How Appealing



Sunday, March 21, 2021

“Port Corruption Regulator Looks to U.S. Supreme Court for Survival; New Jersey wants to pull out of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor; The agency is asking the high court to stop it”: Paul Berger and Jennifer Smith of The Wall Street Journal have this report.

Posted at 1:22 PM by Howard Bashman



“Clash Between Union Campaigns and Private Property at Supreme Court; A California regulation lets labor organizers enter private property to meet with farmworkers; In a case the court will hear Monday, challengers say that amounts to a government taking of property”: Adam Liptak of The New York Times has this report.

Posted at 1:18 PM by Howard Bashman



Saturday, March 20, 2021

“Aaron Nielson Receives the Federalist Society’s 2021 Joseph Story Award”: Christopher J. Walker has this post at the “Notice & Comment” blog of the Yale Journal on Regulation.

The Federalist Society has posted the video of the award presentation on YouTube at this link.

Posted at 9:24 PM by Howard Bashman



“Do We Have to Pay Businesses to Obey the Law? A motel owner in 1964 sued over being forced to accommodate Black patrons; Now agribusinesses are borrowing his argument to bar union organizers.” Law professor Nikolas Bowie has this essay online at The New York Times.

Posted at 8:50 PM by Howard Bashman



“Behind the Back-Office Blunder That Cost Citigroup $500 Million; Clunky software led to mistaken payments to companies ready to fight to keep the money”: Davide Scigliuzzo and Katherine Doherty of Bloomberg Businessweek have this report.

According to the article, “Citigroup is appealing the decision and has asked that the court keep the money frozen while the dispute continues.”

Posted at 8:26 PM by Howard Bashman



“High court to be asked to overturn intellectual disability threshold; Critics: Georgia standard of proof imposed on death penalty defendants practically impossible to meet.” Bill Rankin of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has this report.

Posted at 1:23 PM by Howard Bashman



“It’s time for Justice Breyer and Senator Feinstein to retire”: Columnist Paul Waldman has this essay online at The Washington Post.

Posted at 10:24 AM by Howard Bashman



Friday, March 19, 2021

Judge who maligned media can’t get coverage of his Broadway shows: A longtime correspondent of this blog emailed tonight to note:

I notice that Judge Silberman’s long dissent-in-part in Tah v. Global Witness contains what is either a clever pun or a truly inspired typographical error. On page three of his dissenting opinion he writes:

“In that deal, Global Witness asserted that the National Oil Company paid bribes to legislators on behalf of the Broadway Consolidated oil company to secure ratification of its purchase. J.A. 68; see also J.A. 84 (noting that the National Oil Company had also paid bribes on behalf of Oranto Petroleum). And now, Exxon was stepping into Broadway’s shows.”

Plainly, under ordinary circumstances, the last word “shows” should be “shoes.” On the other hand, Broadway has shows; that is even the point of Broadway.

So either Judge Silberman is making an offhand joke about Broadway, center of the stage world, or he is the victim of a truly inspired mistranscription or other typo. Either way, this paragraph has happy feet.

No doubt the mainstream media outlets can sympathize with this error.

Posted at 10:30 PM by Howard Bashman



“Federal District Court Reversal Rates, Part 2: Experience and Age, Again.” James Daily has this post at The Juris Lab.

Posted at 7:20 PM by Howard Bashman



“Property Rights at the Supreme Court: Can a state order owners to let the public use land without compensation?” The Wall Street Journal has published this editorial.

Posted at 7:14 PM by Howard Bashman



In December 2020, The University of Chicago Law Review Online published “a series of short remembrances of Judge Diane Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in honor of her twenty-five years (and counting) on the bench”: Law professor David Freeman Engstrom had an essay titled “Oboe Judging.”

Law professor Zachary D. Clopton had an essay titled “Judge Diane P. Wood: A True Friend.”

Law professor Tejas N. Narechania had an essay titled “Judge Wood and the Human Side of Judging.”

And Elizabeth A. Reese had an essay titled “What Judge Wood Taught Me About Glass Cages.”

Posted at 6:48 PM by Howard Bashman



“Federal Judge Says Media Is Anti-GOP ‘Threat to Democracy'”: Erik Larson of Bloomberg News has this report.

