They’re wearing a ridiculous piece of fashion because they do not care about your opinion. Remember Gordon Gee? Bill Nye? Donald Duck?
And this universal truism was reaffirmed when the 93-year-old former justice took the stage before a giant gathering of liberal lawyers, jurists, academics, and law students, and patiently told them how wrong they are about DNA and the Fourth Amendment.
This is what happens when you invite Republicans to speak…
* Washington is facing an unexpected issue with its new marijuana laws: training all the drug-sniffing dogs not to go crazy over pot. [Volokh Conspiracy]
* The International Trade Commission has banned the importation of older iPhones and iPads for patent infringement based on a standard-essential patent. Don’t know what that means? Well, it’s kind of a big deal. [FOSS Patents]
* A federal judge likens herself to the Hulk because she lengthens sentences over the objections of prosecutors. When we first wrote about Judge Rose, Staci felt the one Senator voting against her confirmation needed a good reason. This is that reason. [Des Moines Register]
* Student trolls law professor to get grades posted before she can finish the professor’s book. The race is on! [Josh Blackman's Blog]
* As previously mentioned, THE Ohio State University President Gordon Gee was in hot water. Now he’s been s**tcanned retiring. Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino declared Gee a “pompous ass.” One tipster noted, “Pitino Rick is an expert on the subject of pompous. Restaurant Sex too.” [CBS Sports]
* Lots of lawyers are former debaters. If you are looking to give back, there’s a new organization trying to raise money for high school debate in Kalamazoo. I mention this partly because I care about the cause, but mostly because I like writing Kalamazoo. [Go Fund Me]
* After reviewing the mindblowingly crazy BARBRI lecturer vid yesterday, Themis sent us a couple of their bar prep vids. Enjoy after the jump…
Justice Kennedy announced the majority opinion in a long anticipated case today. It was met with a blistering dissent by Justice Scalia.
Unfortunately for most Court watchers, it was not the opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas, the latest in the Court’s attempts to resolve whether affirmative action in higher education is constitutional. Some observers expressed annoyance.
Instead, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Maryland v. King, which Justice Alito previously identified as potentially the most important law enforcement decision in decades. The Court held that the police can take your DNA any time you’ve been arrested for a “serious” crime.
Yesterday, with hours to spare, the Mississippi Supreme Court stayed the execution of Willie Manning by a vote of 8-1. The stay was granted based on letters from the Department of Justice casting doubt on the scientific value of testimony from FBI experts at the trial almost 20 years ago.
The lone dissenter, Justice Mike Randolph, outlined his interest in putting someone to death immediately over the objections of the Department of Justice and its FBI experts. The decision reads like satire, making the case for the stay stronger than any majority opinion could. Oh, and then there’s some conspiracy rantings about the Obama Administration because, you know, Mississippi…
My wife bought me a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue to celebrate the birth of our child. I had a glass; dear God it was delicious. It tasted smokey.
Anyway, later my boys came over and we had a party and… all the whiskey disappeared. That’s how it felt. Not like we drank it and had a good time… Just that the alcohol evaporated. Along with my shoes. And my boy’s pipe.
Saying that the alcohol “evaporated” is a reasonable explanation of the feeling you get from drinking through an expensive bottle of happiness. It seems like a less good defense to a charge of theft…
Imagine you’re in a negotiation to buy a used car. You use the Blue Book — the Kelley Blue Book, not the legal Bluebook — to set the starting point on the price. You do your research at home based on the blue book that’s online, which says the starting point for the car you want is $10,000.
Then, when you get to the used car dealer, you find out that they have a new blue book, one that just came out that day. It says that the starting point for the car you want is really $12,000.
You’d probably be annoyed, maybe angry. The whole starting point for your conversation about the price of the car changed.
Yet, the dealer could tell you, and you could still agree with him to pay any amount you’d like for the car. The starting point doesn’t necessarily set the ending point.
This was, basically, the situation the Supreme Court was called in to referee in this morning’s oral argument in Peugh v. United States….
* A St. Louis plastic surgeon has been sued for allegedly posting topless photos of her breast augmentation patients online — with their names attached to the photos. It’s just more evidence that sooner or later everyone will be naked on the internet. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
* Wow, the miracles of technology. Now if you have a paternity dispute that you need to clear up, you don’t need to go on Jerry Springer. All you need to do is visit your local taco truck DNA testing van. [Legal Blog Watch]
* You know that scary feeling when it seems you have forgotten something but you can’t figure out what it is? Well, you forgot your toddler — at the grocery store. There, fixed it for you. [Legal Juice]
* Oh boy, another misbehaving state judge. This one, from Georgia, allegedly pre-signed arrest warrants and hit on a woman who appeared before him in court. Sounds like quite the stand-up dude. [Atlanta Journal Constitution]
* What are the top five movies all law students should watch? Let the arguing over this list begin… [Greedy Associates]
* I’m sure there must have been a legitimate reason for a federal judge to compare the civil liberties of Muslim Americans to a “hideous sea monster,” but c’mon, really? [Chicago Tribune]
* Chief Justice John Roberts, in his capacity as circuit justice for the Fourth Circuit, has given the green light — for the time being — to Maryland’s continued collection of DNA samples from people charged with violent felonies. [New York Times]
* Professor Dan Markel isn’t a fan of the practice, arguing that it “is yet another abuse of the presumption of innocence.” [PrawfsBlawg]
* And in other gay marriage news, yet another federal judge — Judge Vanessa Bryant (D. Conn.), a Bush II appointee — has struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. [Chris Geidner / BuzzFeed]
* The mother of a man who died during a police chase has sued the SFPD over her son’s accidentally shooting himself. Opines SFist: “It remains unclear to us why [Kenneth] Harding has been chosen to serve as a martyr, given his not-so-stellar record and the self-inflicted wound.” [SFist]
* Poor Professor Campos — does his self-loathing know no bounds? The prominent law professor, one of legal academia’s harshest (and most eloquent) critics, has now turned his powerful fire on baby boomers — of whom he is one. [Salon]
* Lawyers with four to seven years of experience are apparently now in demand. You know why? BECAUSE THEY FIRED ALL OF THEM TWO YEARS AGO! [WSJ Law Blog]
* Occupy Wall Street is now getting free hugs. It’s like, when you register as a liberal, somebody comes in the night and shoves your testicles back up inside you. [Dealbreaker]
* I dream of a day when eyewitness testimony is viewed as unreliable as DNA evidence is now thought to be reliable. [An Associate's Mind]
* Even in the extremely unlikely scenario that one of these radical tax plans is adopted, tax lawyers will still find work. Believe it. [Going Concern]
* If you took the “over” on the cold day in Hell when BP is allowed to drill in the Gulf again, you’re gonna lose that bet. [New York Times]
* It’s a bit anticlimactic. And we’ve been pulled apart by political divisiveness. But we are just about done with the Iraq War! Yay? Ticker tape in Times Square, or is it going to be all, “Welcome home, while you were away we misplaced all the jobs and money”? [Politico]
* The Supreme Court opens the door, but just a crack, to prisoners seeking access to DNA evidence. [SCOTUSblog]
* The legal job market is getting better, right? Right? [Vault]
* Hall, J., dissenting — from the grave. [How Appealing]
* Harvard Law School is always ready for its close-up: first The Paper Chase, then Legally Blonde, and now The Five Hundred. [Deadline.com]
* Are computers better than attorneys at document review? Maybe — but they’re definitely more attractive. [Constitutional Daily]
* Protip for litigators: “Pull Your Pants Up Before Going to Court.” [Gothamist]
* Elsewhere in fashion news, a Seventh Circuit panel (Posner, J.) holds that it’s constitutionally protected to wear a t-shirt that says “Be Happy Not Gay” to your high school. But it’s still really… gay. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Litigation to advance a worthy cause (although it seems odd, in a “cart before the horse” sort of way, to file the press releases before the actual lawsuit). [The Snitch / SF Weekly]
* Congratulations to Professor Brian Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt Law on receiving the 2011 Paul M. Bator Award (won previously by a long list of blawg celebrities, including M. Todd Henderson, Orin Kerr, Jonathan Adler, Eugene Volokh, and Randy Barnett). [Federalist Society]
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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Well, they give zero f**ks. Not a single one.
