Blog Posts

I was puzzled yesterday when I saw syndicated columnist George F. Will chortle on television about national sovereignty. He thinks that's what the people want. They want their government to feel secure in its power. Call Will a crypto-royalist.
Will was talking about Arizona's new immigration...

Arizona's new immigration legislation wasn't enough to make me think of moving there. The thing that caught my ear is a provision in the law giving ordinary citizens a private right of action if the police do not do their job. It's enough to set me to thinking about packing my bags and heading...

I was puzzled yesterday when I saw syndicated columnist George F. Will chortle on television about national sovereignty. He thinks that's what the people want. They want their government to feel secure in its power. Call Will a crypto-royalist.
Will was talking about Arizona's new immigration...

There will be talk aplenty about what our Constitution means, even what it is, in the weeks and months to come as debate forms around the nomination of the next justice to the United States Supreme Court. The debate, frankly, is too important to be left to lawyers. But where is an ordinary...

Imagine being placed in prison for the rest of your life for a crime you did not commit. Suppose the state were forced to admit its error. What would justice require in such a case?
Connecticut once again faces the drama of men released after long, long incarceration for crimes they did not...

I am a CIA reject. Almost thirty years ago, I was a candidate to become an undercover operative, or spy. I interviewed with agents fresh from assignments in Moscow and South Korea in hotel rooms at Manhattan’s Algonquin Hotel. I took aptitude tests at an anonymous looking building in Reston,...

By the time you read this, I should be in Heaven. This is not to say that I expect to be dead. Were that the case, the destination is far from certain. In my case, I suspect sweet death to be followed by a locale with enormous and eternal heating bills.
No, I expect to be in Wales, attending...

Let's see just how bold President Barack Obama will be in his first appointment to the United States Supreme Court. He wants a lawyer with real world experience. Just how real is the president prepared to get?
Adam Liptak's piece in this morning's New York Times is revealing for the bias it...

It did not take long for realpolitik to swallow the optimism of President Obama. Faced with a suit by prisoners held indefinitely by the United States at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan, the administration has thumbed its nose.
The prisoners are being held indefinitely by the United...

I miss Linda Greenhouse's reporting on the law in The New York Times. She has been replaced by a fellow named Adam Liptak. Liptak writes well enough for the Times, but his analysis rarely rises above the obvious, and he sometimes misses nuances that are important.
In this morning's paper,...