September 4, 2005 – 11:16 am
For whatever reason, last night and early this morning I wasn’t tuned in to the NPR/BBC radio news programs to which I commonly listen. Thus, I was somewhat stunned to see the headline in this morning’s paper about Chief Justice Rehnquist’s death.
Three thoughts came to mind. One is the long-lasting effect of having Bush with [...]
August 20, 2005 – 11:53 am
The local daily reports the state Department of Revenue isn’t going to make churches get tax licenses to pay use tax on items they purchase out of state. That seems a reasonable approach.
Even individuals owe use tax on items they purchase out-of-state but use in-state if no sales tax is charged at the point [...]
August 6, 2005 – 11:22 am
The latest issue of The Atlantic has two interesting columns making arguments I haven’t seen elsewhere about aspects of the opening on the Supreme Court.
The strongest of the two is by Stuart Taylor Jr. He observes that the Court is dominated by appointees from the ranks of appellate judges as opposed to practicing lawyers or [...]
I worked as a print journalist in one capacity or another for a decade. As such, I covered politics and “cops and courts” and was a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors. As a lawyer, I established the case law in my state that recognizes a qualified privilege protecting journalists from forced disclosure of confidential [...]
There’s been much consternation expressed in the local daily this week about the state Department of Revenue notifying churches they are required to pay use tax on articles they buy outside the state. The churches claim this violates their constitutional rights. It’s another example of religious groups who have no hesitancy asking the state to [...]
Sliding under my radar several days ago was the latest venture by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas into support for theocracy in the United States.
Roughly a year ago, I blogged about how his concurrence in the so-called pledge case indicated his Establisment Clause (”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”) jurisprudence was [...]
One of the things that struck me in Floyd Abrams’ First Amendment book (see immediately preceding post) was his observations regarding interesting juxtapositions on the US Supreme Court. Particularly, he pointed out that in the challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, justices who would be considered more “pro” First Amendment tended to support [...]
Via How Appealing comes this Michigan Court of Appeals decision (PDF file) about whether televised jokes told by a human penis are protected by the First Amendment.
Seems Timothy Huffman produced a program called “Tim’s Area of Control” on a public access cable channel in Grand Rapids, Mich. One episode, that aired between 10:30 and 11 [...]
As you may recall, Amendment A went down in flames in the November election. You may also recall I supported passage of the constitutional amendment, which would have moved us away from electing circuit court judges. This news item, an excerpt of which appeared in the Argus while I was gone, is an [...]
March 18, 2005 – 12:55 pm
Lawrence Lessig is a Stanford law professor who has written extensively on copyright and related legal matters in the age of technology. He is putting into practice one of the concepts he promotes in updating one of his works.
In 1999 Lessig published Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. As he believes the book is in [...]
February 24, 2005 – 2:22 pm
For those of you who may be interested, the South Dakota Supreme Court today unanimously affirmed former Gov. Bill Janklow’s manslaughter conviction.
December 21, 2004 – 7:37 am
Upon reflection, the announcement that Google is going to add books in major libarary collections to its database may not be as encouraging as it seems. The fact full text will be available only for those books old enough to no longer be under copyright shows once again the stuggle between our copyright laws [...]
October 3, 2004 – 10:17 am
As noted in the prior Amendment A post, my support comes from a belief judicial elections are not the best way to select the most qualified circuit court judges. There’s a number of reasons why.
Quite frankly, it takes guts to run against a sitting judge. While I think it extremely rare retribution would [...]
October 2, 2004 – 12:40 pm
With the election a month away, the articles, panels and letters have started on Amendment A. While I don’t think the “activist judges” argument flies in South Dakota, there’s certainly arguments on both sides.
In the hopes of encouraging debate and discussion, I’m going to relate my views in two separate posts. A preface [...]
September 27, 2004 – 12:53 pm
Some of you may have read that last Friday a federal judge struck down a law banning the sale of bootlegs of live performances. I have plenty of bootlegs but the decision still leaves me with mixed feelings.
I don’t have a problem with concert bootlegs because they provide an opportunity to hear what may [...]
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