jury nullification – Overlawyered

January 29 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 29 Jan 2020 10:58:25 +0000

Authorities arrested man who stood in front of courthouse passing out leaflets encouraging jury nullification. Michigan Supreme Court should uphold his First Amendment rights [Clark Neily and Jay Schweikert on Cato Institute brief in Michigan v. Wood, earlier here, here, and here]
Also on the topic of jury nullification, is that an appropriate metaphor for things happening with the Senate and impeachment? [Jim Galloway, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, quotes me]
In 2018 an Eleventh Circuit panel green-lighted a suit claiming that it was unconstitutional for Alabama to enact a law pre-empting Birmingham’s local enactment of a higher minimum wage, on the claim that the white-led state lawmaking majority had acted with the purpose and effect of injuring African-Americans, who (it was argued) were more likely to be beneficiaries of the wage mandate. Now the full circuit en banc (over a dissent) has dismissed the case on standing grounds without deciding whether disparate racial impact can taint otherwise neutral laws [Lewis v. Governor of Alabama]
New California law CCPA, promoted as giving consumers the right to see and delete their data, results in users being required to yield up more data and creates new security risks [Kashmir Hill, New York Times via Gus Hurwitz (“anyone who didn’t see this coming shouldn’t be in the business of writing laws”)]
Wasatch Brewery’s Polygamy Porter (“take some home to the wives”) is deemed okay by regulators in its own state of Utah, but is too naughty for their counterparts in North Carolina [Hayley Fowler, Charlotte Observer]
Symposium on “The Politicization of Antitrust” with Luigi Zingales, Alec Stapp, and others [Truth on the Market] And “The Future of Antitrust: New Challenges to the Consumer Welfare Paradigm and Legislative Proposals” with Makam Delrahim, Maureen Ohlhausen and others [Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention]

Tags: Alabama, antitrust, beer and brewers, California, Eleventh Circuit, jury nullification, minimum wage, North Carolina, privacy, Utah

January 29 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 16 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 10:01:49 +0000

“Lawyer says it ‘would be an honor’ to be disbarred; disciplinary board aims to oblige” [ABA Journal, Lowering the Bar]
In the mail: Jacob Grier’s new book The Rediscovery of Tobacco: Smoking, Vaping, and the Creative Destruction of the Cigarette [more from author, Mark Fogerson/Portland Monthly, John Locke Foundation podcast with Grier and Mitch Kokai] And: Cato video;
Re: House subpoenas aimed at the Trump administration, colleague Ilya Shapiro wrote this comprehensive pre-game report [last December for the Washington Examiner]
NBC might not have picked the ideal poster inmate to showcase the problem of long-term sentencing of nonviolent drug offenders [Kent Scheidegger via Volokh]
Profile of police brutality/civil rights plaintiff’s lawyer Benjamin Crump [John H. Richardson, New York magazine]
Conservative Tennessee lawmaker introduces bill to provide instructions for jury nullification in acquittal direction only [Scott Greenfield in February]

Tags: don't, jury nullification, police, subpoenas, tobacco, U.S. House of Representatives

October 16 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 11 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 10:01:40 +0000

“Expensive new licensing requirements and the bureaucratic headache of implementing” new regulations are expected to reduce further the number of agencies offering international adoption to U.S. families [Liz Wolfe, Reason] And don’t forget to mark your calendar and, if you can attend in person, register for next week’s July 19 Cato conference on adoption policy, at which international adoption will be one focus;
Report confirms again what I wrote nearly a year ago: many persons are being held in jail longer under Maryland’s ill-thought-out venture in restricting cash bail [Lynh Bui, Washington Post, my WSJ piece last September, more]
Online data protection episode is just latest instance of how California initiative process can put disturbing leverage in private hands [Cathy Gellis, TechDirt]
“The cans now read ‘NON-TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT ALMA MATER IPA’ with no other Pitt-related images.” [Grant Burgman, Pitt News on campus beer trademark controversy]
“Pregnancy discrimination? Don’t rely on government for additional protection” [Vanessa Brown Calder, Cato]
If you’re looking to dodge voir dire scrutiny: “How To Get On a Jury” [Mark Bennett, Reason]

Tags: adoption, bail bonds, beer and brewers, California, jury nullification, jury selection, Maryland, pregnancy discrimination

July 11 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

First Amendment roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 10:05:26 +0000

Dangerous and misguided: Michigan pursues prosecution on charges of jury tampering of man who handed out “jury nullification” pamphlets on public sidewalk outside courthouse [Jay Schweikert, Cato; Jacob Sullum, earlier here, here, etc.]
“‘Worst of Both Worlds’ FOSTA Signed Into Law, Completing Section 230’s Evisceration” [Eric Goldman] Among first casualties: Craigslist personals [Merrit Kennedy/NPR, Elizabeth Nolan Brown] And Elizabeth Nolan Brown joins (no relation) Caleb Brown on a Cato Daily Podcast;
Is reprinting thumbnail headshots fair use? [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
“16 Pulse survivors sue Google, Facebook, Twitter for ‘supporting’ ISIS” [Daniel Dahm, WKMG Orlando]
Not the group it used to be: ACLU calls for government-owned broadband, claims First Amendment may require as opposed to forbid state-operated communications infrastructure [Randolph May and Theodore Bolema, Free State Foundation] More: Scott Greenfield;
Cato amicus commercial speech triple-header: Virginia’s ban on promoting happy hours (bars may hold them, but not promote them off premises) is an irrational leftover of Prohibition [Ilya Shapiro] While some commercial speech can be mandated, Ninth Circuit goes too far in upholding government-ordered scripts [Shapiro and Meggan Dewitt on structured-mortgage-payment case Nationwide Biweekly Administration v. Hubanks] Sign laws face tough scrutiny under 2015’s Reed v. Town of Gilbert, and Tennessee’s billboard law, which applies even to noncommercial speech, may run into trouble [Shapiro and Aaron Barnes]

Tags: ACLU, advertising, free speech, jury nullification, social media, terrorism

First Amendment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 10:07:13 +0000

Internet companies aren’t the government and their actions don’t violate the First Amendment – but if we want a liberal society they should think hard before yanking connectivity from groups they politically despise [John Samples, Cato]
An argument you may not have heard before: “The neurodiversity case for free speech” [Geoffrey Miller, Quillette]
Prof. Joel Gora: over past decade “the Roberts Supreme Court may well have been the most speech-protective court in a generation, if not in our history.” [Steve Chapman]
“Respecting Rights? Measuring the world’s blasphemy laws” [Joelle Fiss and Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom report via Eugene Volokh]
Michigan man appeals jury tampering conviction over “fully informed jury” leafleting outside courthouse [Jacob Sullum]
New law school buzz over proposals to ban “atrocity speech,” seemingly defined to include speech that might touch off future atrocity [David J. Simon, Opinio Juris on Gregory Gordon’s Atrocity Speech Law] Revealingly, author says opposition to idea “is primarily of American origin — owing to a rabid free speech ethos flowing from libertarian impulses” [Gregory Gordon at Opinio Juris]

Tags: free speech, international human rights, jury nullification, social media

Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Supreme Court and constitutional law roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 04:05:42 +0000

All-Cato edition:

SEC’s use of in-house judges violates constitutional principle of independent judiciary [Thaya Brook Knight, Ilya Shapiro, Devin Watkins, and Ari Blask]
Have you checked out the annual Cato Supreme Court Review on the 2015-16 term, available both in-print and free online? Among the contents: Roger Pilon on Scalia’s originalism; Andrew Trask on the class action case of Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo (and more); Steven Calabresi on originalism and liberty; Steven Eagle on wetlands law; Harvey Silverglate and Emma Quinn-Judge on McDonnell and honest-services-fraud prosecutions of state and local officials; and Glenn Reynolds looking ahead to this (2016-17) term;
Federal agency can’t unilaterally rewrite unambiguous statutory provision [Ilya Shapiro and Frank Garrison on Cato certiorari amicus in FLSA tip-pooling case of National Restaurant Association v. Department of Labor]
“You Shouldn’t Be Criminally Liable If You Don’t Have a Guilty Mind” [Ilya Shapiro on Cato certiorari brief in mens rea case of Farha v. U.S.; related on mens rea, Orrin Hatch, Time]
Court must resolve constitutionality of CFPB structure, especially now that DoJ itself agrees it’s unconstitutional [Thaya Brook Knight and Ilya Shapiro, more]
In ineffective-assistance-of-counsel case that might hinge on whether drug defendant was bound to be convicted anyway, Court should not sidestep the historically significant phenomenon of jury nullification [Cato podcast with Tim Lynch on Lee v. U.S.; more on case from Amy Howe at SCOTUSBlog on oral argument and from Lynch at The Hill]

Tags: Antonin Scalia, Cato Institute, CFPB, constitutional law, jury nullification, mens rea, Securities and Exchange Commission, Supreme Court

Supreme Court and constitutional law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