Josh Gerstein of Politico reports that “Federal judge pens dissent slamming decades-old press protections; D.C. Circuit Senior Judge Laurence Silberman’s diatribe amounted to an assault on a landmark Supreme Court decision that set the framework for modern defamation law.”

In commentary, online at Slate, Mark Joseph Stern has a jurisprudence essay titled “Federal Judge Uses Dissent to Rant About Liberal Media Bias and ‘Big Tech’ Censorship; Judge Laurence Silberman condemned the mainstream press as ‘virtually Democratic Party broadsheets’ and praised Fox News.”

And at “Above the Law,” Kathryn Rubino has a post titled “What In the Q Is This Federal Judge Going On About? At least(?) it’s only a dissent.”

Circuit Judge David S. Tatel wrote today’s majority opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in which Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan joined. And you can access Senior Circuit Judge Laurence H. Silberman‘s opinion dissenting in part at this link.

Posted at 3:39 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Federal Courts Have a Transparency Problem. Here’s How We Can Fix It. The third branch says it’s the most transparent when it comes to its work, but it’s the least transparent when it comes to the perks.” Gabe Roth has this essay online at The National Law Journal.

Posted at 1:05 PM by Howard Bashman



“Can Biden ‘rebalance’ the judiciary?” Russell Wheeler has this post at the “FixGov” blog of the Brookings Institution.

Posted at 12:30 PM by Howard Bashman



“Nonunanimous juries — recently ruled unconstitutional — convicted hundreds sitting in Oregon prisons. Now, they want a fair trial.” Jaimie Ding has this front page article in today’s edition of The Oregonian.

Posted at 11:33 AM by Howard Bashman



“Federal Circuit Judges Seek First Black Colleague as Seat Opens”: Perry Cooper of Bloomberg Law has this report. Cooper also tweeted here about some interesting stuff that didn’t make it into her article.

Posted at 11:20 AM by Howard Bashman



Over on Twitter, I have just posted this poll in which you can choose to cast a vote within the next 23 hours or so:

#AppellateTwitter — When a filing is served on you electronically but other counsel nevertheless sends you a paper copy, is your response:

Thanks that’s helpful.

I don’t need more paper.

It depends.

I will report back on the results tomorrow.

Posted at 10:40 AM by Howard Bashman



“A farmer’s feud with workers union leads to high-stakes Supreme Court showdown”: Robert Barnes of The Washington Post has this report.

Posted at 10:05 AM by Howard Bashman



“Biden poised to announce first wave of nominations to reshape U.S. courts; One prospect generating buzz is District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose expected appointment to a key appeals court could signal a future Supreme Court nomination”: Mike Memoli and Sahil Kapur of NBC News have this report.

Posted at 10:02 AM by Howard Bashman



“Supreme Court conservatives want to topple abortion rights — but can’t seem to agree on how”: Joan Biskupic of CNN has this report.

Posted at 9:58 AM by Howard Bashman



“Pandemic Revives Old Courtroom Argument: To Robe, or Not to Robe? As a precaution, judges and lawyers in India’s highest courts were freed from their black gowns, drawing cheers and objections.” Shan Li had this front page article in yesterday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Posted at 9:55 AM by Howard Bashman



Thursday, March 18, 2021

“A Day in a Scorched-Earth Senate: Democrats want to ‘fix’ the chamber by ending the filibuster; That would break it.” Columnist Kimberley A. Strassel will have this op-ed in Friday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, in today’s edition of The Washington Post, columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. has an op-ed titled “Goodbye and good riddance to the filibuster” and columnist Karen Tumulty has an op-ed titled “Want to fix the filibuster? All it takes is guts.”

Posted at 10:12 PM by Howard Bashman



“Removal and Remand: Investigating the Data on Removal to Federal Court.” Taylor Dalton has this post at The Juris Lab.

Posted at 9:20 PM by Howard Bashman



“She lost by 401 votes in 2020. Now former NC chief justice is planning a US Senate run.” Brian Murphy of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina has this report.

Posted at 8:50 PM by Howard Bashman