Featured Articles

Agreeing to Disagree: Credit Cards and Contract Absolutism

August 07, 2008 12:40

The Federal Reserve recently solicited comments from the public about problems in the credit card industry. Yesterday's lead editorial in The New York Times, "Listen to the 56,000," takes its title from the number of responses that poured into the Fed from the public, a torrent of complaints that...

Gender, Sex, Postmodernism, and the Olympics

August 04, 2008 05:39

Yesterday's NY Times featured an interesting guest op-ed (The XY Games) on sex tests in the Olympics. Its author, Colby College English Professor Jennifer Finney Boylan relates some interesting and tragic stories about women misidentified as men, before concluding that "[t]he best judge of a...

Recent Articles

Miranda Custody and the Cost of Dishonesty

March 21, 2012 11:30

Posted by Sherry F. Colb In my column for Justia's Verdict this week, part 1 in a 2-part series, I take up the recently decided Supreme Court case of Howes v. Fields.  In Fields, the Court held that a suspect could be incarcerated in jail but nonetheless be characterized...

Why Does the Defendant's Motive Matter When the Prosecutor's Doesn't? Some Thoughts Based on the Dharun Ravi Verdict

March 20, 2012 23:27

By Mike Dorf An important sticking point in the Dharun Ravi prosecution was the question of whether Ravi's actions invading Tyler Clementi's privacy were motivated by anti-gay bias.  I didn't closely follow the trial evidence but I did read the New Yorker story on Ravi a couple of...

Advanced Capitalism Without Attitude: A Few Passing Thoughts Upon a Return to the United States

March 20, 2012 12:09

-- Posted by Neil H. BuchananHaving now returned from my speaking tour/working vacation in Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand, I have been thinking about issues large and small that confronted me during my travels. One set of thoughts concerned matters of national culture that are probably...

Optical Illusions and Political Decisions

March 16, 2012 19:44

-- Posted by Neil H. Buchanan"It would just look bad." Everyone, I think, has either uttered that sentence, or heard someone else say it, at some point in their lives. The idea is that the underlying merits of whatever is at issue might cut in one direction, but there is something about the...

Let Them Eat Pie

March 15, 2012 17:32

By Mike Dorf To raise money to support those Cornell Law students participating in the spring break service trip, yesterday I competed in the 2nd annual Cornell Law Faculty Pie-Eating contest.  The video below cuts off before the weighing of the uneaten pie portions, but as you can read on...

Obama Doesn't Want Higher Gas Prices; More's the Pity

March 14, 2012 04:30

By Mike Dorf Campaigning in Mississippi and Alabama, Newt Gingrich recently promised gasoline prices of $2.50/gallon, while all of the Republican candidates have criticized President Obama for supposedly adopting environmental policies that make it difficult for oil and gas companies to increase...

Should the Actual Facts of Supreme Court Cases Matter?

March 13, 2012 01:22

By Mike Dorf In a recent essay in the New Yorker, Dahlia Lithwick reviews a new book by Dale Carpenter that tells the story behind Lawrence v. Texas.  As Lithwick and (in much more detail) Carpenter explain, the Supreme Court's decision of the case was based on a false picture of the facts:...

The Power of Minorities

March 12, 2012 11:27

By Mike Dorf My latest Verdict column discusses a recent decision by the Supreme Court of Israel invalidating a law that exempts ultra-orthodox Jews from military service on grounds that the law violates the equality rights of the  Israelis who do not get the exemption.  After...