Warning: The penis-to-vagina ratio in this week’s column is quite high. If you’re already on the mailing list for Rick Santorum 2012, you may want to avert your eyes — or go make fun of sissy-boy John Kerry for helping plan his daughter’s wedding.

Our fabulous finalist couples:

1. Sebastian Dungan and Lavi Soloway

2. Adam Levine and Janson Wu

3. Alisha Bhagat and Mark Egerman

Read more about these newlyweds, after the jump.

* Governor Patterson has chosen Kirsten Gillibrand, a 42-year-old New York congresswoman to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. [Reuters]

* On the 36th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade protestors gather for the annual March for Life on the National Mall. [The Los Angeles Times]

* The Senate has confirmed six members of Obama’s cabinet but Attorney General-designate Eric Holder is still waiting. [The Associated Press]

* Blagojevich may file a lawsuit challenging “unfair” Senate trial rules to the state Supreme Court. [The Washington Post]

* Obama ordered the Justice Department to review the case of an accused al-Qaida agent, the only enemy combatant held on US soil. [The Associated Press]

Catholic law schools uphold two legal regimes: the laws of the U.S. legal system, and the laws from the big guy upstairs. Some students are just there for the former, and discomforted by the influence of the latter.

A tipster writes to us about a debate at Minnesota’s St. Thomas School of Law. We notice that in their motto — “Faith, Reason, Community” — faith comes first. So students probably should have expected something like this:

At Minnesota’s new law school, St. Thomas, the students have a 50-hour pro bono requirement. The school just announced that students can’t get credit if they do pro bono work for an organization that supports birth control or abortion. It seems kind of goofy.

The Minnesota Post (via Minnesota Lawyer Blog) has an article about a St. Thomas student who tried to fulfill her pro bono requirement at Planned Parenthood. Though she got approval from the student board, Dean Thomas Mengler shot it down:

Mengler announced in a campuswide letter that students would not receive credit for volunteering at Planned Parenthood or any other organization “whose mission is fundamentally in conflict with a core value of a Catholic university.”

“As a Catholic university, we have a right and a responsibility to be Catholic,” Mengler said in an interview on Tuesday. “Certainly, one of (the church’s) core values is sanctity of life.”

See also today’s Minnesota Star-Tribune (via Mirror of Justice, a leading Catholic legal theory blog).

St. Thomas isn’t the only law school struggling to balance secular influences and religious traditions. We recently received an e-mail from a Georgetown alum who tried to direct his donation to the school’s pro-choice campus group. They turned him down — see the e-mail exchange after the jump.

UST Law has unplanned controversy over volunteer credits [Minnesota Lawyer Blog]
Quote of the Year [Mirror of Justice]
Volunteer-credits decision sparks debate at St. Thomas law school [Minnesota Post]
Student’s volunteer mission is latest row at St. Thomas [Minnesota Star-Tribune]

Give a girl a Supreme Court beat and a best-selling book, and she gets her sassy on!

The fantabulous Jan Crawford Greenburg has taken on Geoff Stone, the former dean of the University of Chicago’s law school, in a tart blog post. Stone (along with Rosie O’Donnell) had declared himself troubled by the fact that the five Supremes in the majority in last week’s partial-birth abortion decision also happened to be the Court’s five Catholics.

Greenburg responds:

That’s not how they taught First Amendment law when I was at the University of Chicago. Nor did they tell us to jump to baseless conclusions without any evidence—such as suggesting religion drove those justices. Or that different religious views influenced the protestant and Jewish justices to vote against the law.

Why not speculate that the five justices in the majority happen to like baseball—and therefore are more inclined to appreciate rules? That’s no less relevant or “telling,” as Stone put it, than their religious views.

A current student of Stone’s alleges that Stone referred to Justice Brennan in class as “the only thinking Catholic I ever knew.” Can anyone confirm that?

In what appears to be the first response by a state legislature to last week’s Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth abortion ban, North Dakota has passed a bill making abortion illegal if and when the Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade. (The N.D. Senate Majority leader claims that the bill was not influenced by the recent decision.) From Jurist:

In the event that the US Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the bill would subject anyone performing an abortion to a prison sentence of up to 5 years, a $5,000 fine, or possibly both. An exception would be made in cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother was in danger.

