8th Circuit

Morning Docket: 04.25.13

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Party on, Justice Breyer.

* On this episode of Supreme Court Retirement Watch, we learn that for whatever reason, Justice Breyer is “having the time of his life,” and so once again, all eyes are upon Justice Ginsburg. Maybe in 2015, folks. [The Hill]

* How unusual that a federal judge would see a confirmation in less than three months. If only Chuck Grassley owed favors to all of the nominees. Congratulations to Jane Kelly, now of the Eighth Circuit. [Legal Times]

* Thanks to an unprecedented ruling from Judge Dolly Gee, mentally disabled immigrants facing deportation will receive government-paid legal representation. New law school clinics, assemble! [New York Times]

* “Among the things the ABA is working on, this may be the most important.” Too bad the Task Force on the Future of Education seems to suffer from too many cooks in kitchen. [National Law Journal]

* Another one bites the dust: Team Strauss/Anziska’s lawsuit against Brooklyn Law School over its allegedly phony employment statistics has been dismissed. Sad trombone. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Justin Teixeira, one of the Berkeley law students accused in the Las Vegas bird beheading, waived an evidentiary hearing so the media couldn’t squawk about video images they’d see. [Washington Post]

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Bullying Is Now What Happens Whenever Teachers Can’t Keep Control Of Their Classrooms

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The Eighth Circuit recently backed a Missouri High School in a bullying case against students. Lee’s Summit North High School suspended two boys who created a website to “discuss, satirize, and vent” about their classmates. Apparently the website made sexist and racist comments about some of the other students.

Ooohh. I am shocked, SHOCKED to find out that schoolboys make sexist and racist comments about their classmates.

The boys had filed for a preliminary injunction that would stay their 180-day suspension, which was granted by a lower court. But the Eighth Circuit denied the injunction on the grounds that the boys’ website was unlikely to be viewed as protected speech. That’s because their speech caused a “substantial disruption” to the educational environment at the school.

What was the nature of the disruption? Apparently two teachers described the day that the website went viral within the school as the “most disruptive day they had experienced in their careers.”

So, for those playing along at home, your right to protected speech ends approximately at the point that public school teachers can’t establish classroom order over a cacophony of “OMG, did U C this” texts, or something….

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Morning Docket: 09.12.12

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Excited about fashion law?

* Good news, everyone! According to Citi’s Managing Partner Confidence Index survey, firm leaders are feeling pessimistic about their business due to an overall lack of confidence in the economy. [Am Law Daily]

* Per the Ninth Circuit, an Idaho statute that essentially criminalizes medication-induced abortions imposes an undue burden on a woman’s ability to terminate her pregnancy. Really? You don’t say. [Bloomberg]

* Kiwi Camara’s circuitous route to SCOTUS: thanks to the Eighth Circuit, Jammie Thomas-Rasset started and ended her journey with $222K damages for copyright infringement. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Was Barack Obama ever offered a tenured position on the faculty at University of Chicago Law School? Absolutely not, says longtime law professor Richard Epstein — and he was never a “constitutional law professor” either. [Daily Caller]

* “Fashion law is a real career choice,” says Gibson Dunn partner Lois Herzeca. This niche practice area is one of the hottest new trends in the fashion world, and it’s not likely to go out of style any time soon. [Reuters]

* Your clawback suit is a wonderland? John Mayer was named as a defendant in a suit filed by trustees seeking to recover money paid out by Ponzi schemer Darren Berg. [Bankruptcy Beat / Wall Street Journal]

* J. Christopher Stevens, UC Hastings Law grad and U.S. Ambassador to Libya, RIP. [CNN]

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Morning Docket: 06.29.12

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Sexorcise the demon!

