Supreme Court Preview
The United States Supreme Court starts its Term each year on the first Monday in October. This year’s Term begins next Monday, October 5! The Court will start off with […]
Extending Probation
How long can a defendant be on probation for a single conviction? A. Five years. B. Eight years. C. It depends. The best answer is C. A judge can sentence […]
A Useful Law Review Article
Like many lawyers, I served on a law review when I was a law student. It was a good experience: I became intimately familiar with the rules of legal citation, […]
I Bet You Think This Post Is about You . . . .
This blog post was inspired by my lunchtime jog across campus last week, and, more specifically, by the driver of the car who sped toward me as I darted across […]
Judicial Recusal
My colleague Michael Crowell recently published a paper on judicial recusal, available here as a free download. It includes a discussion of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Caperton v. […]
Are Judges Underpaid?
Stephen Larson, a federal district judge in California, resigned recently, citing his low salary. (District judges make $169,300 per year.) This has resulted in a robust discussion of whether federal […]
Notice, Drinking, and Intensive Probation
Back in July the court of appeals decided State v. Hubbard, a probation revocation case that I mentioned in passing but never really discussed in depth. In Hubbard the defendant’s […]
Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your Hands Upon the Wheel
I blogged here about a new law, that prohibits texting while driving effective December 1, 2009. Texting while driving is an infraction, a non-criminal violation of the law, punishable by […]
Computer Searches and Plain View
Computers and electronic storage media can hold massive quantities of data. At approximately 30,000 pages per gigabyte, a low-end laptop computer with a 250 gigabyte hard drive can store the […]
The Unwelcome Prayer for Judgment Continued
Defendants are generally pretty happy to get a PJC. When a judge continues prayer for judgment the defendant avoids punishment and is often able to sidestep a car insurance rate […]