North Dakota has become the second state to pass this type of abortion law; Mississippi approved a similar measure last month.

Isn’t this a little like passing a law explicitly making it legal for police to interrogate suspects without allowing them to ask for an attorney, if and when Miranda v. Arizona is overturned by the Supreme Court? Or like a bill reinstituting segregation immediately upon the Supreme Court’s reversal of Brown v. Board of Education?

If you ask former Supreme Court clerks to name the three or four smartest justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg routinely makes the list. Former SCOTUS clerks on both sides of the aisle praise Justice Ginsburg for her intellect. She’s also regularly mentioned as one of the most “self-sufficient” justices (i.e., a justice who could still do her job effectively with little or no law clerk help).

But Justice Ginsburg is not infallible. Here’s an interesting IM conversation we had with a source earlier today (with actual screen names replaced by pseudonyms). Our source, identified below as “tipster,” was reading Justice Ginsburg’s dissent in Gonzales v. Carhart (PDF).

tipster: Ooh. Ginsburg is not good at math - see n.10.

ATL: Ha! 1/1 is a fraction…
tipster: “No, sweetie, if the numerator and the denominator are the same, that just equals 1. Now go back to Home Ec and stop trying to learn math.”
ATL: that’s funny — can I use that?
tipster: sure.
ATL: Per standard ATL policy, no attribution (unless you want it).
tipster: DON’T YOU DARE ATTRIBUTE.
ATL: Can I at least identify you as a liberal and an RBG fan when I make fun of her footnote 10? I don’t want to get attacked as a right-wing hack (since this is equal-opportunity snark).
tipster: Yes.
ATL: Thanks.
tipster: Not like anyone will believe you have liberal friends.
ATL: But I do! I have more liberal friends than conservative ones.
tipster: “some of my best friends are *shudder-gag-vomit* liberal”

(That last line by our tipster was sarcastic, for those of you who are sarcasm-impaired. Thank you.)

Earlier: Breaking: Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality of Partial Birth Abortion Act

This just in from One First Street. The Associated Press reports:

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long- awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act “have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court’s conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush’s two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

This ruling lends support to those who predict — like Jan Crawford Greenburg, in Supreme Conflict — that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will move the Court significantly to the right in the years ahead. Before Justice Alito replaced Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a decision like this one would have required the conservatives to secure TWO swing votes, AMK and SOC, instead of just one. That frequently doomed the conservatives to defeat in the big-ticket cases.

So Justice Alito, appointed to the Court by President Bush, probably made all the difference here. As Senatrix Barbara Boxer recently observed: “Elections have consequences.”

Update: For more detailed commentary, check out Lyle Denniston’s SCOTUSblog post, which quotes extensively from Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent. To read the opinion itself, click here (PDF).

Court Backs Ban on Abortion Procedure [Associated Press]
Court upholds federal abortion ban [SCOTUSblog]
Gonzales v. Carhart (PDF) [SCOTUSblog]
Senator Boxer: Elections Have Consequences [YouTube]

* Senator Brownback doesn’t include women of reproductive age in his litany. But you can’t protect everyone, can you? [Mirror of Justice]

* I once sent out letters like this to production companies, volunteering my script-reading services, and one guy took the time to tell me to f*%k myself because what the hell did I know about scripts. But I’m sure this guy will have much better luck. [Prettier Than Napolean]

* Let’s all be thankful that cosmos weren’t served. My gender-neutral marketing and client development strategy would be to recruit only hot associates of both genders and all sexual orientations, and pimp them out to clients as appropriate. [WSJ Law Blog via Professor Bainbridge]

* Looks like it’s every man for himself. [Overlawyered]

* With the advanced state of medical technology, it won’t be long before some pol subjects every pregnant woman to a recording of her fetus pleading, “Please, Mommy, don’t kill me!” [MSN]

* What on earth was he planning on doing with all that money? I’m thinking a tragic Gatsby-esque scenario. [ABA Journal E-Report]

