The recent case matters because, albeit in a limited way, it stops the trend toward allowing the government to sanction employees in violation of their free-speech rights in a greater and greater range of cases.
Read More »Commentary: Supreme Court justices smack down patent lawyers
Most patent lawyers I know disdain the Supreme Court. Monday in a pair of unanimous decisions reversing the Federal Circuit, the Supreme Court made it clear the contempt is mutual.
Tagged with: patent law U.S. Supreme Court
Read More »Commentary: Supreme Court blocks free speech but feels safer
Did the Secret Service systematically collude with President George W. Bush’s advance team to keep protesters away from the president’s routes and appearances under the guise of security?
Read More »Commentary: The Supreme Court rationalizes the death penalty
Each time the Supreme Court limits the death penalty, it offers an implicit justification for preserving it in most cases.
Read More »Commentary: Justice Anthony Kennedy has us all in his prayers
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, insisted that any test of constitutionality under the establishment clause of the First Amendment must be framed to permit practices deemed constitutional since the founding, including legislative prayer.
Read More »Commentary: Is it legal to appropriate only half of an idea?
Aristotle said that when a general law doesn’t fit a particular case, the proper course is to rectify the law so it does fit.
Read More »Commentary: Why does the government want us to lie in court?
Can a government employee be disciplined for what he says on oath in court after being subpoenaed? If you answered, “Of course not,” think again.
Read More »Commentary: High court says politics needs even more money
Campaign finance law is dying the death of a thousand cuts.
Tagged with: campaign finance Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court
Read More »Commentary: Why you can’t ban gay couples from your business
Unlike earlier legislative efforts to block gay marriage, this law is probably constitutional. Yet Gov. Jan Brewer still shouldn’t sign it.
Tagged with: gay marriage
Read More »Commentary: Is someone’s abortion someone else’s free speech?
The justices have to decide whether Massachusetts may block anyone from gathering within a 35-foot “buffer zone” outside abortion clinics. If the regulation is found “content-neutral” and narrowly tailored to protect the exercise of the constitutional right to abortion, it will survive. If not, an increasingly pro-free-speech court may strike it down.
Tagged with: free speech
Read More »Commentary: Supreme Court’s big year ends with big love
A review of the current court’s year confirms that it is the most activist since the 1920s, with plenty for both sides of the partisan aisle to hate and plenty for each to love.
Tagged with: U.S. Supreme Court
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