Author: Burt Likko

Panic Stains Tsarnaev’s Apprehension

I cannot think of a time in American history, or indeed in world history, in which an entire city has been shut down to apprehend a single criminal. On Friday, the city of Boston and its neighboring...

West and Boston

The dead and injured in West, Texas surely count for the same as the dead and injured in Boston, Massachusetts, and indeed are more numerous. Boston seems more emotionally-charged; no one considers other than...

Real States

One way we define a “state” here in the USA is as a unit of regional government. But states are also ways that we define ourselves as local communities and from which we take...

The Second SCOTUS Standing Scandal

The Second SCOTUS Standing Scandal

The courts conduct the nation’s business. The public’s business.  The courts stand apart from the rest of the government so that they can pass judgment over the government when need be. And the public...

Boston Marathon Disaster

An explosion has apparently struck very near the finish line of the Boston Marathon today. Someone has found video, and while it’s not gory, it’s also not for the squeamish. Our best wishes to...

Living The Dream (Law School, Part 4)

Note: This post is part of our League Symposium on Higher Education in the 21st Century. You can read the introductory post for the Symposium here. To see a list of all posts in...

Margaret Thatcher, 1925-2013

Baroness Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, has died. It’s difficult to even imagine what the UK would be today had someone grayer than her and less forceful...

Mocking The Pagan

 I learned a long time ago that part of what makes people of different faiths about to get along together is to not mock one anothers’ beliefs. If I wish tolerance for my own world...

Amirite?

Let’s say a man is working with a woman in a professional capacity. Let’s further say that, without necessarily wanting to pursue a romantic, sexual or any other sort of personal relationship with her, the...

Playing With Constitutional Fire

A few days ago I broke down a case from the Ninth Circuit permitting sectarian prayers at the opening of city council meetings for a city in California. In 2011, the Fourth Circuit reached...

A Poor Investment, Poorly-Executed

As part of my continuing intermittent series of posts publicly worrying about California lighting its money on fire with a high-speed rail construction project, I offer yet another post publicly worrying about California lighting its money...

Prayers Pass Panel

Let’s put to rest the trope that the Ninth Circuit is a court where out-of-control liberal activist judges run amok on all that is legal, just, and true. That notion is simply false. A...

Be Proud Of The Double Jeopardy Clause

Having been acquitted on the merits, an accused defendant ought not to have to stand trial twice for the same crime. This is as true in the United States as it is anywhere else...

What Aaron Swartz Was Really Up Against

Prosecutorial overreach (whether you think the underlying conduct was a crime or not), the nuts and bolts of what really happens in a court, tribalism and its effects on popular culture, and most importantly,...