* Did Craigslist receive a threatening phone call from the Starbucks legal department? I’ve never been a barrista, but even I could not help but shake my head in amusement and utter, “So true, so true.” [Starbucks Gossip]

* In law school, I stuck to those guys in the backrooms of dive bars, who lent me tuition money on a handshake. Now that’s honest business… Of course, now they’ve pimped me out to a law firm. [New York Times]

* Bad faith in a Chapter 7 filing forfeits the right to convert to Chapter 13. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]

* Statute of limitations for a Section 1983 action based on false arrest begins to run when claimant is detained pursuant to legal process. [U.S. Supreme Court (PDF)]

* South Dakota abortion ban bill fails in state Senate committee. [Jurist]

* 300,000 lawyers can’t agree on anything. [WSJ Law Blog]

* If it’s not in the URL, get rid of it. [Law.com]

* Pedophiles are upset to learn that the 12-year-old they’ve been “violating” is actually 29. Another example of how TV and movies featuring twenty-something actors as smooth-faced teenagers warps reality. [AP via MSN]

* It’s Roe v. Wade’s 34th anniversary. The pro… [Feministing]

* …and the con. [La Shawn Barber’s Corner]

* Another high-profile discrimination case, but this time in the world of haute cuisine. Daniel Boulud’s defense? He’s an immigrant himself — we bet the whole “Freedom Fries” anti-French sentiment really hurt. [New York Times]

* A gentleman should not be required to excuse himself for European civility. [AP via Lowering the Bar]

* I have never smoked pot. As long as people dating me or coming to my stand-up gigs are high, the banter will undoubtedly seem witty and the jokes uproarious, and I’d rather be lucid enough to savor such fleeting moments. [TalkLeft]

* My mom once gave me cash to use on an SAT-prep course. I secretly used it on a Gucci dress. But I still got into my first choice college and had 75 hours of free time to, like, hang out at the mall. There’s an analogy in there somewhere. [Denver Post via Mirror of Justice]

* Families blame MySpace for enabling teenage irrationality, sexual perversion and poor parenting. They long for the days they could just plunk their kids in front of the TV without consequence. [Associated Press]

* So you think MTV doesn’t respect its audience? Well, it has just acquired RateMyProfessors, so I guess it’s assuming someone in that demographic actually cares about school and their future and stuff. [TaxProf Blog]

This case summary, from CourtBriefs, was emailed to us with the following subject line: “Why I saw this and thought of ATL, I have no idea.”

Regardless of your views on abortion — and we’ll just say, for the record, that we are not unsympathetic to the pro-life cause — this lawsuit should strike you as a bit dubious:

This is like suing a bear for failure to warn that he might attack. A bear is as a bear does; and so is Planned Parenthood.*

Here’s our favorite part of the Doe v. Planned Parenthood summary:

As a result of the counseling, assertions and representations of the Planned Parenthood personnel and various Defendants, [Doe] underwent an abortion that day. Her unborn infant, Michael Doe, died as a result of the abortion procedure.

That tends to happen when you get AN ABORTION, dear.

(In all seriousness, even pro-lifers — or pro-choicers who, like Bill Clinton, believe abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” — should not support a lawsuit like this. Awarding money damages to women for undergoing abortions seems like unwise public policy.)

Doe v. Planned Parenthood [Court Briefs (subscription)]

* We’re setting aside all the other problems, including jurisdictional ones, with suing a bear.

Law dorks around America rejoiced when the Supreme Court announced it would be making available free, same-day, online transcripts of oral arguments. Because we wouldn’t have to wait for amusing typographical errors, would we?

One of you points out:

Very funny transcription error in Gonzalez v. Carhart. Justice Stevens and Solicitor General Clement are sparring about the question of viability, and Clement says: “Yes. Because the issue is whether it’s going to be performed in Ute row.”

Sounds like a reservation prison in eastern Utah. First casinos, now abortions. Those pesky natives just keep cornering depraved markets left and right.

Actually, that wasn’t what we thought of when we saw the typo. “Ute Row” sounds like a street to us — or maybe, you know, a back alley.

