Did Texas Ban Marriage?
Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Democratic candidate for Texas attorney general, claims a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages actually bans all marriages. The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 19, 2009 09:04
OTB Radio – Tonight at 5:30 Eastern
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 5:30-6:30 Eastern. Dave Schuler and I will talk about Sarah Palin's comeback tour and ensuing controversies and President Obama's Asia trip. Alex Knapp will join us to provide his legal expertise on the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial and Steve Verdon will stop by to discuss the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 18, 2009 18:23
Pfizer Abandons Property It Stole From Kelo
I missed this story last week, but apparently Pfizer is abandoning its New London headquarters, and the land that it used the power of government to steal from Kelo et al. now lays fallow. Susette Kelo's little, pink house in New London, Conn. -- like the houses of all her neighbors -- is now a pile of rubble, overgrown with weeds. ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 18, 2009 16:01
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Show Trial
In my initial posting on the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Trial, I asserted that "there’s an incredibly good chance that Mohammed and his comrades will go free. The fact that KSM was repeatedly waterboarded would seem to taint any subsequent evidence, including his own confession." This was based on the presumption that the whole point of trying KSM in a civilian court ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 18, 2009 13:04
75 Gitmo Detainees in Limbo
Marc Ambinder finds a hidden news story in this WaPo report by Perry Bacon: Administration officials say they expect that as many as 40 of the 215 detainees at Guantanamo will be tried in federal court or military commissions. About 90 others have been cleared for repatriation or resettlement in a third country, and about 75 more have been deemed too ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 18, 2009 12:08
Terrorism vs. Crime
[caption id="attachment_43970" align="alignright" width="298" caption="From left: Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Waleed bin Attash, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ramzi Binalshibh. (AP)"][/caption] Responding to Attorney General Eric Holder's explanation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed is being tried in civilian courts because the 9/11 victims were mostly civilians and because the attacks took place on U.S. soil whereas his compatriots who attacked ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 17, 2009 12:07
Kelo Follow Up
Well looks like the entire town of New London, Conn. is going to get screwed by Pfizer. “Look what they did,” Mr. Cristofaro said on Thursday. “They stole our home for economic development. It was all for Pfizer, and now they get up and walk away.” That sentiment has been echoing around New London since Monday, when Pfizer, the giant drug company, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 13, 2009 18:52
Bear Stearns Jurors: I’d Invest With Them
Not only did the government lose its case against two top Bear Stearns managers but at least one juror came away wanting to invest with them. Prosecutors missed the mark so widely in the fraud trial of Bear Stearns Cos. hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin that a juror said after their acquittal she would invest with them if ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 11, 2009 08:05
Hasan a Muslim First, American Second?
In hindsight, it appears that Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the mass murderer who killed 14 (one of the soldiers killed, Francheska Velez, was six weeks pregnant) and wounded another 30 at Fort Hood, had long made it known that he sympathized with the enemy. Bloomberg's Justin Blum: Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of a shooting spree that killed ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 7, 2009 12:57
Do You Have the Right Not To Be Framed?
The Supreme Court hears oral argument today in Pottawattamie County v McGee, wherein they will have to decide if prosecutors have immunity from lawsuits even if they frame someone for murder. On one side of the case being argued are Iowa prosecutors who contend "there is no freestanding right not to be framed." They are backed by the Obama administration, 28 ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 4, 2009 12:59
Martians Can’t Sue
Eugene Volokh brings to our attention, rather belatedly, the case of Joly v. Pelletier, in which Rene Joly brought a suit some ten years ago alleging that Pelletier and others had conspired to suppress evidence that he was a Martian. The judge dismissed the case on two grounds: 1. Neither pleading discloses a cause of action. While conspiracy to do harm ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 30, 2009 11:13
Late Night Sexual Harrassment
Nell Scovell, one of a handful of women who has ever worked as a comedy writer for David Letterman -- or any of the late night comic talk shows -- contends that an atmosphere of sexual harassment routinely exists on those shows: Without naming names or digging up decades-old dirt, let’s address the pertinent questions. Did Dave hit on me? No. ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 28, 2009 09:00
Prosecutors Investigate Innocence Project Students
A rather bizarre case in Illinois -- even by the standards of that state. For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school have been scrutinizing the work of prosecutors and the police. The investigations into old crimes, as part of the Medill Innocence Project, have helped lead to the release of 11 inmates, the project’s director ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 26, 2009 08:51
Naked Coffee Guy Truth Exposed
Yesterday, Radley Balko passed on the story of Eric Williamson, the Springfield, Virginia man who has been charged with indecent exposure for being naked in his own house. According to Williamson's version of events, he was making coffee at 5:30 in the morning when a woman and her 7-year-old cut across his yard and spied him through a window ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 22, 2009 08:05
Sex Offenders Chased by Day Care Center
It seems that some Orlando area sex offenders, unable to find housing elsewhere after being released from prison, wound up living at a trailer park. Said trailer park was near a school bus stop. Local parents, quite reasonably concerned, tried but failed to have the bus stop moved. Apparently, "According to the release conditions placed on sex ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 21, 2009 15:07