April 20 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 04:05:59 +0000

HBO back with “Confirmation” docudrama on the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill episode and Stuart Taylor, Jr. not greatly impressed [Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist]
Another rogue Eastern District of Texas patent outcome falls, this time it’s Google for $85 million [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica] “New Bill Designed To Stop Egregious Venue Shopping By Patent Trolls” [Nathan Leamer and Zach Graves, TechDirt]
“Life in California — A Tax on a Tax” [Coyote]
Washington Post looks at jury nullification in multi-part series;
Michael Greve recommends this article on unorthodox methods of lawmaking and administrative law, and his recommendation is good enough for me [Abbe Gluck, Anne Joseph O’Connell, and Rosa Po, SSRN]
Are public bureaucracies really a fount of innovation? Not really, despite vogue for new Marianna Mazzucato book The Entrepreneurial State [Alberto Mingardi, EconLog]

Tags: administrative law, California, Clarence Thomas, Eastern District of Texas, Google, jury nullification, patent trolls, Stuart Taylor Jr., taxes

April 20 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 04:05:41 +0000

Eric Turkewitz has collaborated with other law bloggers on a series of April Fool’s blog hoaxes, but this year many bloggers sat out his joke about Donald Trump suits against the press. Sort of a canary in the coal mine right there [Paul Alan Levy]
It’s come to this: Providence Journal runs pro/con debate on whether to criminalize “climate denial” [Michael E. Kraft, H. Sterling Burnett, link fixed now h/t Gitarcarver] Putting the R.I. in RICO: Sen. Whitehouse trades charges with WSJ, other malefactors (hello!) who keep fighting him on climate probe [Edward Fitzpatrick, Providence Journal, WSJ]
“Judge Dismisses Felony Charge Against Michigan Jury Rights Pamphleteer” [Jacob Sullum, earlier on nullification activists and the law here, etc.]
Feminist urges banning porn on the rationale least consistent with the First Amendment: that it operates as propaganda, the way a philosophical treatise might [Washington Post]
FIRE announces free online First Amendment library; also interviews Eugene Volokh in a seven-minute video [Ronald Collins/Concurring Opinions]
Greater Glasgow Police to social media users: “Think before you post or you may receive a visit from us this weekend.” [Alex Massie, Spectator, earlier on Scotland speech bans]

Tags: climate deniers to the wall, free speech, jury nullification, legal blogs, Rhode Island, Scotland

Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 05:05:07 +0000

Venezuela files suit in U.S. against American website, Dolar Today, that is critical of its currency policies [George Selgin]
Michigan: “Felony prosecution for distributing pro-jury-nullification leaflets outside courthouse” [Eugene Volokh, earlier here, here, etc.] More: Judge tosses Denver D.A.’s attempt to jail jury nullification pamphleteers [Jacob Sullum, earlier]
Federal agencies should not get to decide for themselves whether they’re violating the First Amendment [Ilya Shapiro, Cato on cert petition in POM Wonderful v. Federal Trade Commission]
“After all, a wall can be built around many things, but not around the First Amendment.” One election lawyer’s response to cease/desist letter from Donald Trump [Chris Cillizza/Washington Post, letter courtesy Politico]
Court in Turkey considering a doctor’s comparison of Turkish President Erdogan with “Lord of Rings” character Gollum, and the results are preciousss [Sarah McLaughlin, Popehat]
Update on climatologist Michael Mann’s defamation suit, still in progress [Jonathan Adler, earlier]
Attacks on the right to speak one’s mind are multiplying. Would better civics education help? [George Leef, Forbes]

Tags: administrative law, Donald Trump, First Amendment, free speech, jury nullification, nastygrams, Turkey

Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 04:05:36 +0000

“Denver DA charges man with tampering for handing out jury nullification flyers” [Denver Post, earlier New York case covered here, here, here, etc.] More: Tim Lynch, Cato.
Occupational licensure vs. the First Amendment: Texas regulators seek to shutter doc’s veterinary advice website [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
Fired for waving rebel flag? Unlikely to raise a First Amendment issue unless you work for the government, or it twisted your employer’s arm [Huntsville (Ala.) Times, Daniel Schwartz]
“Twitter joke thieves are getting DMCA takedowns” [BoingBoing]
A reminder of Gawker’s jaw-droppingly bad stuff on freedom of speech (“Arrest Climate Change Deniers”) [Coyote, related]
Canadian lawyer/journalist Ezra Levant facing discipline proceeding “for being disrespectful towards a government agency” [Financial Post, earlier]
“‘Shouting fire in a theater’: The life and times of constitutional law’s most enduring analogy” [Carlton Larson via Eugene Volokh, also Christopher Hitchens on the analogy]

Tags: Denver, employment at will, First Amendment, free speech, free speech in Canada, jury nullification, occupational licensure, Twitter

Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system