(Disclaimer: This post is not making light of abortion, dead babies, or women who would die if abortion were criminalized. It is simply making light of a typo — and calling it to the attention of the Court, so they can have it fixed in the final version of the transcript. You’re welcome.)

(SCOTUS hallway photo from stock.xchng, which is a great resource for stock photography. Bloggers will appreciate its comprehensive collection of royalty-free images, which their owners have placed in the public domain for anyone to use. You can check out the pics that we have taken and contributed by clicking here.)

Gonzales v. Carhart Oral Argument Transcript (PDF) (p. 13, lines 11-12) [Supreme Court]
Same-Day Transcripts for Supreme Court Arguments [Volokh Conspiracy]
Same day Supreme Court argument transcripts [Althouse]

The judiciary was largely upstaged yesterday by developments from the other two branches: the Democratic takeover on Capitol Hill, and the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

But the Supreme Court was still doin’ its thing yesterday, hearing the cases of Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood. These cases raise the constitutionality of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. So of course there was disorder in the court:

[O]ne man, clad in a shirt that read JESUS, entered the courtroom and sat in the spectator section midway through oral arguments.

Wake up, SCOTUS marshals!!! The guy might as well have worn a shirt reading “ARREST ME” — which is what they did, after this happened:

[D]uring the time allotted to [Priscilla] Smith, the pro-choice lawyer arguing on behalf of Nebraska abortion provider Dr. Leroy Carhart, the man erupted. “ABORTION!” he thundered in a voice that reverberated in the quiet and still courtroom. “REPENT OR YOU WILL PERISH,” he went on. He grabbed the arm of Carhart, who happened to be seated next to him, and pulled him to the ground.

As one would expect, the gracious and unflappable Chief Justice handled the interruption quite smoothly. He “drew polite laughs when he then offered Smith three extra minutes to make her case.”

Update: Or was it just an extra 30 seconds? See here and here.

The protester, a gent by the name of Rives Miller Grogan, was charged with violating 40 U.S.C. 6134. Here’s what that statute provides (robe swish: Orin Kerr):

It is unlawful to discharge a firearm, firework or explosive, set fire to a combustible, make a harangue or oration, or utter loud, threatening, or abusive language in the Supreme Court Building or grounds.

Professor Kerr: “That’s right: It’s illegal to make an oration in the Supreme Court building! So be careful out there, folks.”

Drama in the Court [MSNBC via FARK.com]
When Oral Argument Is a Crime [Volokh Conspiracy]
High Court Focuses on Medical Alternatives in Partial-Birth Abortion Cases [Legal Times via How Appealing]
Commentary: Kennedy vote in play on abortion [SCOTUSblog]
Title 40, United States Code, Chapter 61 [House.gov]

* Democrats take back the House. [CNN]

* And maybe the Senate. [CNN]

* Just what we need in Washington: more lawyers. [WSJ Law Blog; WSJ Law Blog]

* It still might be possible to have an abortion in South Dakota after all. [AP via Yahoo! News]

* But partial-birth intact-dilation-and-evacuation abortions could be in trouble, depending upon what the Supreme Court rules. [Associated Press]

* Show me the stem cells. [CNN]

* What’s an election these days without the lawyers getting involved? [WHSV (Harrisonburg, VA)]

* One clear winner last night: judicial independence. [How Appealing (linkwrap)]

* Who’d have thunk it? Objectivity is subjective. And how much do you want to bet that any article or blog entry referring to this controversy will be titled the “Greenhouse Effect”? [PrawfsBlawg]

* Shi—ite! That’s scary. But the op-ed is a good primer for lay idiots like me. [New york Times via AMERICAblog]

* Forget the Shiites and Sunnis. Someone needs to write “Abortion for Dummies,” and give it to Mr. O’Reilly pronto. [Media Matters]

* “Working for food” just doesn’t seem legal in this context. Isn’t there a Models Union or something? [OnMilwaukee.com]

* Lichtenstein would no doubt describe the noise of this head-on collision between copyright and fair use with a POW! “Sampling” doesn’t look so bad now, does it? [Boston Globe]