Monday, January 24, 2005

Darwin-hating

This article from near York PA is hilarious to me. Not content with the stickers that may seem sufficient to weak-kneed Georgians, the school board there has decreed that students will receive a one-minute prepared statement to the effect that evolution is just a theory, Darwin didn't know everything you know, and you should ask your parents what the origin of life is, and now back to your regularly-scheduled "Standards-based" curriculum. But because the school system's science teachers rebelled against reading the statement, the school board sends its own officials into the classrooms to read the statement and then scurry away before students can ask any questions. It sounds like a Monty Python skit to me. And I love one student's reaction: if they're going to spend a minute teaching us that theory, they should teach every theory, such as Rastafarianism. Heh heh. Rastafarianism. (Link via Howard Bashman)
posted by sam 7:28 AM   0 comments

Friday, January 21, 2005

Ignatz recommends

You will no doubt want to buy, when it comes out on Tuesday (or you could go ahead and order) a music DVD called "Burn to Shine". Here is the short version of what it is, from that site:

Burn to Shine is a film series produced by Fugazi's Brendan Canty and directed by film maker Christoph Green. This is the first installment in the series and is titled Burn to Shine: Washington DC 01.14.04. It features live performances by Bob Mould, Ted Leo, Ian Mackaye's new band The Evens, Weird War (ex-Make Up), Q and Not U (Dischord records), Canty's band Garland of Hours, Medications (ex-Faraquet), and French Toast (featuring James Canty of Make Up, and Jerry Busher of Fugazi).

I have seen it, and it is great. (Namedropping, or disclosure, take your pick: the producer is a friend.)
posted by sam 3:48 PM   0 comments

home

Back home from Philadelphia, having avoided the inauguration. Philadelphia was great, except that I would have thought that it would take more than a power outage to defeat Iron Chef Morimoto. No sushi for us.
posted by sam 1:48 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

something different

I just feel like pointing out that I have enjoyed the few posts on the blog altogether now, which are altogether different from the usual fare of law and politics that make up most of my blog reading.

The blogger is a member of the Anomoanon, whose latest records I am loving a lot. How to describe them? (A little risky, lest the blogger check his site stats and see this post and be mortally offended). Imagine mid-period Grateful Dead (Am. Beauty and whatnot), but imagine that they actually cared about some people or things and were not just totally baked. (Have you listened to American Beauty lately? I did, for the first time in many years, the other day. S-L-O-W!).
posted by sam 7:16 AM   3 comments

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

the rule of law, and judicial politics

I have mentioned, a couple of times now, a recent Alabama decision involving a judge who had to rule on a minor's request to bypass the state's parental-notification law in order to have an abortion. I was waiting til the decision came up on the free internet somewhere, but that could take forever and I'm tired of waiting, so here's my description. If you have LEXIS -- or if you want to sign up for the free service of LEXISOne* -- you can see it at 2005 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 10, so you can fact-check my ass.

This sort of case gets brought because Alabama's statute, requiring a minor to notify her parents before obtaining an abortion, allows the minor instead to petition a judge for a bypass, which the judge is to issue if "the minor is mature and well-informed enough to make the abortion decision on her own" or if "performance of the abortion would be in the best interest of the minor." This procedure for judicial bypass is, to my understanding, required by the U.S. Constitution. In any event, the procedure is provided by Alabama law.

The undisputed facts here show a minor who is, for her age, quite mature: she has sought out information and advice from various counselors and adults as to what to do, and has decided that a pregnancy at this point would interere with her plans to get a college education and have a career in health care. Again, this is all undisputed. And she could have waited just a few weeks til she was 18, and then gone and had the abortion without asking or telling anyone -- but she decided that it was better to do it in the first trimester, and so needed the judge's approval since her parents had told her that they would cut her off financially if she ever got pregnant. Now, you may think that it would still be best if she told her parents; but that's not the relevant legal inquiry, as you can see from the quoted statutory passages above.

So what did the judge do? He denied the petition. In large part he made up reasons that (as the appellate opinions explain) were entirely unsupported by the evidence, or ignored the relevant law. But he went beyond that. He said that the minor was not mature, in that it is (he said) "not an act of maturity on her part to put the burden of the death of this child upon the conscience of the Court." The trial judge went on, dripping in sarcasm and moral condemnation:

The legislature, in its infinite wisdom, has determined that an unborn child who never has had even the ability to do any wrong, could be put to death so that his mother can play [sports]. ...
"Ah, but this young woman has more ambition than to play [sports]. Her possible ... scholarship is but the means to the end of her becoming a [health--care provider]. But what is the duty of a [health--care provider]? To save lives. Should her child die so that, possibly, she might later save other lives?
"There may be physical complications to an abortion. There may be psychological complications or consequences. She said that she does not believe that abortion is wrong, so, apparently, in spite of her church attendance, there won't be spiritual consequences, at least for the present."

