Scott Shapiro teaches at Yale Law School, which is bad enough, but what he teaches is even more concerning.

For the past four years, I have taught a cybersecurity class at Yale Law School in which I show my students how to break into computers. Having grown up with a user-friendly web, my students generally have no real idea how the internet or computers work. They are surprised to find how easily they learn to hack and how much they enjoy it. (I do, too, and I didn’t hack a computer until I was 52.) By the end of the semester, they are cracking passwords, cloning websites and crashing servers.

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That she was elected Suffolk County district attorney was surprising enough, but then President Biden appointed her United States Attorney for Massachusetts. Rachael Rollins checked the Biden boxes and enjoyed a swift rise to the top of the prosecutorial mountain. Who would have expected that of a progressive prosecutor? Yet, there was she.

And then she fell. Continue reading →

Calvin Duncan was exonerated after serving 28 years in prison. He could have been bitter after his wrongful conviction, but instead he put his energies toward something better. He is now Calvin Duncan, J.D.

For 28 years, Calvin Duncan was incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. While there, he taught himself the law. Today he graduated from Lewis and Clark Law School. He is now Calvin Duncan, Juris Doctor. pic.twitter.com/ss68ShJXHt

— David Menschel (@davidminpdx) May 20, 2023

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Technically, the question is whether Andy Warhol’s changes to Lynn Goldsmith’s photograph of Prince was fair use, or a violation of copyright. To the consternation of dissenting justice Elena Kagan, the 7-2 majority went with the opinion written by Sonia Sotomayor that it was not fair use. It was not art.

And it was pure Warhol.

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Note: I hope you’ve enjoyed this little deviation from my normal work into the realm of the absurd as we all deal with the fallout of entitled dipshit Hollywood writers wanting more money to keep ChatGPT from writing first drafts for network sitcoms. This is the last time I try this shit.—CLS

ONE. A final letter never sent.

SHG: Continue reading →

In a curiously blind assertion, Michelle Goldberg offers the right condemnation.

What I find most fascinating about the lawsuit, though, is the glimpse it offers into how national and state-level political dynamics empower the most fanatical members of a community to impose their will on everyone else.

True words, though the truth runs the gamut from deciding that “Gender Queer” is an appropriate book for a junior high library to demanding the removal of Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five.” Continue reading →

Back in the good old days of the Drug War, laws were enacted to require drug testing of employees by employers. The twofold argument was fairly obvious and uncontroversial. If employees were using drugs, they were breaking the law. And if employees were using drugs, they were impaired in the performance of their job. Dr. Kevin Boehnke, a research prof at the University of Michigan medical school, argues that in light of the legality of medical marijuana, in particular, and gaps in the rationale, in general, the requirement that employees undergo drug testing is “absurd.”

Dr. Boehnke, ironically a cannabis researcher, suffers from fibromyalga, and uses cannabis to “manage his symptoms.” Nonetheless, when he was hired by Michigan, he was required to take a drug test. Crazy? Continue reading →

As a criminal defense lawyer, I’ve known my share of people who used drugs. Because of this, I’ve been ambivalent about the legalization of marijuana. While it’s use in the Drug War has been a disaster, bad enough to trump whatever other concerns may arise, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other concerns, and they aren’t working out very well.

Ross Douthat raises some of the reasons why, he contends, the legalization of weed is a failure. Continue reading →

Many would prefer that guns not be allowed in the hands of anyone, but certainly not in the hands of young people between the ages of 18 and 20, a long-standing restriction on the right to purchase handguns. Judge Robert Payne in the Eastern District of Virginia, however, held that such a restriction was unconstitutional.

The rationale, under other circumstances, might well be one that received full-throated support from progressives, holding that 18-to-20-year-olds are “people” as referred to in the Second Amendment. After all, are they not “people” when it comes to voting? Are they not “people” when it comes to free speech, search and seizure and the right to remain silent? Surely, we want them to be “people” under the law when it comes to the plethora of rights protected by the Constitution otherwise. If so, then aren’t they “people” for the Second Amendment as well? Continue reading →

Granted, the law school at CUNY, City University of New York, isn’t Yale or Stanford. Still, it’s a law school and many of its graduates will go on to become lawyers, often as public defenders. As such, they will find themselves in the trenches, their efforts spent on behalf of defendants who desperately need competent, if not excellent, representation. Much of the time, they will find those efforts rejected by judges who will not be persuaded by their most passionate beliefs.

Will they be capable of serving their clients? Will they be capable of tolerating judges who rule against them? Will they be capable of working within the decorum required of lawyers in the trenches? Their behavior at graduation raises a serious doubt. Continue reading →