Writing for the New Republic earlier this year, Eric Segall revealed his thoughts on why replacing Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court would prove so difficult. Despite common references to the nation’s highest-ranking jurists as dispassionate analysts or mere “umpires,” Segall makes clear that in his opinion, Justices and those seeking the position are partisan […]

I have been following a rather amusing story recently: one involving an eccentric attorney and some potentially salacious information. Today, the Supreme Court weighed in, and Steven Nelson of U.S. News and World Report took note: The Supreme Court announced Monday it would not intervene to allow release of phone records from the late ‘D.C. […]

NBC News’ Pete Williams reported today on oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court. The arguments stem from former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell’s criminal appeal. McDonnell was convicted in federal court two years ago for accepting bribes while in office. From Williams’s report: A jury convicted McDonnell in 2014 on a host of federal bribery charges […]

I am reading about legal news out of North Carolina, but perhaps not the legal news you’re expecting. Rather, I am reading Radley Balko’s Washington Post blog in which he discusses a proposed rule for North Carolina prosecutors and the State Bar’s bizarre resistance to it: [Attorney Brad Bannon, of the North Carolina Bar’s ethics committee] wants […]

Last December, I wrote about the arguments before the Supreme Court in the case of Evenwel v. Texas. The plaintiffs were attempting to use the “one person, one vote” principle established by a history of Court rulings to change the system of apportioning Texas’ congressional districts. Currently, states use total population in dividing up districts. […]

Most people seem to believe that Judge Merrick Garland—President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court vacancy—will not be given a hearing by the US Senate. Senate Republicans appear staunch in their position that they will only consider a nominee from the next President. Garland, according to the common wisdom, is a sacrificial lamb; his moderate bona […]

Public defenders do not choose their clients (I know this firsthand; I have been one for almost ten years). Public defenders are assigned defendants who cannot afford to hire their own attorney, but who are nonetheless entitled to one. In turn, that attorney is required to provide a zealous defense. This entitlement is nothing less than […]

On Monday, The New Yorker‘s resident Supreme Court commentator Jeffrey Toobin summarized his thoughts on the late Antonin Scalia’s legacy. Toobin doesn’t pull any punches in his critique: Belligerent with his colleagues, dismissive of his critics, nostalgic for a world where outsiders knew their place and stayed there, Scalia represents a perfect model for everything that […]

Just over a year ago, millions of people became fascinated with Serial, a podcast dedicated to rehashing the events of a 1999 Maryland murder trial. In that trial, popular high school student Adnan Syed was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. The podcast, aired more than fifteen years after Syed’s conviction, raised a number […]

Recently the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Montgomery v. Louisiana, essentially deciding that many prisoners serving life without parole who were juveniles when they committed their crimes may be granted a chance at freedom in their lifetimes. The case comes three years after Miller v. Alabama, which held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile […]

The documentary series Making a Murderer, currently airing on Netflix, is generating a lot of reaction from viewers and commentators. Many people (including hundreds of thousands who have signed a petition) are clamoring for the release of the show’s central figure, convicted murderer Steven Avery. Avery was falsely accused and convicted of an assault in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin […]