Free speech roundup

  • Following similar rulings in Charleston, S.C., and Washington, D.C., federal judge rules Savannah violated First Amendment when it passed law forbidding unlicensed tour guides [Andrew Wimer, Institute for Justice]
  • Pursuing a leak, San Francisco cops raid home of freelance journalist Bryan Carmody, hold him captive, seize his equipment [Yashar Ali, CNN] “SF police got warrant to tap journalist’s phone months before controversial raid” [Evan Sernoffsky, San Francisco Chronicle] Update: judge revokes warrant and says cops didn’t tell her target of wiretap was a journalist [Billy Binion, Reason]
  • Breadth of the Julian Assange indictment and implications for the First Amendment [Eugene Volokh]
  • Three concepts of “hate speech” related to religion, and their different legal treatment: “speech that denigrates religion as such; speech that threatens imminent violence against believers; and speech that insults or denigrates believers on the basis of religion” [Mark Movsesian and Marc DeGirolami podcast, Center for Law and Religion, St. John’s]
  • New York disciplines a civil servant over political opinions he expressed on Facebook. Can it do that? [Center for Individual Rights]
  • “Goldsmith … was charged with simple misdemeanor harassment for a Facebook post he made expressing his criticism of the policing methods he witnessed by an Adams County sheriff’s deputy at a local town festival.” [ACLU] Speaking of that organization: “ACLU (N.H.) Challenging Criminal Libel Statute” [Eugene Volokh last winter]

Dodgy deeds in Philadelphia, cont’d

Last July we noted (“How To Steal a House In Philadelphia”) some remarkable journalism by Craig R. McCoy for the Philadelphia Daily News about the theft of real estate through forgery and other skullduggery. Now he’s back with more amazement: “In at least seven deals involving [the protagonist] or his associates, there’s a simple reason to be sure that the deeds were forged. In each case, the ‘signers’ were dead at the time. At the most extreme, someone forged the name of a woman who had died 36 years before.” [Craig R. McCoy, Philadelphia Daily News]

Related: “Man Charged After Allegedly Stealing 6 Philadelphia Homes From ‘Poor, Elderly, And Deceased,’ DA Says” [CBS Philadelphia]

Occupational licensure roundup

  • “Arizona Could Become the First State to Recognize Occupational Licenses From Other States” [Eric Boehm, Reason] “Making It Easier for Military Spouses To Get Occupational Licenses Could Help All Workers” [same] “Barbers and cosmetologists in Texas warn that repealing mandatory licenses for their professions would be as dangerous as having unlicensed chefs preparing your meals.” Thing is, cooks and chefs aren’t licensed [same]
  • Meanwhile, in Congress: “Bipartisan Bill Would Stop States From Denying Occupational Licenses Due to Student Loan Debt” [Boehm again on Rubio-Warren measure]
  • “Judicial Sanity on Occupational Licensing and the First Amendment” [Ilya Shapiro and Patrick Moran on Fifth Circuit decision in Express Oil Change v. Mississippi Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers & Surveyors]
  • Ohio tackles licensure reform [Nick Sibilla] Idaho too: “Two Governors Kick Off 2019 With Big Occupational Licensing Reforms” [Eric Boehm]
  • “Even congressmen can’t pump their own gas in New Jersey” [Simone Pathé, Roll Call]
  • “Our results suggest that occupational licensing reduces labor supply by an average of 17–27 percent.” [Peter Q. Blair and Bobby W. Chung, Cato Research Briefs in Economic Policy]

Ruin by multiplication, in a New York bill

A pending New York bill, A.679/S.2407, would amend the state’s chief consumer protection law to raise guaranteed minimum statutory damages forty-fold, to $2,000 per sued-over transaction. Combine that with class action features that would enable multiplicative application to whole classes of repeat transaction, and the result should terrify business [Jonah Knobler, New York Law Journal]

Federal credit-reporting law may cover profs’ student recommendations

Now this is just bizarre: the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act is so loosely written that it may threaten professors with liability related to their writing of some student recommendations. In particular, the FCRA may apply if the recommendation ventures beyond direct experience, such as the student’s performance in class, to other pertinent information such as jobs the student may have held. In that case the professor or college might be legally obliged to furnish certain notices to students, which few or none currently do.

As a practical matter, because “the FCRA was designed to protect consumers from misconduct of credit bureaus and users of their information, it contains various protections that don’t fit well in the world of law school recommendations. For example, under 15 USC § 1681e, law schools would have to ask recipients of the recommendations (judges?) to certify certain things about their use of the information. Employers who based a decision at least in part on a recommendation would have to provide certain notices to the student, 15 USC § 1681m, after which students could obtain certain information from the school under 15 USC § 1681g. And so on.” [Jeff Sovern, Consumer Law and Policy]

May 29 roundup

  • Lawyer don’ts: Don’t steal your client’s book advance [Rebecca R. Ruiz, New York Times on Michael Avenatti indictment]
  • “This isn’t science, it’s witchcraft”: latest verdict against Bayer/Monsanto in Roundup weedkiller/non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma case rests on ultra-loose standards of causation [David Bernstein, related video, earlier]
  • Blazing sunset: Idaho legislature fails to reauthorize state’s code of more than 8,000 regulations, which expire. Between now and July 1, Gov. Brad Little “gets to pick and choose which ones to reinstate as emergency regs until legislature meets again.” [James Broughel, Mercatus]
  • News blackout on STEM Charter School shooting (Highlands Ranch, Colorado) has judicial origins: entire court file in murder case against older of the two shooters “is ‘suppressed’ from public inspection. This even over the express request of the prosecutor” to have the judge unseal most records [Eugene Volokh]
  • Baltimore corruption and development, red flag law, Montgomery Countyites for private toll lanes, Yuripzy Morgan show and more in my latest Maryland policy roundup;
  • A point I’ve been making for years about the Electoral College: one of its underrated benefits is in bolstering election integrity by much shortening the list of jurisdictions in which a material chance of fraud might throw overall result into doubt with consequences for legitimacy [Stephen Sachs and followup]

Supreme Court will review NYC’s rule against moving licensed handguns

“New York City’s bizarre ordinance bans pistol permit holders from taking their firearms beyond the five boroughs. (The irony seems to be lost on the eminently anti-gun municipality, which one would think wants as many guns to leave as possible). …The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York in October, after it returns from its summer break.” [Cato at Liberty blog post by Ilya Shapiro and Matthew Larosiere, and related Cato Daily Podcast with Larosiere and Caleb Brown]

Crime and punishment roundup

  • In order to stick it to President Trump and any associates he may pardon, New York legislature moves to chip away at what had been strong protections against double jeopardy. Not good [Sam Bieler via Scott Greenfield, Jacob Sullum]
  • Judge rules that New Jersey may not automatically suspend driving privileges over unpaid child support without a hearing to establish willfulness, lest it violate due process and fundamental fairness [New Jersey Law Journal; Kavadas v. Martinez on David Perry Davis website]
  • Different views of the institution of cash bail [Alex Tabarrok at Brookings conference, Cato podcast with Daniel Dew of the Buckeye Institute, Scott Shackford]
  • “To Seek Justice: Defining the Power of the Prosecutor,” Federalist Society short documentary video featuring Jessie K. Liu, Mark Geragos, Steven H. Cook, John Malcolm, Zac Bolitho, Bennett L. Gershman, and Clark Neily;
  • “Florida lawmakers just voted to create a public registry of people caught paying or attempting to pay for sex….it will certainly transfer private money to the state, give bureaucrats something to do, and provide the public with people to gawk at and judge” [Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason]
  • Wisconsin: “County Pays $90,000 Settlement To Man After Seizing $80,000 Judgment From Him Using 24 Deputies And An Armored Vehicle” [Tim Cushing in December]