Virtually every Supreme Court observer is assuming that Chief Justice Rehnquist's ongoing and apparently quite serious bout with thyroid cancer will result in his retirement at the end of the current Supreme Court term next month.  … [Read more...]

The Senate has just confirmed Priscilla Owen to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.The vote was 56-43.  If I heard the clerk's roll call correctly, the Democrats voting to confirm were Landrieu (LA) and Byrd … [Read more...]

This post at ACSblog explains that the Supreme Court's recent unanimous opinion in a takings case (Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A.) thoroughly rejects the extremist property rights view espoused by Janice Rogers Brown in a dissenting opinion she … [Read more...]

SCOTUSblog has this interesting post about the cases that remain to be decided in the current Supreme Court term.Of particular note is that it seems almost certain that Justice Stevens and Justice Souter are writing the majority opinions in … [Read more...]

So, the ACLU is suing the US government over giving funds to the "Silver Ring Thing", an abstinence-only education group that also has a heavy dose of religious proselytization: they give the presentation to kids on avoiding sex … [Read more...]

Link.The facts: a man and woman were engaged in sexual intercourse, during which he, well, broke his penis.  He sued, claiming that his partner was negligent because she failed to exercise "reasonable care" in the course of … [Read more...]

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided yesterday that Fall River's ordinance banning all forms of public nudity is unconstitutional.  The SJC noted that the US Supreme Court rejected a First Amendment challenge to a virtually … [Read more...]

According to Editor & Publisher (which has done fine reporting on this story), Matthew Cooper, one of the reporters facing jail time for refusing to divulge confidential sources in the Novak-Plame-gate affair, will be represented in the … [Read more...]

For some time, the big mystery in the Novak-Plame-gate scandal has been why douchebag of liberty Robert Novak has not been forced to reveal his source.  Novak, as you'll recall, is the heroic journalist who first publicly disclosed … [Read more...]

Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper, the reporters facing jail time for their refusal disclose confidential sources in the Valerie Plame affair, have lost their bid for en banc review in the D.C. Circuit.  The Court's order, with a … [Read more...]