Bruce Budner quoted by The Press Democrat, Feb. 24, 2017
“There is a big difference between maintaining neutrality in a case, which a judge must do, and divorcing oneself from politics,” said Bruce Budner, a UC Berkeley School of Law professor.
Legal scholarship highlight: The Supreme Court, the media and public opinion
Katerina Linos writes for SCOTUSblog, Feb. 24, 2017
We found that the Supreme Court can shift Americans’ views – and did in fact significantly increase the popularity of the individual mandate. This effect, however, is driven by one-sided media coverage – by a choice media outlets often make to treat Supreme Court decisions with far more deference than they treat presidential and congressional choices. Given sufficient media coverage for a particular court case, this choice on the part of the media means the court does have the ability to lead public opinion.
Your privacy: Verizon’s takeover of Yahoo is all about user data
Christopher Hoofnagle quoted by Los Angeles Times, Feb. 24, 2017
Chris Hoofnagle, a UC Berkeley law professor who specializes in privacy issues, said the Verizon-Yahoo deal is “part of a larger trend of merging to create mega data brokers to compete with Google.”
Berkeley’s sanctuary status under threat as Trump issues new deportation orders
Leti Volpp quoted by The Daily Californian, Feb. 23, 2017
“The sanctuary ordinances and legislation are about state or local law enforcement agencies not using their resources for immigration enforcement purposes; they cannot prohibit the federal government from acting,” Volpp said.
California today: On Catalina, the drought is far from over
Ethan Elkind quoted by The New York Times, Feb. 23, 2017
“Prices are coming down in all these technologies,” he said. “But we wouldn’t know how much it would cost. We also presumably would have to retire some existing power plants, so the ratepayer impacts are unknown.”
Are cyber lawyers poised to play bigger role in M&A?
Steven Davidoff Solomon quoted by Bloomberg BNA, Feb. 23, 2017
Proving a material adverse event often requires battling in court over questions like whether an incident was “significant” and “durational,” said Davidoff, who has written in the past that about the Yahoo/Verizon deal. He noted that it’s not at all clear whether data breaches — even of the size disclosed by Yahoo — would rise to that level.
Democratic National Committee looks to future, picks new leader
Jennifer Granholm interviewed by KQED-FM, Feb. 23, 2017
“Now the Democrats are in the minority, and you need a strong voice to be able to be the party of the opposition, of the resistance. The profile in terms of the elevation of the position certainly has grown and will continue to be very important moving forward.”
U.S. Supreme Court declines Arkansas execution challenge; can reschedule 8, state AG says
Franklin Zimring quoted by ArkansasOnline, Feb. 22, 2017
“All pressure toward execution is concentrated in the cotton South,” Zimring said. “These appeals were attempts to push what was a low number even lower.”
State legislators may modify Prop. 57, expand definition of violent crimes
Franklin Zimring quoted by The Daily Californian, Feb. 22, 2017
“My guess is that you could get a lot of political mileage out of popping this in,” Zimring said. “But it is so strange to have something automatically follow a successful proposition in the legislator.”
Trump’s mentions of ‘honor killings’ betray the truth of his ‘Muslim ban’
Leti Volpp writes for The Hill, Feb. 22, 2017
There is an additional and little noticed piece of evidence within the executive order itself, which buttresses the idea that the order is indeed a ban on Muslims, and not merely a “geographic” restriction. The executive order, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” invokes, twice, the idea of “‘honor’ killings.”… Why is this significant? Honor killings … are mistakenly thought to be a uniquely Muslim practice and specific to Muslim communities.