Out and About
Surveying the blog scene, this is shaping up to be an active week in blogshere:
First and foremost, The US Supreme Court’s announcement of the Booker and Fanfan decisions has created much buzz in the legal blogs. You will hear much on the case today, but since it is a 124 page opinion, it will take a few days to really digest. Here is a sampling:
- From Sentencing Law and Policy: Questions and Omissions, The Remedy Mess, and Rule by Judges?
- SCOTUSblog: Guidelines survive - no longer mandatory
- White Collar Crime Prof Blog: Initial Booker Musings for White Collar Crime
- Volokh weighs in.
Crimlaw celebrates 2 years of high quality blogging toady. Happy to you!
On the gay rights issue, ASCblog points to a Findlaw piece from Joanna Grossman from Hofstra University on the US Supreme Court’s decision to turn down review of the Florida gay adoption appeal. More on this at the Law Dork. And Marcia Odd i notes that today is the 1 year aniversary of the oral argument before the Indiana Court of Appeals in the case challenging Indiana’s prohibition on same sex marriage, and there is still no decision yet.
Marcia also covers Mitch Daniels’ shake up of IDEM, Indiana environmental “enforcer” over here (she is having some website issues). Apparenlt seven IDEM administrators have been asked to leave. The Bigeastern notes that Daniels is reported to have told the departing staff that unnamed persons had criticized IDEM staff for inconsistent enforcement. Doug Masson believes that the IDEM shake up does not bode well for Indiana’s environment.
Howard Bashman notes that the Eighth Circuit has determined that our expectation of privacy in the restroom does not give us an absolute right to privacy there. Funny, I kind of thought it did.
True Believer finds that you really can’t drive drunk and punch the cop who stops you, and expect to get away with it, even if you are a lawyer.
The Public Defender Dude has the scoop on the latest criminal defense in response to “hard science”: If the state has DNA evidence linking your client to a crime, take the jury through the development of our “scientific theory” of DNA, from evolution, to heredity, to genes, right down to DNA. Argue that belief in DNA = belief in evolution, and hence DNA and creationism cannot coexist. Based on the level science education in this country, this might just work.
