But what about the Pentagon Papers, you ask? A damn good question. It exposed a massive conspiracy underlying the Vietnam War, one that the public needed to know. And wasn’t “Deep Throat” a hero, telling Woodward and Bernstein to “follow the money”?

But that was a long time ago, when the whistle-blower was the oddity, and what the whiteblower revealed was big. Huge. Compelling journalists to reveal their sources could have significantly changed the course of history back then. Is it still true today? Continue reading →

Most lawyers would consider burning evidence in a backyard barbecue outside the scope representation. Indeed, most lawyers would be astute enough, reasonable enough, to distinguish crimes committed by lawyers to be distinct from lawyers ethically representing despised clients. Kate Shaw does not.

Lawyers today have come of age in a legal profession that takes seriously its ethical obligations. That wasn’t always the case. In fact, it was the Nixon White House counsel John Dean’s question to the Senate Watergate Committee — “How in God’s name could so many lawyers get involved in something like this?” — that set in motion a reckoning for the legal profession. Watergate led to an extensive American Bar Association study and a set of ethics guidelines that to this day provide the foundation of the ethics instruction for law students and lawyers.

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Does an invited speaker at university have the right to speak without disruption? Do the people who want to prevent a hated invited speaker from speaking have the right to disrupt the event to prevent the hated invited speaker from speaking? Harvard has apparently come up with a middle ground.

A quick note before we begin—Harvard University is committed to maintaining a climate in which reason and speech provide the correct response to a disagreeable idea. Speech is privileged in the University community. There are obligations of civility and respect for others that underlie rational discourse. If any disruption occurs that prohibits speech the disrupters will be allowed for up to 10 minutes. A warning will be issued to all disturbers at the 5-minute mark explaining that the protesters are disrupting the event and ask them to stop. Any further disruption that prevents the audience from adequately hearing or seeing the speakers will lead to the removal of the disrupters from the venue.

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There’s little question that Trump could, if someone around him demonstrates a modicum of competence in government, be a threat to democracy, whether by malevolence, ignorance or inconvenience. After all, insurrections are hardly the sort of thing that happens in a democracy when the election doesn’t go your way. But Trump’s ham-handed governance isn’t the only threat, even if it’s the most obvious because he lacks the capacity to conceal it behind rational rhetoric.

The other greatest threat to democracy is presented by two Harvard law profs of dubious renown and worse credibilty. No, not Larry Tribe. I guess “Harvard law prof” isn’t sufficient to narrow it down anymore. But I digress. Continue reading →

Would it come as a surprise that a not insignificant percentage of lawyers are what one might graciously call “aggressive”? For trial lawyers, it’s something of a job requirement. After all, what we do requires us to push pretty hard against the tide, the other side telling us in no uncertain terms that we’re wrong about pretty much everything we do, just as we do the same to them.

But where once this was considered the nature of the job, a study by the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism (via David Lat) says it’s because some lawyers and judges are bullies and other lawyers are victims of bullying. Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Five years ago, Judge Richard Kopf wrote about a criminal defense lawyer in his courtroom, David Tarrell. At the time, David saw Judge Kopf’s post, but still being on the CJA panel and Judge Kopf having yet to retire, he wasn’t sure what the appropriate response would be. Years have since passed, Judge Kopf has retired and David finally thought it time to respond.

Dear Judge Kopf,

It’s been five years since you wrote a post on this blog about a time when I appeared before you and in that post you vehemently (but also erroneously, in my opinion) claimed that any “empathy that [you] once had had been burned out of [you].” That wasn’t the only thing you were clearly incorrect about, in fact, your honor. Continue reading →

Trump proxies were asked a simple, straightforward question on the Sunday morning interview shows: Did Trump lose the 2020 election? Mike Johnson couldn’t say it. Tom Cotton couldn’t either. Vance wouldn’t do so the Wednesday before. To be fair, the interviewers pressed the question, refusing to let them dodge and weave without notice, but they were not going to answer no matter what.

Last night, Kamala Harris was interviewed by Bill Whitaker on 60 Minutes. On the one hand, at least she had the gumption to show up and be asked questions. On the other hand, she dodged every one of them, refusing to give a straight answer no matter how Whitaker pushed. She was given the opportunity to finally establish what she stood for on a very large media platform and chose instead to regurgitate the same canned vagaries that have left so many to question why she should be president. Continue reading →

In her typical fashion, Linda Greenhouse blames the Supreme Court for sticking its nose into the culture war just because both right and left keep passing laws, rules, regulations and mandates in their battle over the culture war that give rise to novel disputes that end up in the Supreme Court.

The most important decision the Supreme Court’s justices will make in the new term that begins on Monday transcends the questions presented in any of its many cases. It is whether the court will resume or refrain from injecting itself into the country’s culture wars.

The quiet part is Greenhouse’s hatred of the Court’s Trumpian majority ruling contrary to the way Greenhouse would have the Court rule. If the 6-3 majority was reversed, would Linda be spinning like a whirling dervish to support the Court’s finding a new substantive due process right monthly, if not sooner? Continue reading →

As Elizabeth Nolan Brown rightly notes at Reason, Kamala Harris has shed her failed progressive persona from 2020 in favor of a new quasi-moderate stance, a linchpin of which has been “freedom.”

Over the summer, Harris’ evolutions kept on coming, with her campaign issuing rapid-fire disavowals of many of her previous positions. Because she ran her failed 2020 presidential primary bid on an ultraprogressive, big-government platform, many of her new positions are noticeably more oriented toward the mainstream—and freedom.

After all, who doesn’t like freedom, right? What’s not to like? Continue reading →

With the election nearly upon us, a potential regional war breaking out in the middle east, and a never-ending stream of court decisions, you would think there would be something, if not many things, to write about daily. And, indeed, there is. The only problem for me is that I’ve already written about them. Some more than once. Some many times.

For those of you who are new here, you may wonder why I didn’t pound to death some facet of an issue that you believe deserves a damn good pounding. Some of you will make note of it by raising what you perceive as my shortfall in the comments. After all, if I was thorough, or perhaps a little smarter, I would have included your issue in my post because it’s important. That I wrote about it a year ago, or ten years ago, means nothing to you. It’s like TV reruns, if you didn’t read it the first time, it’s new to you. Continue reading →