How Appealing



Wednesday, January 30, 2013

“Diminishing the Presidency: The overreaching White House has prompted a court to reverse nearly two centuries of constitutional practice.” In Thursday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, law professor John Yoo will have an op-ed that begins, “A year ago this month, President Obama bypassed the Senate’s advice-and-consent power by naming three new members to the National Labor Relations Board and appointing Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”

You can freely access the full text of the op-ed via Google News.

Posted at 10:44 PM by Howard Bashman



“I really must protest the paltry and even silly treatment of the Scalia-Garner event in the January 29 edition”: Bryan A. Garner has posted online this commentary regarding a recent article that The Dallas Morning News published.

Posted at 10:15 PM by Howard Bashman



“Justice to SCOTUS: Don’t allow direct corporate campaign spending.” Alison Frankel’s “On the Case” from Thomson Reuters News & Insight has this report.

Posted at 4:25 PM by Howard Bashman



“D.C. Circuit Rejects Law Clerk Hiring Plan”: Matthew Huisman has this post at “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.”

Posted at 4:23 PM by Howard Bashman



“Judge reminds Melvin attorney he’s not in Philly”: The Associated Press has a report that begins, “The judge at suspended state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin’s corruption trial has reminded her attorney that he’s not trying the case in Philadelphia.”

Posted at 3:30 PM by Howard Bashman



“Minnesota Supreme Court: Website comments about Duluth doctor not defamatory; Critical comments a patient’s son made about a Duluth neurologist are not cause for a lawsuit, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled”: The Duluth News Tribune has this update.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a news update headlined “Duluth doctor’s lawsuit against patient’s son over online criticism dismissed.”

And The Associated Press reports that “Minn. high court says online post legally protected.”

You can access today’s unanimous ruling of the Supreme Court of Minnesota at this link.

Posted at 2:18 PM by Howard Bashman



If you thought that The Los Angeles Times’ coverage of Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski was already too negative, just wait and see how it turns out to be going forward: Today’s edition of The Los Angeles Times reports that “Tribune taps former FCC official Edward Lazarus as general counsel.”

Judge Kozinski’s harsh review of Lazarus’s book “Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court” appeared in the January 1999 issue of the Yale Law Journal.

More recently, Emily Bazelon’s profile of Judge Kozinski, which appeared in the January-February 2004 issue of Legal Affairs magazine, devoted four paragraphs to Judge Kozinski’s “excoriation” of Lazarus.

Posted at 1:28 PM by Howard Bashman



Access online the State of California’s opening brief on appeal from a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of a state law banning therapies to change children’s sexual orientation: Via the Ninth Circuit’s web site, you can freely access the State of California’s opening brief at this link. The brief was electronically filed in the Ninth Circuit on Monday of this week.

Posted at 1:12 PM by Howard Bashman



“[W]e have occasion here to address an issue of first impression in this circuit, namely whether a witness’s testimony in disguise at trial violates the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” So states an opinion that a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued today.

The unanimous panel proceeds to hold “that in this case, the disguise in the form of a wig and mustache did not violate the Confrontation Clause.”

Posted at 1:08 PM by Howard Bashman



“Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett: master of the Twitterverse.” Angela Morris has this post at the “Tex Parte Blog” of Texas Lawyer.

Posted at 12:50 PM by Howard Bashman



“DOJ/FDA Brief in SCOTUS Generic Drug Preemption Case Hands Plaintiffs New Liability Theories”: Richard Samp of the Washington Legal Foundation has this blog post at Forbes.com.

Posted at 12:44 PM by Howard Bashman



Unanimous en banc Pa. Commonwealth Court ruled in my client’s favor today in an appeal that I argued last month: You can access today’s ruling of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania at this link.

I previously previewed the oral argument in a post that you can access here. That post provided access to the Brief for Appellant and Reply Brief for Appellant that I filed on my client’s behalf, together with the trial court’s ruling and earlier news coverage of the trial court’s ruling.

Posted at 11:30 AM by Howard Bashman



“Boston College asks court to throw out ruling on IRS tapes, citing death of IRA veteran”: The Associated Press has a report that begins, “Boston College wants a federal appeals court to throw out a ruling that orders the college to turn over audiotaped interviews with former members of the Irish Republican Army, citing the death of a key figure in the legal battle.”

Posted at 10:37 AM by Howard Bashman



“United States Supreme Court Undergoes Facelift with Help from Merritt Graphics; Merritt Graphics Contracted for Mesh Replica of US Supreme Court”: You can access the company’s press release at this link.

Posted at 9:00 AM by Howard Bashman



“Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upholds state’s gun storage law, rejects challenge by Springfield man”: The Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts has this report.

My earlier coverage of yesterday’s rulings appears at this link.

Posted at 8:57 AM by Howard Bashman



“Feds stumbling after Anonymous launches ‘Operation Last Resort’; The U.S. Department of Justice still has two Federal websites down since Friday when Anonymous launched ‘Operation Last Resort’ demanding legal reform”: ZDNet has this report.

Today’s edition of The Los Angeles Times contains an article headlined “A martyr in the fight for free online access to research; By killing himself, Internet activist Aaron Swartz has heated up the battle over whether the works of scientists and scholars should be available for free.”

The Vancouver Observer has an article headlined “How Aaron Swartz paved way for Jack Andraka’s revolutionary cancer test; Jack Andraka’s studies about pancreatic cancer would have never come about were it not for open access to online journals — the very thing Aaron Swartz was promoting before his death.”

And the blog “Main Justice” has a post titled “With Bipartisan Letter on Swartz, Criticism of Plea Bargain Tactics Gains New Prominence.”

Posted at 8:34 AM by Howard Bashman