Star Trek

* A lawsuit alleges Florida police used excessive force after mistaking Star Trek memorabilia for weapons. They should have set their phasers to stun… [Hill]

* The Trump Organization has hired a criminal defense lawyer. [Wall Street Journal]

* A public defender is suing her boss for allegedly being told to dress more modestly to avoid the sexual interest of male prisoners. [Daily Mail]

* Three Michigan lawyers have been charged in a scheme to collect debts on money that was allegedly never owed. [Fox News]

* Check out this article on how Originalism is being used by state court judges. [Juris Lab]

* A man’s death after participating in a taco-eating contest has spawned a lawsuit against a minor-league baseball team. [Washington Post]

* The Biden Administration is asking a judge to dismiss a climate change lawsuit filed on behalf of kids. Hope they can handle the heat… [Hill]

* The ABA is finally cracking down on law school accreditation… and ham-fistedly came down on the wrong school. [Big Law Business]

* The EU Playboy verdict could undermine the online press. [Engadget]

* Today, on the anniversary of the Attica uprising, prisoners across several states planned a mass work stoppage to protest systemic injustices. How does something like this come together? [Wired]

* Meanwhile, across the pond, the Supreme Court is selling off art made by prisoners for £30-£500 a pop. [Legal Cheek]

* We need more judges like this. [Katz Justice]

* A chat with activist Amanda Nguyen on the occasion of President Obama’s expected signing of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights. [NPR]

* The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline is generating as much buzz as anything can over the cacophony of the election and football, but is there a legal case to be made for putting a stop to the project? [The Atlantic]

* Forget about the Prime Directive, why doesn’t Star Fleet have a duty to warn about some of the crazy stuff they run across? [The Legal Geeks]

* Speaking of Star Trek, the National Marine Fisheries Service just delisted nine humpback whale populations from the endangered species list. Thanks, Admiral Kirk! [Courthouse News Service]

* Jeremy Blachman and Cameron Stracher’s satire on legal education, The Curve (reviewed here and here), is being developed for television by NBC. [Variety]

* Netflix is doubling down on legal documentaries; now they are taking on the Amanda Knox case. [Huffington Post]

* Exploring the legal issues in a classic Star Trek episode. [The Legal Geeks]

* Which law school classes will actually predict your success at the bar exam? [TaxProf Blog]

* What are the repercussions for Donald Trump after more information is revealed surrounding his interactions with Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi? [Salon]

* Greta Van Susteren left Fox News — will there be legal action? [Law and More]

Federal judge binge-watches shows and can't stop thinking about them when he's at work.

* Bill Cosby replaces Quinn Emanuel as his counsel. [Deadline]

* One of the One Direction boys is dating a law student… [Legal Cheek]

* Take the Lowering the Bar Supreme Court trivia quiz! [Lowering the Bar]

* Showing the sort of rationality long thought lost on major studios, Paramount releases guidelines for Star Trek fans hoping to make fan films. [The Legal Artist]

* “Law School Is The New Bootcamp.” The title may be a bit misleading, but this article bemoans the rise of lawyering over soldiering in political appointments. [American Spectator]

* Prosecutors clinging to their own deluded sense of justice seek same prison term at resentencing — even after some vacated convictions. [Sentencing Law and Policy]

* More analysis of the Justice Ginsburg comments on Donald Trump. In all the hubbub over free speech and judicial ethics, it seems to me that we give judges lifetime tenure specifically so they can voice whatever goddamned opinions they want without fear of reprisal. [The Faculty Lounge]

* It shouldn’t shock anyone, but some other countries are a lot better about handling student debt. [Lawyers, Guns & Money]

* If Bush v. Gore didn’t teach you that election laws are a mess, then this season of Veep will hammer the lesson home. [Strook]

* D.C. Circuit Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh knows the value of saying no — especially to a sitting president. [United States Law Week]

* Oh, this is fun, well, at least if you are an avowed Trekkie. There’s an amicus brief written entirely about the Klingon language. When arguing that Paramount cannot claim a copyright over the Klingon language, what better to spice up your prose than some quotes actually written in Klingon? [Popehat]

* A look at the most cited law reviews in Supreme Court opinions from the 2013 Term to the present. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* Wait — what did this Oklahoma court say? That forcing an unconscious woman to perform oral sex isn’t sexual assault? What. The. Hell. [Slate]

* Pauli Murray, lawyer, scholar and activist, just had a residential college named after her at Yale. [New York Magazine]

* A harrowing tale of regret from a former juror who sentenced a man to death for his crimes. [The Marshall Project]

* I guess tears and apologies weren’t enough: Michael Eakin has resigned from the Pennsylvania bench for sending racy emails on the job. [Penn Live]

