Tennessee Fails, Good Intentions Notwithstanding.

The law is bad, as in unconstitutionally bad. It’s vague and overbroad, and flagrantly conflicts with the First Amendment and academic freedom. And to add insult to injury, it invites students to rat out their profs who raise “divisive issues” in college courses. For those concerned about intellectual diversity in higher education depriving students of learning less progressive thought, this is pretty much the antithesis of what they claim to want. But that didn’t stop Tennessee from passing the law.

The bill, HB 1376, was introduced by Representative John Ragan (R – Oak Ridge). He previously said that the new bill was meant to strengthen the law passed in 2022 by “promoting freedom of expression,” and keep “colleges about advancing knowledge, not about advancing political or social agendas.”

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The Relativity of True Crime

After the podcast Serial became a hit, the phone started ringing. The calls were from journalists, producers, wannabe podcasters, asking whether I had any cases involving a clearly innocent defendant who was abused by the system and ended up convicted and serving a lengthy sentence. Well, of course I did. We all do. But as it turned out, that really wasn’t the story they were interested in.

What they really wanted was a sympathetic defendant, the sort of innocent person people could love, and a simple, clear story of misconduct and abuse that ended with imprisonment. This was where I made the mistake. I had no stories like that, as few defendants were up for beatification before being charged with murder, and while there were arguments for the defense, and complex, messy problems along the way, it wasn’t as if the prosecution didn’t have a case to show they committed the murder. Continue reading →

The “Other Crime(s)” Remain A Mystery

A few people reached out to me to ask whether I could explain what the other crimes were, the crimes that would transform Trump’s misdemeanor falsification of business records to reflect payoffs to two women and a doorman as legal expenses into the 34 counts of the Class E non-violent felony of falsifying of business records in the first degree.

In addition to the indictment, District Attorney Alvin Bragg separately filed what he captioned “statement of facts,” which isn’t actually a thing although it told the prosecution’s story behind the indictment. Whether this will bind the prosecution later remains to be seen, but for now it’s the best there is. Continue reading →

Tuesday Talk*: Are The Judges Wrong To Add Stanford To The List?

In reaction to the Duncan debacle at Stanford, Judges Ho and Branch have announced that they are adding Stanford law school to the “do not hire” list.

James Ho and Elizabeth Branch, the circuit court judges who announced last year that they would no longer hire clerks from Yale Law School, are adding Stanford to the boycott.

“We will not hire any student who chooses to attend Stanford Law School in the future,” Ho, who sits on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, said Saturday evening in a speech to the Texas Review of Law and Politics, a transcript of which was reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The clerkship moratorium, like the one on Yale, will exempt current law students.

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Killing Liberal Arts

Not too long ago, there was a big push for STEM, science, technology, engineering and mathematics, in college. STEM was our future, and not enough women and black people chose STEM. While you can’t make anybody choose a major or future, the point was made on a couple levels, that this was where the jobs would be and this was how people who couldn’t otherwise afford to go to college could pay off their student loans.

But the rise in interest in STEM, which many learned wasn’t quite as guaranteed as they were told, meant the loss of interest in other academic pursuits. Continue reading →

Mutually Assured Prosecution

It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. The Dems blackballed Bork, so the Reps refused to give Merrick Garland a hearing. That there are reasons why these two things are very different isn’t the point. The point is if they do it to us, we’ll do it to them. Is this about to start again on a previously virgin frontier, state prosecutions?

It is far from clear how this case will end. No matter what the precise charges are, the prosecution will raise unusual and arguably novel legal issues. Michael Cohen, who seems to be the key witness, may not be credible enough to persuade a jury to convict Mr. Trump, even in Manhattan. And Republicans are already mounting an effort to frame Mr. Bragg as a political hack who is weaponizing his office to take down the former president on behalf of Democrats.

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Fit To Be Tied

Watching Downton Abbey, it struck me that it all started with the shift from white tie to black. That was the beginning of the end. Not only did people change for dinner, but a decent man wore tails, while tuxedos were for the tasteless nouveau riche. I, of course, would have been a servant in livery at best, so it’s not as if this had any applicability to my life, but the point was clear. Social formality distinguished the well-bred from the wannabes, and both distinguished the servants from the served.

With notable exceptions, people no longer wear ties. Some still wear suits, but with open collars and no ties. To my old eye, it’s not a good look, not that anyone asked me. But the argument is that ties serve no purpose, are constricting and tell the world that you’re old. Peter Coy, who says he owns 252 neckties, laments their passing. Continue reading →

Seaton: Thoughts On “The Voice”

I recently started watching the NBC singing competition “The Voice” while dealing with some family issues. The following are my thoughts on the season so far.

Blake Shelton’s kind of a dick. I can’t tell whether he’s trying hard to be a curmudgeon, an aging rocker, the cool dad or a combination of the three. His dickish nature seems to be a response to the presence of Kelly Clarkson, who apparently loves to fight with Blake constantly. Continue reading →