Blog Posts

Setting Twitter aright should be a simple matter. Here’s what Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, should do.
Clean house. Start at the top, with Twitter’s top lawyer Vijaya Gadde. She and her legion of censors should be shown the door. They tried to transform idiosyncratic...

Jury selection is scheduled to begin next week in the case of Derek Chauvin, the police officer accused of murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis late last spring. The death of Mr. Floyd sparked protests, and riots across the country on the theory that his death was demonstrative proof of...

“So, will you be voting for Donald Trump?”
The question came from a public defender in a quiet voice, scarcely audible above the sound of the judge advising a defendant of something. We were sitting in the well of the court, misbehaving.

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Those of you who spend time on Facebook and other social media sites know that the boundaries of free speech can be stretched to cover all sorts of uncivilly spoken smack. There is a limit on what can be said, however. One such limit is what the law calls “true threats.”
The First...

The law of evidence governs what is and is not admissible in a trial. A judge’s decision on what a jury hears could quite literally be the difference between freedom and imprisonment, and, in some cases, between life and death. Just ask Larry Johnson.
Earlier this year, Brittany Paz,...

Never doubt for a moment that law is at its core politics. If you do doubt it, then read Jeffrey Toobin’s latest book, “The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court” (Doubleday, New York, 2012).
Toobin writes about the high court as well as anyone living. His first...

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, is worried that the Catholic Church is ill-equipped to deal with questions about how and when to attempt to cast out evil spirits. So he organized a conference on the topic for the nation's bishops. The holy men are meeting this weekend to discuss...

Ron Nussle was beaten in prison one day by guards who retaliated against him when he threatened to alert a friend of his, then Gov. John Rowland, about abuse in the prisons. So he sued in federal court to recover money damages. He did so just after the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) was...

I suppose I will never stop reckoning years like a student. Some part of me still believes that the year begins right after summer vacation. Thus, today marks the beginning of another year. I returned to the office this morning after a month away. Just as when I was a student, the new year excites...

I didn't get a chance to watch any of the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings yesterday. I spent the day doing lawyerly things: I went to court to argue about whether the state had violated the rights of a criminal defendant by seizing his life savings from his and his wife's bank accounts when...