* Disappointing news for proponents of cameras in the courtroom. The Judicial Conference of the U.S. voted against expanding the pilot program testing cameras in federal courts. [Fix the Court]

* Breaking news: student debt causes stress in law students. Film at 11. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* The latest filing in the Paramount/Star Trek fan film copyright case is a treasure trove of all the Trekkie trivia anyone could possibly ask for. [Slate]

* As much as liberals may dream about this, actually prosecuting a case against Donald Trump for inciting a riot would be legally difficult to prove. [Law Newz]

* The struggles is real! It is hard to do things that we know are good for us, especially amid the crazy schedule most lawyers keep. [Forbes]

* Jane Sanders tweeted about the horrific condition found in the jail tent city created by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. I guess she wasn’t broken up when Sheriff Joe endorsed someone other than her husband for president. [The Slot]

* “Every school has had to make choices, even at the top. This has been upheaval for everyone.” With a significant drop in applicants, the crisis in legal education has reached the members of the T14, the very best law schools in the country. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg BNA] * Another lawyer has filed […]

We need a law to stop J.J. Abrams.

* Leonard Nimoy has died at 83. While he's best known as Spock, he also starred in some legal works, such as producing and starring in the story of Mel Mermelstein's pro bono case. [New York Times] * Analyzing the Supreme Court on style over substance. Probably for the best because the substance has been pretty shoddy for a lot of the last few years. [SCOTUSblog] * "Constitutional oriented" judge has some issues with the First Amendment. I guess he's a "pre-Amendment Originalist." [Popehat] * Lawyers should find a niche in connected devices. It's true. But since the partners I used to work with still printed out all their emails, good luck with that. [Law and More] * The psychic toll of bankruptcy work. [The Docket] * Ninth Circuit overrules lower court, holding that an arbitrator is not inherently plaintiff-biased because he or she has participated in litigation financing. [LFC 360]

* Overrated: Government surveillance is out of control. Underrated: Government spending massive amounts of money making the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command look like the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation is out of control. [Lowering the Bar] * Helen Wan explains “The 5 Rules Every New Associate Must Know.” Not included: learning all the technical details required to convincingly say your smartphone failed to get that 1 a.m. message. [The Careerist] * Another post in the fascinating series about creating visual maps of Supreme Court doctrine. It’s like a nerdier version of the The Atlas of Middle-Earth(affiliate link). [PrawfsBlawg] * Ilya Somin reviews the Supreme Court’s most recent Takings Clause jurisprudence. It’s a lot harder for the government to take your property away. But don’t worry, it’s still really easy to lose all your property to unregulated markets. [The Volokh Conspiracy] * The Office of the Solicitor General may have inadvertently helped out Frederick Oberlander and Richard Lerner, the two lawyers charged with criminal contempt for talking about a cooperator’s sentence (if you can call a $25,000 fine for admitting to a $40 million fraud a “sentence”) that the feds claim was sealed. [Wise Law NY] * A somewhat sad art show based on requests from prisoners in solitary. Some beautiful stuff here. Though I’d have expected more “Rita Hayworth” photo requests. [Gawker] * The Daily Show takes on biotech patents. Video after the jump…

* A recovering attorney is starting a cake pop business. Never had a cake pop? Then you’re dumb. Or, I guess, diabetic. Sorry if you’re diabetic. [Kickstarter] * Wondering what happened to the survivors of the crash of the USS Vengeance in the new Star Trek movie? This is how their trials would likely go down. [The Legal Geeks] * If you’re looking for a new dean for your law school, look no further. [Law Prof Blawg] * Student debt is crushing the business dreams of a Tulane law grad. Apparently she just can’t make her payments running her sorority recruiting business. Wait a minute? I thought “sororities” handle “sorority recruiting.” [Bloomberg] * New York City feels hipsters everyone needs to be warned not to wear bowling shoes outside. [Lowering the Bar] * As promised, the second installment of an interview with biochemist attending Yale Law School. [Science to Law] * Before rising 3Ls realize nobody is coming to interview them, maybe we should point them towards the Schola2Juris program of Waller Lansden? It’s application period opens on June 7th. [Schola2Juris]

Copyright trolls treated to a healthy dose of federal judge's Star Trek fandom.

Does the statute cover depictions of violence against Vulcans? — Justice Sonia Sotomayor, asking whether video violence against “an image of a human being” could be extended to human-like figures, during oral arguments for Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association.

Appropriately weighty principles guide our course. First, we recognize that police power draws from the credo that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Second, while this maxim rings utilitarian and Dickensian (not to mention Vulcan21), it is cabined by something contrarian and Texan: distrust of intrusive government and a belief […]