random

I came across these two separate articles that seem to be related. Both speak about space junk falling from the sky, but neither of them mentions the other. The link? Fark.com



Space junk falls on airliner

Space junk falls in Somalia



The Gods and the internet must be crazy!

Is School Over Yet?

It is getting harder and harder to stay motivated for school.  I can only imagine how ready I will be for law school to be over next year.  A colleague of mine just came by and said he felt like he was living Groundhog day and my girlfriend woke up this morning and said in half-consciousness but full earnestness: "isn't it Sunday?"



For those of you who read this and who go to school with me, stop by the Men's Law Caucus table and buy some baked goods for our bake sale.  We are also selling those cancer bracelet things to support research for testicular and prostate cancer.  One student already came up and said she has a friend who had testicular cancer and how goes by the nickname "one-nut." 



In other news, the prosecutor  scandal keeps going on.  I  had the opportunity to go have some beers with McKay last week under the auspice of discussing paper topics for his class.   We did not talk about the scandal at all and it  seems like he is ready for this whole thing to blow over; although people at the bar were buying us beers, so I didn't really complain.  We mostly talked about terrorism and whether or not it is a serious problem.  I did not think there was much debate about that and most of the public debate was on how to deal with terrorism, but it seems some people do not think terrorism is that big of an issue.  At a different event this weekend, I was accused of being Dick Cheney, because I said the issues of terrorism and the law will be important and changing for most of my legal career.  It has taken over four years for some of the prisoners at Guantanamo to get charged and sit before a commission.  Considering that fact, I do not know how anyone thinks these issues will go away anytime soon.  This is an important and changing area of law exactly because terrorism exists now as a particular form of violence against civilians which has grown in our fast moving media environment.  Never before could a band of armed rebels bomb a nation's soldiers thousands of miles away from home and have the news reach millions of citizens within hours.  Terrorism, as we know it, is only possible because the means of communication allow terror to spread. 

Spring Break

This has been the least spring break of spring breaks. I worked for four days last week and spent the fifth working on my appellate brief for legal writing. I did get away to the beach last weekend with my girlfriend. It rained most of the time, but we did get to walk on the beach and had a jacuzzi in our room. It is always nice to get away for a few days and give your life some perspective.



Since my last post, the prosecutor scandal has only grown. Professor McKay has promised to spend some time this week in class answering our questions, so I look forward to having the same opportunity as the senate had without needing subpoena power. Professor McKay seems to have changed his stance a bit since the first time he talked with us at the begining of the semester. At that time, he claimed that he wished to simply step down quietly and was not going to make a big stink. I heard him on the radio a few days ago talking about how he believes the wrongdoing necessitates an investigation from congress or an appointed federal prosecutor. I want to ask him if this change of tone came about because of what he has learned in the last months or because of the media attention he has received. Even though he held a relatively important position as a federal prosecutor, being in every newspaper in the country brings a whole other level of fame. Did the fame change his mind about the scale of wrongdoing?



The political atmosphere right now is highly charged and it seems like we are surrounded by scandals. Politics has always been contentious, but with modern communication, we now know about every power struggle that takes place in Washington. The Valerie Plame/ Scooter Libby/ Dick Cheney drama just keeps going on, and this federal prosecutor "scandal" seems to be gathering steam for no other reason than that there is a general sense that there must be something more to this.



I have said this before, but part of a legal education is an education about politics. In my own experience with small scale politics at school when we established the Men's Law Caucus, I have learned that it is possible to make something feel scandalous simply because you believe there must be something more to it. What is it that excites us about a scandal such that we almost want the scandal to explode, expand, and become even more controversial. Does it make us feel more important? Where we once might have brushed a conflict with another off, when put inside a political pressure cooker and when we get some attention for what we are doing, the conflict is all of a sudden escalated to a scandal. Then we are involved in something that feels all absorbing and and essential to our identity. I am not sure this is always a good thing. It is easy to loose track of reason when we are too tied up in a scandal. Is it really the case that a scandal reveals some hidden truth? Or is a scandal just the magnification of a human conflict because of focused attention by a lot of people who previously did not care one wit? In the law, the court tries to even the playing field of opponents such that even controversial cases are subject to the same legal principles. A scandal seems to me to be a controversy where the public no longer evaluates with reasoned principles.

