to attempt to reverse an ethics opinion that put them out of business in New Jersey.” You can access law.com’s earlier coverage via this link.

Posted at 10:40 PM by Howard Bashman



“Scholars & Scribes Review the Rulings: The Supreme Court’s 2005-2006 Term.” The Heritage Foundation hosted this event on July 13, 2006. The preceding link allows you to access archived video of the event in both Windows Media and mp3 formats.

The second half of the Heritage event was featured on this past Saturday’s broadcast of C-SPAN‘s “America & the Courts.” You can view archived video of the broadcast by clicking here (RealPlayer required).

Posted at 10:22 PM by Howard Bashman



“Exotic dancers don’t have right to take it all off, high court decrees”: Saturday’s edition of The Salt Lake Tribune contained an article that begins, “The Utah Supreme Court ruled Friday that the right of exotic dancers to bare all is not a fundamental freedom protected by the Utah Constitution.”

And Saturday’s edition of The Deseret Morning News reported that “Court affirms ban on nude dancing; South S.L. attorney applauds the decision.”

You can access last Friday’s 3-2 ruling of the Supreme Court of Utah at this link.

Posted at 7:55 PM by Howard Bashman



“Federal judge throws out Minnesota’s video game law”: The Minneapolis Star Tribune provides a news update that begins, “A federal judge on Monday struck down a state law aimed at keeping violent video games out of the hands of Minnesota children, saying the state has shown no convincing evidence that children are harmed by them.”

And The Associated Press reports that “Federal judge throws out Minnesota’s video game law.”

I have posted online at this link today’s opinion by Chief Judge James M. Rosenbaum of the U.S. District Court of the District of Minnesota.

Posted at 7:18 PM by Howard Bashman



“9/11 Trial Exhibits Posted on Website”: The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “Photographs of the carnage of Sept. 11 and tape-recorded final phone calls from victims in the World Trade Center were posted Monday by a federal court, a total of 1,202 exhibits from the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.” The article goes on to report that “The U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., said it is the first criminal case for which a federal court has provided access to all exhibits online.”

You can access the exhibits online via this link.

Posted at 6:02 PM by Howard Bashman



Defendant alleged to have made false and defamatory statements pertaining to a Pittsburgh-based attorney on the DontDateHimGirl.com web site denies those allegations: Defendant Alesia Roskov filed this Answer, New Matter, and Counterclaim last Friday in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. You can access additional documents filed in the case via this earlier link.

Posted at 5:55 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Haynes Saga”: The Richmond Times-Dispatch today contains an editorial that concludes, “The Haynes nomination is dead in all but name. He should withdraw, and make way for a nominee able to win Senate consent.”

Posted at 5:33 PM by Howard Bashman



“Today we issue an opinion holding that an attorney’s subjective good intentions may relieve her from liability for sanctions for her objectively reckless pursuit of a patently frivolous claim. Because this holding flatly contradicts the law of this circuit, I must respectfully dissent.” So begins a lengthy dissenting opinion issued today by Senior Circuit Judge James C. Hill from the ruling of the majority on a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Posted at 5:15 PM by Howard Bashman



“A move to salvage a big antitrust case”: At “SCOTUSblog,” Lyle Denniston has a post that begins, “A newly filed antitrust appeal to the Supreme Court, a significant test of the proof needed to show below-cost pricing to try to drive out a competitor, has been taken off the Court’s docket because it was not filed before a deadline.”

The ruling of a three-judge Sixth Circuit panel in the case can be accessed here. The U.S. Supreme Court‘s docket entries on the case are available at this link.

Posted at 5:00 PM by Howard Bashman



Seventh Circuit panel discusses when a motion for summary affirmance is appropriate: A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued this opinion today. The opinion states that “When a motion for summary affirmance is appropriate, it should be filed earlier rather than later–not right before the merits brief is due.”

Today’s opinion involves a defendant’s sentencing appeal in a criminal case. The federal government filed its motion for summary affirmance days before its merits brief was due. Today’s decision holds that the case is not deserving of summary affirmance and that filing a motion for summary affirmance is not an appropriate way to seek to postpone the due date of the Brief for Appellee.