He went on to say, "This is a capital case. It involves the question whether [the minor's] unborn child should live or die."

That just wasn't "law" in any sense. The judge's personal beliefs were driving the decision. The good news is that -- by a vote of 3-2, with the majority by no means made up of raving liberals -- the Court of Civil Appeals reversed. The rule of law still means something.

But this also makes me think about the ongoing conversation between Kevin Drum and Nathan Newman about Nathan's belief that progressive causes suffer electoral backlash when progressive judges do progressive things (and that therefore we shouldn't ask them to). Does anyone expect that the trial judge will suffer political backlash for having elevated his own moral beliefs over an adherence to the statute? I sure don't. I've never seen conservative politics suffer any political backlash from conservative judicial rulings in my lifetime. If progressive are suffering that sort of backlash, I think it's the fault of the political leaders rather than the lawyers or the judges.

* Note: I don't know if, in order to use LEXISOne, you have to be (or be willing to say you are) a lawyer. Maybe so.
posted by sam 2:10 PM   15 comments

comics

Does anybody have a good suggestion as to what "graphic novel" I should read with my almost-5-yr-old, now that we are nearly finished with the Bone series? Is there anything close to that, in terms of its ability to hold his interest and mine at the same time, with that right mix of humor and urgency? We've read a little Akiko, and it's fine as far as it goes, but nothing like the depth of Bone. (Those of you who are snickering, stop. I'm being serious). But on the other hand it shouldn't be significantly scarier than Bone, please -- I still have to tell him about, rather than show him, the pages in Bone where the Hooded One is un-hooded. Please comment or email me with any suggestions.
posted by sam 8:32 AM   10 comments

evolution

There's also this article about the sticker that the Cobb County BOE put on science textbooks, to the effect that evolution is a theory rather than a fact. I think that they should have gone farther, and would have been on firm constitutional as well as pedagogical ground: "STUDENTS: You should approach everything you read in your textbooks, and everything that your teacher tells you, with a reasonable level of skepticism. In fact, that's true of everything that you read anywhere. Think for yourself. This does not, however, give you license to pretend that you know everything or that other people know nothing."

On a more serious note, I can understand why some people who are more-or-less on the "left" think that the anti-sticker suit should never have been brought and that the sticker was no big deal. But they might well think differently if they lived in Alabama or Georgia. This is related, I guess, to the reason why my antennae pricked up at what turns out to have been a too-loose paraphrase of Justice Thomas, in the post below: I don't think it's exaggeration to say that there is a real political fight, at least in the deep South, between theocrats and non-theocrats. I am not talking about the passage of religiously-inspired laws; they've been around forever, which is why it's hard to buy beer on Sunday in many places. I'm talking about elected officials who ignore the rule of law in favor of religious belief. I mentioned, a few days ago, an Alabama judge who issued an outrageous decision on a minor's parental-notification-bypass petition; I'm still trying to find a freely-available internet copy of the opinion of the Ala. Ct. Civ. App. reversing that. The good news for now is that the rule-of-law side generally wins these fights in the end. But it's not obvious that that will continue to be the case, and that's why I can empathize with a Georgia parent who thinks it important to challenge the stupid sticker.
posted by sam 7:26 AM   0 comments

death penalty

You should really read this article, from the American Lawyer, about the long process by which some big-firm lawyers, working pro bono, got a wrongly-convicted man off death row in Texas. "Wrongly-convicted" really is the right word; after a federal district court granted a writ of habeas corpus, the Texas A.G. decided not even to appeal, having been convinced that the evidence was insufficient to allow a proper conviction. But read the article and realize that it took a truly vast number of lawyer hours, as well as law firm out-of-pocket $, to achieve this result. Any system that depends on such fortuities to free a wrongly-convicted death row inmate is seriously messed up.
posted by sam 7:14 AM   0 comments

Saturday, January 15, 2005

I would like to believe that somebody mis-heard

Justice Thomas expressly believes that "a judge should be evaluated by whether he faithfully upholds his oath to God, not to the people, to the state or to the Constitution"?

That's what a reporter for the B'ham News (a reporter who is reliable in my experience) says that one of Alabama's new Supreme Court justices said, at his investiture, that Justice Thomas told him personally within the last few days.

Now, if Justice Thomas really said that, that is quite a big deal. At the risk of stating the obvious in too many words, here's some explanation.

I do understand that some people believe that every aspect of their lives should be evaluated by whether they do what they think God wants them to do. I also understand that some people might believe that, if they assume the role of judge, they should conform their decisions to religious doctrine. This does not constitute judicial misconduct, but merely constitutes very bad judging in my view, if the person in question holds the jurisprudential view that laws and constitutions should be interpreted so as to be in conformity with their guess as to what God wants. If that's your jurisprudence, then you are a lousy judge in my view (because I don't believe that this is the overriding canon of interpretation of legal texts) but you are at least trying in some sense to do "law." (I'm bending over backwards to be philosophically generous here -- it should be obvious that such a jurisprudential view is absurd, but some people hold absurd views).

