Ana Henderson Wants Journalists to Study Voting Rights Act

Maynard Institute, September 21, 2010 by Alex Gronke
http://bit.ly/e9b2ou

Journalists should prepare themselves for the complexities of the Voting Rights Act and the decades of case law that govern the way political boundaries can be drawn. “It’s complicated, but not impossible to understand,” said Henderson. She said that journalists covering redistricting and its impacts on men of color can look at how people have been counted in the past, and how that information has been used to make political districts.

Barry Krisberg Discusses Federal Law Applicable in Prison Case

KGO-AM, November 30, 2010 Host Ed Baxter
http://www.kgoradio.com/ (Link no longer active. Go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)

What the Supreme Court is going to specifically look at is federal legislation called the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which sets up very stringent requirements for federal court intervention in prison systems and essentially they’re going to answer the question ‘did the federal court, the lower court, apply this statute correctly?’

Christopher Hoofnagle Raises Concerns Over Akamai’s Tracking Technology

The Wall Street Journal, Digits Blog, November 30, 2010 by Julia Angwin
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/30/a-new-type-of-tracking-akamais-pixel-free-technology/

Privacy advocates say companies like content-delivery networks and search providers have a lot of data at their fingertips that could be useful in advertising. Akamai “has access to an astonishing amount of Web traffic” and thus could track many users, says Chris Jay Hoofnagle.

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.

Jonathan Simon Comments on California Prison Overcrowding Case

San Jose Mercury News, November 28, 2010 by Howard Mintz
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_16724376?nclick_check=1

Legal experts predict the state may have a strong argument in the Supreme Court, which is decidedly more conservative on law-and-order issues than the three judges who issued the California order…. But Jonathan Simon … said the justices may still be reluctant to tamper with the overall factual findings of the three-judge panel, although they may decide the courts need to give the state “more leeway” to comply with the orders.

Elisabeth Semel and Cliff Gardner Bemoan Shortage of Death Penalty Lawyers

Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2010 by Maura Dolan
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/27/local/la-me-death-lawyers-20101201

“There are myriad reasons why dozens of lawyers who used to do these cases decide they can’t afford it,” said UC Berkeley law professor Elisabeth Semel. “I am talking about not going broke because you are trying to do the right thing for your client.”

“The idea that you are saving someone who is condemned under appointment by the court seems be the highest calling any criminal lawyer can have,” Gardner said. “Standing between the death chamber and your client is why we went to law school.”

Robert Merges Sees Economic Benefit in Parody Defense

American University Intellectual Property Brief, November 25, 2010 by Caroline Gousse
http://bit.ly/hjSOd8

US legal scholars have seen an economic justification in the admission of a parody defense. Robert P. Merges, for example, assumes that the parody defense should be admitted when “there is a clear market failure for parody licenses.”

Pamela Samuelson Explains Downside to SAP Damage Award

San Francisco Chronicle, November 24, 2010 by James Temple and Benny Evangelista
http://bit.ly/egNuDu

It might be a big enough number to inadvertently hamper technology development, Samuelson said…. Samuelson is worried the decision could make some companies overly cautious of pursuing otherwise innovative work that might appear comparable to existing products in the eyes of a jury. “People will be less likely to do things that might be worth doing because a jury might decide it was on this side of the (legal) line, instead of that side,” she said.