Posted at 3:20 PM by Howard Bashman



“May a public high school prohibit students from wearing T-shirts with messages that condemn and denigrate other students on the basis of their sexual orientation?” Back on April 20, 2006, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit answered that question in the affirmative. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote the majority opinion, while Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski issued a dissenting opinion. My earlier coverage of this ruling appears here and here.

Today, the Ninth Circuit issued an order denying rehearing en banc, from which five judges noted their dissent. The next step for this case will likely be a petition for writ of certiorari filed in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Update: A reader emails to note (informed by “California Appellate Report“) that Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain‘s dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc cites to this blog post from Eugene Volokh at “The Volokh Conspiracy.”

Posted at 3:03 PM by Howard Bashman



“Fair Weather Friend of the Court: Senator Specter passes the buck to the courts on one of the major issues of the day.” Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Adam J. White have this essay today online at The Weekly Standard.

Posted at 11:45 AM by Howard Bashman



On cases remanded from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to a federal district court located within the geographical boundaries of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the Seventh Circuit’s local rule governing when the case must be reassigned to a different district judge applies on remand: You can access at this link the Federal Circuit’s ruling today in Eolas Technologies, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.

The Seventh Circuit’s local rule in question can be accessed here. In my “20 questions for the appellate judge” interview with Senior District Judge Milton I. Shadur of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, that Seventh Circuit local rule was the subject of Question 18.

Posted at 11:40 AM by Howard Bashman



“5th Circuit hears DeLay ballot case arguments today; Possible GOP contenders eagerly await the outcome”: Today’s edition of The Houston Chronicle contains this article.

Posted at 10:30 AM by Howard Bashman



“Could Increased Openness in Judges’ Decision-Making Depoliticize Confirmations?” The brand new installment of my “On Appeal” column for law.com appears at this link. It is based on the other major theme of my remarks at the recent Eight Circuit Judicial Conference in Brainerd, Minnesota. The first major theme of those remarks was the subject of my column from last week, headlined “Viewing Law Blogs as a Vast Amicus Brief.”

Those who would prefer to see Brainerd-area images of Paul Bunyan merely need click here and here.

Posted at 8:45 AM by Howard Bashman



“How an Overachieving Law Professor Toppled the President’s Terror Tribunals; Katyal: I Never Wanted to Sue the President.” T.R. Goldman has this article (free access) today in Legal Times.

Meanwhile, those with subscriptions to the online content of Legal Times can also access an Inadmissible item headlined “Dems Rally to Stall D.C. Circuit Nominee” that begins, “Republican efforts to fast-track Peter Keisler’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit are generating election-season squabbling in the Senate.”

The transcript of Tony Mauro’s recent panel discussion is available online under the headline “2005-06 Supreme Court: The Advocates’ View; Four advocates weigh the meaning of Hamdan and the future of the Roberts Court.”

And in subscription-required commentary, Law Professor Douglas W. Kmiec has an essay entitled “With Reservations: Despite ABA report on signing statements, the president should not enforce an invalid law.”

Clark Neily has an essay entitled “Banned in Maine: Under a state tuition program, students can pick their school; Just so long as it’s not religious.” My earlier coverage appears here.

And Legal Times reprints one of my recent law.com essays (freely available here) under the heading “Dividing Nine Into Two: The decision to split up the 9th Circuit rests finally with Congress, not the judges.”

Posted at 8:30 AM by Howard Bashman



“Action on Judges Expected to Slow; Calendar, Campaign Conspire”: Roll Call today contains an article (subscription required) that begins, “Senate Republicans, facing a major political battle and a tight legislative calendar, said last week that there’s little chance they can move any of the remaining controversial judicial nominations before the November elections.”

And the August 7, 2006 issue of Newsweek contains an article headlined “A Gang Under Siege: They were ‘saviors of the Senate’; But the Gang of 14 may pay a price at the polls.”

Posted at 6:35 AM by Howard Bashman



“Blawg Review #68”: Available online here, at “Jeremy Blachman’s Brand New Weblog.”

Posted at 6:33 AM by Howard Bashman