“Linda Greenhouse, legendary New York Times reporter looks back on three decades chronicling the Supreme Court–including her run-ins with the journalism ethics police.” Charles Kaiser has this interview at Radar Online.

And the September 2008 issue of The Third Branch newsletter also contained an interview with Linda Greenhouse headlined “Pulitzer Prize Winning Reporter Discusses the Media and the Federal Judiciary.”

“Accused 9/11 planner entitled to a laptop, judge rules”: Today in The Miami Herald, Carol Rosenberg has an article that begins, “Guantanamo guards must furnish confessed al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators with enough battery power to use their prison camp laptops 12 hours a day — but the 9/11 accused can’t surf the Internet, a military judge ruled. Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, the judge, issued the decision a week ago. It turned up Sunday on a Defense Department website, which under the ruling the men will not be allowed to see live.”

The newspaper has posted the ruling at this link.

“Lawyer challenges city limits on gun sales”: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today contains an article that begins, “An attorney who wants to arrange gun transfers from his East Carson Street office is trying to void city rules on where firearms can be sold in a case that has become a cause celebre for the National Rifle Association.”

“Gay Marriage Ruling Ended Long Journey Of Soul”: Yesterday’s edition of The Hartford Courant contained this lengthy article.

“Abortion Rights on the Ballot, Again”: This editorial appears today in The New York Times.

In commentary available online from FindLaw: Edward Lazarus has an essay entitled “The Supreme Court, the Election, and the Recession: How Does the Court Fit In, and How Might Changing Circumstances Change the Court and Its Role?”

And Steve Sanders has an essay entitled “American Legal Conservatives Oppose the Citation of Foreign Law, But What About the Hallowed Practice of Citing to Blackstone?”

“More judges under investigation; Experts call 5 ongoing probes of federal jurists unprecedented”: The Houston Chronicle today contains a front page article that begins, “U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent is the first federal judge to be indicted for alleged federal sex crimes, but he’s only the latest in a string of jurists to face misconduct allegations in 2008, for behavior such as frequenting a topless club or lying under oath. Nationwide, four other federal judges are being investigated for, among other things, taking cash from lawyers, using an escort service, posting nude photos on a personal Web site and abusing power in court.”

“We do not, by our decision today, intend to establish any general rule for personal jurisdiction in the internet context.” So writes a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in the eighth footnote to a ruling issued last Friday in a case involving a claim for trademark infringement arising out of the defendant’s allegedly unauthorized use of the plaintiff’s name, photograph, and apparent endorsement of the defendant on a web site.

Footnote eight continues: “Our holding, as always, is limited to the facts before us. We hold only that where the internet is used as a vehicle for the deliberate, intentional misappropriation of a specific individual’s trademarked name or likeness and that use is aimed at the victim’s state of residence, the victim may hale the infringer into that state to obtain redress for the injury. The victim need not travel to the state where the website was created or the infringer resides to obtain relief.”

“On the Road? Case Involving Judge’s Discretion In Weighing Transfer Motion Could Affect Eastern District Filings.” In the May 26, 2008 of Texas Lawyer, John Council had an article that begins, “In a mandamus case that could significantly alter one of the hottest federal civil dockets in Texas, the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on May 22 over whether a trial judge’s discretion should be limited when a party moves to transfer venue. The stakes in In Re: Volkswagen are huge, because the case could end up stemming the tide of product liability suits filed in the Eastern District of Texas.”

Last Friday, the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its ruling in the case. By a vote of 10-7, the en banc court has ruled that “a writ of mandamus should issue directing the transfer of this case from the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas–which has no connection to the parties, the witnesses, or the facts of this case–to the Dallas Division of the Northern District of Texas–which has extensive connections to the parties,”