Jesse Choper

Jesse Choper Explains SCOTUS Video Game Ruling

The Washington Post with Bloomberg, June 27, 2011 Host Emily Chang and Cory Johnson
http://wapo.st/ovAyo2

“The explanation is pretty simple: as a basic principle, indeed I think the court called it the most basic principle of First Amendment protection for free speech, you don’t regulate speech on the basis of its content. And that is exactly what the regulation was here.”

Jesse Choper Criticizes Firm’s Decision to Drop Defense of Marriage Case

San Francisco Chronicle, May 1, 2011 by Debra J. Saunders
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/30/INBL1J7NLK.DTL

In a statement, K&S Chairman Robert Hays had explained the firm’s decision to ditch the case as the result of “inadequate” vetting of the contract. UC Berkeley School of Law Professor Jesse Choper finds that troubling. “If they didn’t like the case, they shouldn’t have taken it,” Choper observed. But having taken the case, the firm had “a lawyer’s obligation” to stick with it.

Jesse Choper Sees Value in Clemency

Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2011 by Carol J. Williams
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pardon-power-20110111,0,671424.story

“In the main, it gives people who are convicted of a crime yet one more opportunity to get a government office to review it and make a determination whether the sentence is unjustified or excessive,” said Jesse Choper, a constitutional law professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt School of Law. “Very often there has been no legal error but nonetheless it may seem unjust.”

Jesse Choper Returns to California Horse Racing Board

San Francisco Business Times, December 22, 2010 by Steven E.F. Brown
http://bit.ly/gJq1Aj

Saving and promoting the local racing industry is a tall order for the board. “It is an industry that is having real challenges,” Choper said. “The competition for the gambling dollar has been greatly increased, beginning with the lottery. It used to be the only legal gambling around.”

Jesse Choper Explains Laurence Tribe’s Constitutional Scholarship

The Boston Globe, November 29, 2010 by Farah Stockman
http://bit.ly/hDqoLd

While conservative scholars argued that the Constitution should be strictly interpreted based on the original intent of the founders, Tribe became a main architect of the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted in light of America’s changing society and “subject to somewhat evolving meaning,” said Jesse Choper.

Jesse Choper Describes Judicial Panel About to Review Immigration Law

Los Angeles Times, October 31, 2010 by Maura Dolan
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/31/local/la-me-arizona-law-20101031

“These are three judges who I think are pretty much in the judicial mainstream,” said UC Berkeley constitutional law professor Jesse Choper. He predicted that Arizona would have a “relatively steep, uphill battle” because the federal government is given “exclusive power for immigration and naturalization.” The 9th Circuit and even the U.S. Supreme Court would probably be swayed by the federal government’s contention that the Arizona law “improperly interferes with federal foreign policy,” he said.