Rarely will there be a federal court opinion addressing the free speech rights of a first grader, mostly because most parents are sufficiently aware of the damage involving a child in a suit will cause and that the cost, whether financial or psychological, will end up being detrimental. But  subsequent circumstances compelled B.B.’s mother, Chelsea, to sue, only to learn that Central District of California Judge David Carter preferred the harm imposed by Capistrano Unified School District on an innocent and well-intended first grader to the pain suffered by a classmate’s mother.

A cleaned up recitation of the facts by Eugene Volokh, Continue reading →

During oral argument in Murthy v. Missouri, a few of the justices, whose prior experience with the government informed their perspective, raised that the government regularly sticks its nose into the  propriety of content in order to persuade media to say, or not say, things the government prefers, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan, both former White House lawyers, said interactions between administration officials and news outlets provided a valuable analogy. Efforts by officials to influence coverage are, they said, part of a valuable dialogue that is not prohibited by the First Amendment.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made a similar point. Continue reading →

Actor Joe Gatt, of Game of Thrones and Star Trek Into Darkness fame, almost lost everything he worked for because of some unhinged prosecutor named Angela Brunson. Gatt worked his butt off to become relevant, and then that psycho allowed some fangirl to convince Brunson that Gatt did something illegal:

The reality is that LT created fantasy conversations between her and Gatt and lied to her friends that she was having a sexting affair with a famous actor. Amazingly, the LA police did not use the evidence on her phone or computer to press charges, but relied on photos of screenshots of the alleged texts and photographs of Gatt. Continue reading →

The crux of Michelle Goldberg’s column is that Congress has no business conducting an inquiry into United Auto Workers local 2325, better known as the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA), the union that represents New York City public defenders. And she has a point, particularly when it appears likely that the House Committee on Education and the Work Force under chairwoman Republican Representative Virginia Foxx seems more concerned with using the issue to bust the union “monopoly.” That was never the point, even if Foxx sees an opportunity to attack unions.

But without realizing it, the Times’ millennial pixie gives up the game in her opening paragraph. Indeed, in her opening sentence. Continue reading →

My wife has been on my case for a while now to go through my book cases, desk and the piles of things around the room that I’ve accumulated over more than 40 years of lawyering. I am not a hoarder by any means, but I do have a tendency to see the future potential of something that I don’t need at the moment, but may well need someday. So I find a place for it.

After 40 years, that ends up being a great many things that I might have needed someday, but for many saved items, that day never came. Yesterday, at Dr. SJ’s extreme urging, I pulled books from their shelves and put them in a pile. It was not a small pile.* Continue reading →

The following may or may not be based on a true story. You be the judge—CLS

DEAR DIARY,

Zaslav wants me to do this diary thing for the upcoming documentary they’re going to do for me on HBO Max, Max, VICE or whatever the hell it’s called now. I can’t stand this place anymore or these people and I want to leave so bad. But I’m being paid a stupid amount of money to work here with people who I hate and who hate me, so what does one do? Continue reading →

It’s no secret that among the potential leaders, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyanhu is the most right wing, corrupt and disagreeable Israel has to offer. It seems possible that Bibi’s unpopularity both in Israel and abroad was part of the calculus when Hamas decided to attack on October 7th, as no other prime minister holding the post by the oddity of coalition was as vulnerable to criticism.

And yet, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call for regime change to oust Netanyahu was not only the most tone deaf cry he could have made, causing even Bibi’s many enemies to circle the wagons around him, but feeding into the very thing that Schumer, the highest ranking Jew in the United States government and a staunch supporter of Israel, claimed he wished to prevent. Continue reading →

In pretty much every news story involving a prosecution, they include the max sentence. If the statute provides for a sentence of probation to 20 years, it will say “the defendant faces a sentence of 20 years.” If there were three counts, it will say 60 years, because math. Of course, this is nonsense as every lawyer knows, but they have space to fill and the public, for better or worse, latches onto numbers for dear life.

And then there are the 91 counts. It sure seems like a lot of counts, and it may be the most restated fact regarding Trump’s prosecution. And it means nothing. After the decision by Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee, it’s down to 88 counts. Oh no, he’s going to get away with it! Or the prosecution can re-indict on the six counts tossed for lack of specificity. Or not because, well, they were just gilding on the lily. Continue reading →

President Joe Biden put himself into an untenable dilemma by telling MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart that his “red line” was Israel attacking the southern Gaza city of Rafah. His campaign swiftly tried to walk it back, recognizing the unforced error, but the bell can’t be unrung.

In the interview, with MSNBC, Mr. Biden rebuked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel over the rising civilian death toll in Gaza, saying that “he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost” and that “he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”

Continue reading →

When originally conceived, the notion of independent counsel arose from the best of intentions, to assure the public that the investigation was fair and without influence by the reigning regime.

Special counsels have had different labels over the years. They were first institutionalized when a post-Watergate statute created what came to be called an “independent counsel” appointed by a federal court upon application of the attorney general and removable by the attorney general or Congress only in extreme cases. This was the statute under which Lawrence Walsh investigated the Iran-contra scandal and Kenneth Starr investigated Whitewater and President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Continue reading →