“Closing Guantanamo prison may be the easy part for Obama; Much harder will be sorting out the legal complexities of holding, prosecuting, transferring or releasing the roughly 250 prisoners”: Julian E. Barnes and David G. Savage have this article today in The Los Angeles Times.

“As Bush’s Term Ends, Some Big Names Seek Pardons”: This article appears today in The Washington Post.

“Guantanamo detainees get a dose of culture; Guantanamo guards have decided if you can’t free captives, distract them”: Carol Rosenberg had this article yesterday in The Miami Herald.

“Minorities fear trend from California gay marriage ban”: Reuters provides a report that begins, “California’s gay marriage ban could open the door to legal discrimination against unpopular groups if the state Supreme Court allows the voter-approved measure to stand, blacks, Latinos, Asians and other minorities said.”

“Court to hear case of Uighurs held at Guantanamo”: Hope Yen of The Associated Press provides this report.

“The Price of Our Good Name: Barack Obama must repair this nation’s image and restore its self-respect by closing George Bush’s outlaw prison at Guantanamo Bay.” The New York Times contains this editorial today.

“Joyce’s fraud case was no whodunit”: This article appears today in The Erie (Pa.) Times-News. The newspaper also contains an editorial entitled “Joyce decision shows no one above law,” while columnist Pat Howard has an op-ed entitled “Greed, arrogance sink Joyce, turning judge into criminal.”

And today’s edition of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review contains an editorial entitled “Judge Joyce harshly.”

“Prop. 8 is a tangle for state’s high court”: Claire Cooper has this op-ed today in The Sacramento Bee.

“State Supreme Court orders resentencing of child rapist”: Yesterday’s edition of The Advocate of Baton Rouge, Louisiana contained an article that begins, “Citing a recent United States Supreme Court ruling that found Louisiana’s death penalty for child rape ‘unconstitutional,’ the Louisiana Supreme Court late Friday reluctantly ordered a Jefferson Parish judge to re-sentence the convicted rapist in the case.”

You can access Friday’s order of the Supreme Court of Louisiana in Louisiana v. Kennedy at this link.

“Reinventing The Second Amendment”: George F. Will has this op-ed today in The Washington Post.

“Both sides in California’s Prop. 8 battle look ahead to 2010; The gay-marriage ban issue could be back on the ballot in two years; Regardless, backers and foes are organizing supporters, waging a fierce public relations campaign and considering their next moves”: This article appears today in The Los Angeles Times.

“2 Plead Not Guilty To Obstruction”: Today’s edition of The Washington Post contains an article that begins, “Two District men charged with obstruction of justice in connection with the 2006 stabbing death of a prominent Washington lawyer pleaded not guilty yesterday in D.C. Superior Court. They were released from custody and ordered to wear ankle monitoring bracelets.”

And law.com has an article headlined “Charges but Few Answers in D.C. Lawyer’s Murder.”

“Mukasey Returns to Work After ‘Fainting Spell'”: The Washington Post contains this article today.

And The Washington Times reports today that “Mukasey goes back to work; Test results ‘good’ day after collapse at speech.”

“A Hard Choice: A young medical student tries to decide if she has what it takes to join the diminishing ranks of abortion providers.” This article will appear in tomorrow’s issue of The Washington Post Magazine.

“Court could give Obama early test on detentions”: Mark Sherman and Meg Kinnard of The Associated Press have a report that begins, “The Supreme Court could hand President-elect Barack Obama a delicate problem in the coming days: What to do with a suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent who is the only person detained in this country as an enemy combatant?”

“New Twist in Appeal of Ex-Alabama Governor”: The New York Times today contains an article that begins, “New accusations have emerged during the appeal of the bribery conviction of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama that could buttress Democrats’ claims that the case against him was politically tainted, even as he prepares to argue against his conviction in a federal appeals court in Atlanta early next month.”

Articles of interest available online from McClatchy Newspapers: An article reports that “Obama detainees pledge raises concerns in South Carolina.”

And in other news, “Even if Democrats get 60 Senate seats, they’ll need help.”

In the December 1, 2008 issue of Newsweek: Michael Isikoff will have an article headlined “Obama to Take On Torture?”

And Dahlia Lithwick wiill have an essay entitled “No Small Task For Eric Holder: The new attorney general will face tremendous pressure to go after those who authorized torture.”

“Analyzing the Two Key Arguments in the California Supreme Court Case Regarding the Anti-Same-Sex-Marriage Proposition Eight”: Vikram David Amar has this essay online at FindLaw.

Access online the November 2008 issue of the Harvard Law Review, devoted to the U.S. Supreme Court‘s October Term 2007: Links to the individual comments and case notes can be found in this post at “Concurring Opinions.”

The issue contains comments about last Term’s Second Amendment case, District of Columbia v. Heller, written by Akhil Reed Amar, Reva B. Siegel, and Cass R. Sunstein, along with this student-written introduction.

“Senator Pell’s service recognized at courthouse centennial celebration”: Today’s edition of The Providence (R.I.) Journal contains an article that begins, “For a time yesterday in federal Courtroom No. 1, U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter sat in the jury box, 90-year-old former U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell presided at the defense table and Governor Carcieri took a seat at the prosecutor’s table. It was no ordinary day in court. The occasion marked the culmination of a year’s-long centennial celebration for the five-story granite courthouse, which has stood its post on the east end of Kennedy Plaza since 1908.”

