Shooting Themselves In The Foot

 Posted by Mike  Crime, Legal Philosophy  1 Response »
Jun 292010
 

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
— United States Constitution, Second Amendment

My first thought upon reading this amendment is that it immediately undercuts anyone who tries to argue for the inherent wisdom of the Founding Fathers. If they were so wise, surely they could have written a more grammatical and less obtuse sentence. Which is made even worse by the fact that we have to live with the Supreme Court’s changing interpretations of that obfuscation, the latest of which was handed down yesterday in McDonald v. Chicago.
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Why Conservatives Are Liberal (But Not Vice Versa)

 Posted by Mike  Legal Philosophy, U.S. Politics  3 Responses »
Oct 092009
 

I believe that the two most confusing and misunderstood words in the English language are “conservative” and “liberal”. I’ve talked about this before, but given that I had to clarify this for my wife last week, I realize that maybe I should revisit it. Both phrases have multiple, often contradictory, definitions, so let’s just take this slowly:
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Empathy and Prejudice (but sadly no zombies)

 Posted by Mike  Legal Philosophy, Nomination and Confirmation, Racism  4 Responses »
Jul 132009
 

“In Ricci, Judge Sotomayor’s empathy for one group of firefighters turned out to be prejudice against another.” — Senator Jeff Sessions, R-AL, Ranking GOP Senator on the Judicial Committee

Let’s look at that statement closely.
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Conservative Jurists

 Posted by Mike  Legal Philosophy, Nomination and Confirmation  2 Responses »
May 292009
 

I haven’t been posting much lately because I’ve been spending most of my time packing all of my possessions into boxes. Ah, the joys of moving. But I have been paying attention to the news, especially the resignation of Justice David Souter and the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. I can’t remember ever seeing a case where the absurdity of the American political dialogue was in full view as this whole conversation.

Let’s start with Justice Souter. Souter has to be one of the most conservative judges to ever serve on the Supreme Court, by any objective definition. Continue reading »

Why It Might Be Illegal To String Together Nine Random Numbers

 Posted by Mike  Crime, Immigration, Legal Philosophy  3 Responses »
Oct 212008
 

The Supreme Court just decided to take on an extremely interesting, and difficult, case. Back in 2004, Congress passed the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act that mandated a two year prison sentence for anyone who “knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person” (called “aggravated identity theft”). The difficulty is that the Justice Department has started charging illegal immigrants with this crime; people who use fake social security numbers, but who never knowingly used them to impersonate another person. Of course, in most cases the Justice Department really isn’t interested in charging people with that crime–they would rather deport someone now than hold them for two years in federal prison–but they are using the charge to cajole illegal immigrants into pleading guilty to lesser immigration charges; in other words, if you decide to fight your deportation, then we’ll throw the book at you.
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