* You don’t necessarily have to agree with what Chief Justice John Roberts did with respect to his health care opinion, but you’ve got to admit that it was an act of statesmanship that will forever define his legacy on the Court. [New York Times]

* CNN, one of the world’s most reliable news networks, reports that no many legal scholars were surprised unsurprised by yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to strike down uphold the Individual Broccoli Mandate Affordable Care Act. [CNN]

* Word to the wise: don’t get cocky over in the Eighth Circuit, because apparently boosting the length of a prison term based on whether or not a defendant is smiling at sentencing is not considered an abuse of discretion. [National Law Journal]

* Dewey know why the number of law firm mergers and acquisitions in the United States dropped during the second quarter? Truth be told, they’re all scared, because “[n]obody wants to wind up with a lemon.” [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* George Zimmerman, the man charged in Trayvon Martin’s death, is returning to court today to try to get himself released on bond… again. Let’s give him some credit, because he sure is tenacious. [ABC News]

* Listen, it’s not an easy thing to perform an exorcism these days. Sometimes a priest really just needs to kiss and caress the demon out of your body — a sexorcism, if you will. Nothing to sue over, nothing at all. [MSNBC]

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Conservative Law Profs: Just Say You Need ‘Affirmative Action’ for Intellectual Diversity and We’ll End Hiring Discrimination Against You

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Is that a black rhino or a conservative law prof?

Conservative law professors need help. They don’t want to admit it because conservative orthodoxy holds that the only people who can ask for help in this country are small businessmen and the institution of marriage, but make no mistake, conservatives who want to get a tenure-track job in legal academia need a leg up. That’s because they’ve been discriminated against, both currently and historically. Law school faculties are thought to be a bastion of liberalism, and the problem has gotten so bad that conservative law profs probably need a “plus-factor” in order to overcome this ingrained systemic bias.

Diversity is important in law schools, and if we’re going to have an intellectually diverse faculty, we need to find a way to integrate more conservatives into teaching positions, even if that means a qualified, liberal law professor loses his or her “spot” on the tenure track for a colleague that leans a little harder to the right.

I’d be all for that. But conservatives can’t admit that they made need a diversity program to combat generations of systemic selection bias. So instead, they’re just going to bitch about the fundamental unfairness. Or fire off employment discrimination lawsuits….

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Morning Docket: 12.29.11

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I know why the caged bird tweets.

* Here’s a nice round-up of some of the most controversial laws that will be enacted in 2012. Looks like California is going to have some fabulously multicultural litigation. [Associated Press]

* What do you get when you cross an artist with a penchant for Rastafarians with the son of a Boies Schiller name partner? The biggest copyright fair use appeal ever. [New York Times]

* A Massachusetts town paid Phoebe Prince’s family only $225K to settle. With lawyer’s fees, it’s almost not even worth suing if your kid gets bullied to death. [ABC News]

* Everyone is going cuckoo over Iowa’s conservatives, even the Eighth Circuit. Iowa Law’s former dean is facing a political discrimination suit. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Apparently, this PhoneDog Twitter account case is a pretty big deal in the world of social media law. I’ll turn discussion of this issue over to our social media expert, Brian Tannebaum. [CNN]

* An employee at a presumably small law firm in New York had her jaw shattered while a thief ransacked the office. Give this woman a bonus. Hell, give her a raise, too. [New York Post]

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Benchslap of the Day: Justice Scalia’s Dissent in Roper

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Antonin Scalia headshot Justice Antonin Scalia Above the Law blog.JPGOkay, make that yesterday. A reader email drew our attention to the saucy conclusion of Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in Roper v. Weaver:

The greatest harm is that done to AEDPA, since dismissing the writ of certiorari leaves the Eighth Circuit’s grossly erroneous precedent on the books. (That precedent, by the way, cannot be explained away—as perhaps the Court’s own opinion can—as the product of law-distorting compassion for a defendant wronged by a District Court’s erroneous action. As noted earlier, the Eighth Circuit was not informed of that erroneous action. It presumably really believes that this is the way AEDPA should be applied.)

Other courts should be warned that this Court’s failure to reverse the Eighth Circuit’s decision is a rare manifestation of judicial clemency unrestrained by law. They would be well advised to do unto the Eighth Circuit’s decision just what it did unto AEDPA: ignore it.