“High court could hear al-Marri case; U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on similar ‘enemy combatant’ cases”: The Journal Star of Peoria, Illinois has posted online this evening an article that begins, “One of the most controversial legal matters in the ongoing war on terror got its start in Peoria, some seven years after a simple traffic stop. That traffic stop garnered the attention of federal authorities and three months, later, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was arrested at his West Peoria apartment in December 2001, and held as a material witness in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

“Latest Development in Jones Day Trademark Abuse Case”: This post appeared Wednesday at Public Citizen’s “Consumer Law & Policy Blog.”

In my post about this development from last Friday, I wrote that “the ruling is not yet available online.” It’s available online now, however, at this link.

“An Empirical Invesigation into Appellate Structure and the Perceived Quality of Appellate Review”: Law Professors Jonathan Remy Nash and Rafael I. Pardo have this article in the November 2008 issue of the Vanderbilt Law Review (via “Sentencing Law and Policy“).

Only in the Ninth Circuit? The Metropolitan News-Enterprise today contains an article headlined “Ninth Circuit Reverses Sleeping Felon’s Firearm Possession Conviction” that begins, “A divided panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday reversed a man’s felon-in-possession-of-firearms conviction because he was asleep when police officers found him on a couch in an abandoned apartment with one gun on his lap and another leaning against his leg.”

News from earlier this month reminded us that passed-out people are at risk of being turned into a surface for often crude graffiti. And now we learn, courtesy of yesterday’s ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, that sleeping felons may be used as a storage site for firearms.

Fortunately, at least two Ninth Circuit judges on the three-judge panel that produced yesterday’s ruling were unwilling to see sleeping felons be found guilty of additional federal criminal charges for having been exploited in that manner.

“A backside brouhaha”: Today at The Boston Globe’s “Brainiac” blog, Christopher Shea has a post that begins, “What, exactly, are the buttocks? The FCC and ABC, Inc., are duking it out over that profound question, which has now reached the federal appeals court for the Second Circuit. The debate has drawn in some of the country’s top legal advocates. Seth Waxman, for example, who leads the appellate practice at the elite firm WilmerHale, has been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee during Barack Obama’s presidential term. But first he will make the bold argument, on behalf of ABC, that the buttocks are not a ‘sexual or excretory organ.’ Never have been, never will be — whatever the anatomically illiterate FCC says.”

Hmm, that sounds like an appellate brief that I should be posting online here at “How Appealing.”

Update: You can access ABC’s opening brief on appeal at this link. You can access the FCC’s appellate brief in response at this link.

“Mukasey feeling better, checks out of hospital”: The Associated Press provides this updated report.

The Washington Post has a news update headlined “Mukasey Released From Hospital.”

And The New York Times has a news update headlined “Mukasey Leaves the Hospital.”

Given this good news, a possible alternate title for the post immediately below could be “But did she stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?” (access related video at this link).

More information concerning last night’s Federalist Society dinner: A longtime reader of this blog emails:

The doctor who happened to be in the audience, and rushed to the podium to treat Mukasey, and went with him in the ambulance to the hospital, is Dr. Lisa Cooper, M.D., an emergency room specialist who is the wife of Matt Cooper. Dr. Cooper practices emergency medicine for a hospital in Houston. Matt Cooper is an associate with Gibbs & Bruns in Houston.

According to Matt’s law firm bio, he not only is a Harvard Law graduate, but he also served as a captain in the Air Force before law school and clerked for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit after law school. Thanks much to the source of this information for sending it along!

“Gov’t: AG doing better after collapse.” The Associated Press provides this updated report.

“Lawyers who win public-interest lawsuits are entitled to payment, California Supreme Court rules; Suits that result in important rights being enforced typically target government agencies”: Carol J. Williams has this article today in The Los Angeles Times.

You can access yesterday’s ruling of the Supreme Court of California at this link.

“Court: Sex-offender law unfairly restrictive.” Today in The San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Egelko has an article that begins, “A voter-approved law prohibiting sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or a park amounts to additional punishment for the offenders’ original crimes, a state appeals court has ruled in a case that could affect thousands of parolees.”

You can access at this link Wednesday’s ruling of California’s Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District, Division Three.

“Court overturns 1991 murder conviction of Arizona teen who confessed; 8-year-old’s interrogation is similar; Johnathan Doody — said to have slain nine at a Buddhist temple — was questioned at length with no adult support; This month, so was a third-grader accused of killing his father and a boarder”: Carol J. Williams has this article today in The Los Angeles Times.

And The Arizona Republic reports today that “New trial ordered in 1991 Buddhist temple killings; Court: Admission to 9 murders forced.”

My earlier coverage of yesterday’s Ninth Circuit ruling appears at this link.

“Lori Drew didn’t create MySpace page used to harass Megan Miers, witness says”: This article appears today in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Today in The Los Angeles Times, Scott Glover reports that “Mother saw MySpace plan as clever, witness says; A family friend says she helped Lori Drew create a bogus MySpace profile to ‘expose’ a teenager who later committed suicide.”

And The New York Times reports that “Woman Who Posed as Boy Testifies in Case That Ended in Suicide of 13-Year-Old.”

“3 Indicted In Alleged Coverup of D.C. Killing”: The Washington Post today contains an article that begins, “Three men at the center of an enduring murder mystery in an elegant Dupont Circle townhouse have been indicted on obstruction of justice charges as police continue to investigate the slaying of Robert Wone, a rising star in Washington’s legal community who was fatally stabbed two years ago while staying overnight at the home.”

And yesterday evening, “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times” had a post titled “Bail For Arent Fox Partner Set at $100,000.”

“Conservative Federalist Society Can Expect Its Status to Shrink”: Robert Barnes has this article today in The Washington Post.