Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Good question, good answer. "If by contract you mean 'a contract as typically defined at law', which is to say a contract that has most of the legal consequences that a typical contract has, then the answer is: Largely not"
Troubling story of Carlos DeLuna, executed in 1989 for the brutal murder of a young woman. DeLuna always insisted that the killer was a lookalike, Carlos Hernandez. But police denied Hernandez even existed. They were wrong
How America's Supreme Court rewrote campaign finance law in the case of Citizens United. "The decision followed a lengthy and bitter behind-the-scenes struggle that produced both secret unpublished opinions and a rare reargument"
"Half a century after the first wave of lawsuits were filed for illnesses linked to exposure to asbestos and 40 years after new regulation curtailed use of the mineral, the asbestos-litigation business is booming"
Will emerging research on (American) football-related brain injuries kill off the sport as we know it? Unlikely. It's proving tough to win football-related brain injury legal cases. Lawsuits don't look like the route to change
"The concept of what we 'possess' online is based on the increasingly outdated concept of the digital 'file'. What happens to the law in a streaming, cloud-connected world? A world where here are no more 'files'?"
Best piece yet on the notorious Kim Dotcom, and file-sharing website Megaupload. "His plan was to create a more artist-friendly distribution platform where creators would get paid more than they do when Apple sells their product"
If the State can force you to buy health insurance, it can force you to do anything: For example, eat broccoli. This argument by vegetable preoccupied even the Supreme Court. What is it about broccoli that scares Americans so?
Interview with human rights lawyer Sadakat Kadri, on origins and interpretation of Shari'a law. Widely misunderstood, by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Shia approach more flexible than Sunni. Iran even finances sex change operations
In 1846 Albert Tirrell was put on trial for the gruesome murder of his mistress. He seemed certain to be convicted. Until his lawyer Rufus Choate, “great galvanic battery of human oratory”, launched a most unusual defence
"In the new South Africa that was reborn in the early 1990s, with its freedom hard-won from apartheid, we now have the imminent threat of updated versions of the suppression of freedom of expression that gagged us under apartheid"
Will the apparent unpopularity of Obamacare sway US Supreme Court justices? They may think the coast is clear to strike down the law. If they do, they'll be misreading the polls and making a mockery of their constitutional role
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