Florida’s governor is on a roll when it comes to enacting laws to micromanage people’s behavior, his latest being in response to concerns about protesters going to the homes of Supreme Court justices for their anticipated ruling in Dobbs. Not in Florida, Ron DeSantis says.

The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis yesterday, provides:

(1) As used in this section, the term “dwelling” means a building, structure, or portion thereof which is occupied as, or designed or intended for occupancy as, a residence by one or more families. Continue reading →

The New York Times and the Washington Post agree with Congresswoman Liz Cheney, that the GOP has embraced white supremacy with its propagation of Replacement Theory.

The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. @GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.

Much of this is blamed on Fox pundit, Tucker Carlson, who has been one of the leading and consistent promoters of this theory. Continue reading →

Fair warning to all you former Above the Law readers who spent your days yelling “first” and making fun of Elie’s grammar and spelling. He’s my friend. We’ve been friends for a long time. I like Elie, and I was angry that you were so mean to him. Plus, Elie is one of the funniest guys I know, with not only an exceptionally sharp wit, but the ability to take a joke with the best of them. And as I review his first book, Allow Me to Retort, A black guy’s guide to the Constitution, which includes a very lovely inscription to me because I’m his white friend, I do so with the understanding and approval of what Elie’s trying to accomplish here. Continue reading →

Rape is one of the most serious crimes a person can commit. It carries substantial consequences and taints a person for the rest of their life. This is how it should be based upon our shared conception of rape. This is why the effort to transition the crime of rape from clear line to vague morass of affirmative consent has failed at the American Law Institute in efforts to “reinvent” rape up to now. But academics have not yet given up.

A major effort to update the model criminal code on rape may actually undermine new understandings of consent advanced by the #MeToo movement. Continue reading →

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, legally wrong with Aaron Sibarium’s Washington Free Beacon expose on the reactions of certain Yale law students against their follow students and in conflict with what one would expect from a law student, in general, and a student at as elite a law school at Yale, in particular. After all, what law student would publicly say something like this?

Continue reading →

One would suspect that most academics teaching crim law had some hands-on experience actually doing crim law. Sure, there will always be the self-proclaimed “experts” who couldn’t find a courthouse without Waze, but most did a stint in a public defender’s or district attorney’s office and at least once in their sheltered lives had to make the call, plea or trial.

Or maybe not, because if that was the case, they wouldn’t need William and Mary law prof Jeffrey Bellin to explain something so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be mentioned. Apparently it does. Continue reading →

First it was the former head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Sherrilyn Ifill. Then it was New  York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie. What are the chances that two important voices would both raise the same argument in reaction to the contention in Justice Sam Alito’s draft Dobbs opinion at the same time out of the blue?

Boom.

The Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder removed critical protections of Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act and struck down the preclearance formula of Section 5 of the act, which compelled jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination to submit proposed electoral changes to a federal authority for approval before enactment. That provision had made the Voting Rights Act the crown jewel of civil rights legislation because it created a regime to head off discriminatory practices before they became law. After striking down the use of the preclearance formula, the Court in Shelby perhaps sought to minimize the damage by reinforcing that Black voters would remain free to challenge discriminatory voting laws after they were enacted by bringing claims under Section 2, which allows Black voters to bring claims to challenge election laws and practices that dilute or deny minority voting strength.

Continue reading →

Once a month, usually on the first Thursday, the Grassy Knoll Pub hangs a sign on the door that reads “Closed to the General Public.”

Inside, the Knoll’s staff sets to work on that day replacing the “conspiracy theory chic” decor with items more pleasing to those in law enforcement.

Gone, for example, were the pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, replaced with photos of Wyatt Earp and J. Edgar Hoover. Cassidy, the Irish doorman of the Knoll, wanted to put of pictures of Joe Friday from “Dragnet” but Jesse Custer, the Knoll’s proprietor, nixed that idea. Continue reading →

It was a curious bit of journalistic malpractice, made worse by the fact that it appeared in the New York Times, the paper of record, after passing editorial muster. The headline is where it started.

How a Bill to Protect Abortion Access Failed in the Senate

After Republicans blocked the legislation intended to preserve rights established by Roe v. Wade, Democrats vowed to keep fighting, with an eye on midterm elections.

Continue reading →

The internet is, as most people know, everywhere, which makes it something of a problem for those who either want to regulate it or signal to their supporters that they would, if they could. But they can’t, obviously, because it’s the friggin’ internet, right? Well, the European Union did, to some extent, and Congress holds hearings about it all the time as both sides want to control it, albeit for different reasons.

Then along comes Texas, because it’s Texas, with a cockamamie bill that everyone who has any clue about law and cyberspace knows with absolute certainty can’t be upheld because it’s a flagrant affront to the First Amendment. How bad? This bad. Continue reading →