WHACK! As our correspondent notes: “Scalia manages to benchslap both the majority opinion and the 8th Circuit all in the same paragraph.”
Some of Justice Scalia’s colleagues get cheeky on occasion. Another tipster drew our attention to Part IV of Justice Stevens’s Bell Atlantic v. Twombly dissent — which Justice Ginsburg expressly declined to join, perhaps due to its ‘tude.
But at the end of the day, there’s no disputing this truth: When it comes to benchslaps, nobody does it like Nino.
Roper v. Weaver [FindLaw]
Bell Atlantic v. Twombly [FindLaw]

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Wherein We Receive An Email from Celebrity Judge Morris Arnold

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Morris Arnold Buzz Arnold Judge Morris S Arnold Above the Law.jpgWe’re on a roll today in the correspondence department here at ATL. This morning we brought you an email message from Professor Tim Wu, aka “Genius Wu,” young superstar of the legal academy.
And this afternoon, we proudly present this cyber-missive, typed by Article III fingers:

From: Judge Morris Arnold [email address redacted]
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 3:28 PM
To: AboveTheLaw Tips
Subject: AboveTheLaw Tip

Thank you so very much for the good wishes. I am on the mend and expect to be back up to full speed in very short order.

M. S. Arnold

First, we’re delighted to hear that Judge Arnold is doing so well. Second, we’re delighted that he wrote to us. How awesome is that?
After we put down our inhaler — we started hyperventilating from excitement! — we emailed Judge Arnold to check if it would be okay for us to post his message. And he graciously agreed. Thanks, Judge Arnold!
Earlier: Wishes for a Speedy Recovery to Judge Morris Arnold

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Wishes for a Speedy Recovery to Judge Morris Arnold

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Morris Arnold Buzz Arnold Judge Morris S Arnold Above the Law.jpgEarlier this month, Judge Morris Arnold, one of the most respected federal appellate judges in the country, suffered a heart attack. From the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

Morris S. Arnold of Little Rock was hospitalized Wednesday night in St. Louis, where he is a judge on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, after having a heart attack. Arnold, 65, officially took senior status less than a month ago. That designation reduces his caseload while he continues to serve on the court that hears appeals from federal courts in seven states including Arkansas.

U.S. Circuit Clerk Michael Gans said Thursday from the court’s St. Louis office that Arnold went to the hospital on his own after returning to his hotel at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday and experiencing pains in his chest and arm that kept him from falling asleep.

Arnold had the heart attack while at the hospital, and doctors then surgically implanted a stent, Gans said.

We’re advised that the heart attack was minor and that Judge Arnold — known to some by his nickname, “Buzz” — is doing well. We wish this distinguished jurist, revered by the bench and bar and adored by his former clerks, a fast and full recovery.
Little Rock Appellate Judge in St. Louis Hospital [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

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So That’s Why They Call It the “Show Me” State

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sexy billboard.jpg

Driving through the great state of Missouri just got a little more interesting, thanks to the Sixth Circuit:

A Missouri law barring sexually oriented businesses from advertising within a mile of the state’s highways unconstitutionally limits commercial free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the law is unconstitutional “in its entirety” because it is not “narrowly tailored” to meet the state’s goals of reducing crime and improving traffic safety.

From now on, John Ashcroft is taking the back roads.

The appeals court also struck down as unconstitutional a provision of the statute allowing a sexually oriented business to display no more than two exterior signs on its premises. The provision limited the signs to stating the business’s name, address, operating hours and language giving notice that minors are not allowed.

“Should the affected business owner choose to post a sign with the price of gasoline, or a sign advertising a nationally known soft drink on the exterior of the business, he or she would be subject to criminal prosecution,” the court’s opinion stated….

The Eighth Circuit left intact, however, the statutory ban on outdoor advertising of Slurpees. The court held that this provision was well within the state’s “police power,” and necessary to protect the health and welfare of Missouri citizens.
Sex-ad billboards will stay [Kansas City Star]

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