Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination laws against illnesses like small pox. The Court’s decision articulated the view that individual liberty is not absolute and is subject to the police power of the state.

The decision was 7-2. Justice John Marshall Harlan delivered the decision for the majority that the Massachusetts law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the Court’s decision articulated the view that individual liberty is not absolute and is subject to the police power of the state. Continue reading →

One of the first things you come to grips with in criminal law is that bad things happen to good people, and as awful as that realization may be, there isn’t necessarily a crime involved. Sure, there are often people who will immediately react with “someone must pay,” but that rarely reflects a thoughtful understanding of the purposes of criminal prosecution. Is the conduct so reprehensible that it’s criminal? It’s not the outcome, but the conduct, that justifies prosecution. Or at least it shouldn’t be.

Last month, a grand jury in Clayton County indicted LaRosa Maria Walker-Asekere, the head basketball coach at Elite Scholars Academy in Jonesboro, Ga., and Dwight Broom Palmer, the assistant basketball coach, on charges of second-degree murder, cruelty to children, involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct. The charges were announced this week. Continue reading →

I can’t, and won’t, vouch for the credibility or accuracy of Nathan Winograd’s assertions. He’s pretty deep down the rabbit hole of animal rights, not a particular concern of mine per se. But  his points raise some curious and bizarre issues at the intersection of critical race theory (in its broadest sense) and the care and feeding of critters.

In books and journal articles, CRT advocates have: Continue reading →

It comes as no surprise that the motion to dismiss by Netflix and Ava Duvernay was denied, and former Manhattan sex crimes chief Linda Fairstein’s defamation suit survived the most serious threat. Defamation suits are notoriously hard to maintain, between the defenses of opinion and substantial truth, which defendants tried but lost as documentary evidence proved that it didn’t even meet the threshhold of “truthy.” As I noted at the time Fairstein objected to When They See Us and then filed her complaint, this suit had merit.

Here, where voluminous exhibits were attached to the complaint and answer, and a trove of additional documents was publicly available, allowing the judge to take judicial notice, and the court watched the series, submitted by the defense with the plaintiff’s acquiescence, surviving a Rule 12(b)(6) motion crushes the defendants. Continue reading →

In the course of reviewing two books, one by Michael Knowles and the other by Harvard Law’s pride, Ben Shapiro, Kat Rosenfield points out that the grievances of the right against the progressive left aren’t really about the wrongs done to conservatives at all. They are not the real enemy.

What the free speech fretting from the political Right often misses is that this culture war is largely a Left-wing civil war — and its worst casualties tend to be self-inflicted wounds. American society is increasingly segregated along political lines: we live, work, befriend and marry people with whom our primary point of commonality is that we all vote the same way. Continue reading →

Audrey Sterling may not have been able to dribble or shoot, but she enjoyed the prestige and privilege of being an NBA wife, basking in the reflected glory of her husband, former player and now lead assistant coach of the Toronto Raptors, Adrian Griffin. Until she didn’t, when the couple divorced in 2015.

While Griffin’s star continued to rise as his combination of skill as a coach and ability to work with players made him as sure a bet for a head coaching position as could be, Sterling no longer was part of that world, and she was pissed. But what could she do to improve her circumstances, or at least bring her ex-husband down in jealousy and revenge? Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Chris Halkides has been kind enough to try to make us lawyers smarter by dumbing down science enough that we have a small chance of understanding how it’s being used to wrongfully convict and, in some cases, execute defendants. Chris graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and teaches biochemistry, organic chemistry, and forensic chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

In the mid 1970s Britain experienced a wave of bombings that some attributed to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) or related organizations. However, only after multiple appeals were a number of wrongfully convicted individuals exonerated. The miscarriages of justice were the result of coerced confessions, faulty forensics, failure to disclose various kinds of exculpatory evidence (including alibis and evidence of Ms. Ward’s mental instability), and other official misconduct. Continue reading →

The house was in a quiet neighborhood and was well priced. Roy Thorne was in the market to buy, and real estate agent Eric Brown was in the business to show. And “elderly” neighbors  across the street were in the business of keeping their eyes out for burglars.

Someone was arrested a week earlier after breaking into the house, the statement said. The neighbor thought Mr. Brown’s car, a black Hyundai Genesis, looked like a black Mercedes-Benz sedan that had been parked in the driveway at the time of the previous arrest, according to a recording of the call provided by the police.

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It’s hard to comprehend why anyone who could get the vaccine would not. That may be because I’m a lawyer, and know only what I’ve read about its efficacy even though my family and I have made the decision to be fully vaccinated. It’s hard to explain why so many people in health care have chosen not to, although I’ve been told they have a far greater fear of unknown side effects than most. Some will chalk it up to right wing ideology, but that’s inaccurate and serves only to validate the intolerance of the left.

There are an array of reasons why people decide against getting vaccinated. There are the conspiracy theory nuts and there are people who have weighed the costs and benefits and chosen against it. And there are some for whom the practical barriers remain a reason, although like blaming MAGA nuts, it’s exaggerated as a universal excuse for the marginalized cohort just as Trumpkin lunacy is exaggerated to blame the wingnuts. Continue reading →

There are some exceptionally worthwhile lessons to be learned from participating in competitive sports. One, for example, is that there are winners and losers, and if you want to be the winner, you have to work harder than the next person. Another is that no matter how hard you work, you won’t always win. Take losing as gracefully as winning, as they’re both part of the deal. These are lessons that will serve a person well in their life as well as their sport.

But if you participate in a sport that isn’t destined to land you in a million dollar contract, then you compete for the joy of the sport. Some people thrive on the stress of top-level competition and some burn out from it. Some days you’re up for the challenge and some days you just don’t have it in you. Continue reading →