From the Durham Herald-Sun: A trio of former Duke University lacrosse players has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower-court ruling and reinstate their federal civil-rights case against the city and its police. Lawyers for David Evans, Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann filed their request for a Supreme Court review on Thursday, telling…
Major defeat for transnationalists at the Supreme Court
Those who would like to see US courts import so-called international law norms suffered a major defeat at the Supreme Court today. In the Kiobel case, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a 5 justice majority (the Court’s liberals concurred in the judgment, but did not sign on to the Chief’s opinion), held that the Alien Tort…
Canon Law at the 7th Circuit
Very interesting ruling today from Judge Posner that involves an issue of Roman Catholic canon law, courtesy of Eugene Volokh, some choice excerpts from the opinion: These three interlocutory appeals arise from a complicated and acrimonious litigation, charging RICO, trademark, and copyright violations along with Indiana torts, that has been percolating in the district court…
Justice soon for Skilling?
According to CNBC, there might finally be justice for Jeff Skilling: Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who is serving a 24-year prison term for his role in the energy giant’s epic collapse, could get out of prison early under an agreement being discussed by his attorneys and the Justice Department, CNBC has learned. Skilling, who…
Justice Jackson at the Vatican
Professor John Q. Barrett of St. John’s University Law School, who is working on an eagerly-anticipated biography of former Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, maintains a very entertaining email subscription list, through which he distributes on a fairly regular basis interesting information and anecdotes about Justice Jackson. This week’s installment relates an entertaining account of…
Francis v. The West
Interesting column by Pat Buchanan on the challenges facing Pope Francis as he confronts a throughly secularized, culturally decaying West. The whole column is worth reading, but its also worth quoting at length: To be Catholic is to be orthodox. Indeed, let us presume the impossible—that the Church should suddenly allow the ordination of woman,…
Optimism, but some questions about Pope Francis
The election today of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to be the 266th Bishop of Rome is a truly exciting event. As the first pope from the developing world and from the Global South, Francis appears to be the ideal man to lead the Church’s New Evangelization. He is by all accounts theologically orthodox, and more than…