But -- if this quote is accurate -- Justice Thomas does not purport to have such a jurisprudential view, but instead he recognizes that there is a difference between a judge's fidelity to God and his or her fidelity to the constitution; that is the meaning of the assertion that you will be evaluated by your performance as to one rather than the other. Which does he choose? I think it fair to assume that a person who says that God will evaluate you on such-and-such, will try to do what he thinks God wants, right? So -- again if this quote is correct -- Justice Thomas has essentially admitted that he will make rulings based not on any view that they are correct as a legal matter, but because they are what God wants.

(Somebody could also believe that he will be evaluated as a judge based on his fidelity to God, but that God wants him to do straight law without a theocratic interpretive principle. That would make sense to me. But if that's what you believed, again you wouldn't speak in terms of a difference between fidelity to God and fidelity to constitution, in terms of one's evaluation as a judge; the grade would be the same on each, if God wants you to do straight law.).

So what's the deal? Did Alabama's new Supreme Court Justice really think he heard Justice Thomas say that? Did Justice Thomas really say it? It is, of course, impossible for any of us to get Justice Thomas under oath and ask him. We should, at least, create enough of a hubbub about the issue so as to make him feel that it is appropriate to issue a public statement confirming or denying that he really said it.

UPDATE: You can see, at Blue Mass Group, someone's transcription of the remarks by the new Alabama Justice. It is possible to read those remarks as meaning that what Justice Thomas was conveying, is that the oath to uphold the constitution is very important because it's an oath made to God, which would be a less problematic statement than the way the B'ham News paraphrased it. Whether this more generous interpretation is a better account of what Justice Thomas said, I don't know.

UPDATE UPDATE: Thanks to Juan Non-Volokh for the welcome back (and I will note that I have abandoned my theory that he is Miguel Estrada). But I think it's "unfair" and "misconstrues" this post to say (as he does, if I read correctly) that I was "unfair" to Justice Thomas and "misconstrued" his remarks. As you can see, this post was (1) based on the way that a newspaper reporter, whom I have found reliable, reported remarks attributed to him; and (2) explicitly based on the recognition that the attribution might be incorrect (see, e.g., title of post, and the various uses of "if" and like terms); and (3) updated as soon as there was better evidence of what remarks had been attributed to Justice Thomas. If Justice Thomas had in fact said what was originally attributed to him, I don't see how my reaction (which was based on that expressly tentative assumption) could possibly be described as unfair. Debatable, maybe. But given that the very conservative and religous Feddie (see comments to his linked post) agreed with me that the remarks would be troubling if correctly reported, "unfair" and "misconstrues" seem unwarranted to me. If I'm being overly sensitive to J N-V, I will try to chill.
posted by sam 9:12 PM   17 comments

Friday, January 14, 2005

posted by sam 11:08 AM   1 comments

hot naked mole rat action

For the fast few days, ever since seeing them at the zoo, I have been thinking a lot about naked mole rats.

You will be, too, after reading this article about them. They are mammals, yet are cold-blooded, and have social systems very much like those of certain bees or ants -- one "queen," who's the only female who gets to breed, and lots of workers. And they are funny looking, and they eat their own poo. Freaky little things.
posted by sam 10:50 AM   2 comments

ok, I'll play that game

Fun game: Blog the first ten songs that play when you press "shuffle". A fine list, even though I would have preferred a somewhat higher concentration of recent stuff and noise, and not as much countryish stuff today. But it's all great anyway.

“Boots and Saddle,” Riley Puckett (blind guitarist of the early era of recorded country/hillbilly music, best known as member of Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers)

“Candy Floss,” Wilco (from “Summerteeth”)

“Union Square,” Tom Waits (from “Raindogs”)

“Boots of Spanish Leather,” Nancy Griffith (a little embarrassing, but I like it)

“Down on the Farm,” Little Feat (I make no apologies, however, for liking Little Feat)

“Dreams,” TV on the Radio (really, I buy lots of new records, I swear, this isn't the only one)

“Let the Train Blow the Whistle,” Johnny Cash

“The Soldiering Life,” The Decemberists

“Poison Love,” Doug Sahm

“Close Up the Honkytonks,” Flying Burrito Bros (from a bootleg)

posted by sam 6:44 AM   1 comments

Thursday, January 13, 2005

lawyer radio

Again this afternoon, I'll be on lawyer internet radio -- the Legal Broadcast Network -- opining about the Supreme Court and stuff. Probably between 5:30 and 6, though you can always listen to the archives later on if you'd prefer.
posted by sam 11:37 AM   0 comments

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