Prosecutor to Professor

In our Constitutional Law and Terrorism professor's own words, he was subject today to the "seemingly unbridled powers of the legislative branch." As pictured above, our professor, otherwise known as former U.S. Federal Prosecutor for the Western District of Washington, John McKay was called to Washington today to appear before a Senate Judiciary sub-committee. The most interesting part of his testimony that I watched this morning on C-SPAN was his comment that he and his fellow prosecutors would have stepped down quietly if it had not been for the Senate making a big stink. He also stated that he did not think there was a Federal Prosecutor, currently serving or in the past who would give in to pressure of the executive or a Senator and sacrifice their prosecutor's independence. While I am not sure I can fully believe that statement, human nature what it is, but I certainly know it is true for him. We have had guest speaker after guest speaker in his class that have all described Mr. McKay as one of the most brilliant, innovative, and ethical U.S. Attorney's to ever serve. These compliments were not simply bestowed by other government employees but by the lead federal defense attorney for Washington who stood repeatedly on the opposite side of the courtroom from Mr. McKay. I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to be one of his students and Seattle University is very lucky to have snatched him up for a professorship. I do not know what kind of deal they have, but the school should seriously consider making his position permanent.

Most Senate hearings are the same. Each Senator is given ten minutes. The first eight minutes they usually use to fill with their own thoughts in the form of a long winded question. Then the answer comes and in most cases, I am sure the answers have been mulled over long before the hearing. Remember that in situations such as the hearing today, you are looking at possibly four of the countries greatest criminal prosecutors. They are unlikely to fumble an answer. It is the same way with nominations to the federal bench or when Condoleeza Rice testifies.

One thing I have had further reinforced from following this story is that you should never get your information for the media. From what I have learned from McKay and from the assistant U.S. attorney that taught our class today is that McKay was fired for a political reason when he had a disagreement with a higher up in the department of justice. This in itself might be unfair and a loss for their office, but it is hardly unusual. He has a political appointment and people get fired all the time because they prove incompatible with a person higher up in the chain of authority. Now, on the other side of this issue is the change to the PATRIOT Act that allows the Executive to appoint temporary Federal Prosecutors indefinably, thus circumventing the Senate confirmation process. For this we really have the Congress to blame because they let this slip into the Act and are all upset now that the Executive is exercises the power that Congress gave it when the PATRIOT Act was amended. Yes, it sucks that the DOJ feels it necessary to get rid of their political enemies, but it is Congress that let them.

(I am going to be a little selfish here and say that this whole thing has worked out really well for me because McKay is now teaching. I also get the feeling that McKay is pretty happy with the teaching gig).

Read more about today's hearing.

Feeling Better

I am feeling much better today. I spent Thursday afternoon and most of Friday in bed again and by mid day Friday my fever had broken. I don't have my full energy back, but I no longer feel sick. All this means that I have to face law school again. I was able to get some work done while horizontal, but I am not sure how much actually stuck.



Mostly I read the trial transcript for the appellate brief I have to write in Legal Writing, which was pretty entertaining. It seems like criminal defense attorneys are the only attorneys who are pretty much allowed to blatantly lie in the court. The defendants were charged with methamphetamine manufacturing. Neither took the stand, but during his closing argument, the attorney for one of the defendant's kept going on that there were many other plausible arguments for the chemicals that were found in his small trailer. For example, he was a pack-rat on a mission to clean up the world, which explains why he had a mason jar full of coffee filters testing positive for psudophedrine residue. Also, it is equally as believable that the chemicals found that are normally used in meth production could have been used for cleaning rocks-a legitimate purpose; and my client could be a rock collector! Did the attorney really think the jury was going to buy that argument. I am sure the defendant was sitting in the courtroom and I doubt he looked like your rock collecting type. (come to think of it, isn't rock collecting a thing pot smoking hippies do? That association wouldn't help him though) Those two "other possible stories," which were supposed to raise a reasonable doubt in the jury came along in a string of possible stories, which would only lead me to think as a juror: "this guy is just making this stuff up."



Can you tell I am writing from the State's perspective? The interesting thing about the case, the real case, is that I am pretty sure the guy was cooking meth, but after being convicted by the jury, his conviction was overturned by the appeals court because of bad cops (improper search). This raises a question that we, as a nation and as lawyers, have been struggling with for a long time: why should we allow a criminal to get free just because the cops showed up at his place and entered inappropriately? On the other-hand, I like the idea of cops not being allowed to come into my apartment for no apparent reason. I guess in our constitutional balance we allow some guilty men walk so we don't innocent men are not charged and we can all be more secure in our person and possession.



Well, I better go start doing my research for this rather than just keep blabbing on. Happy weekend y'all.

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working sick or sick of work?

I am working from bed today. After two days of sleep, I tried going to class yesterday, and it took almost everything out of me. I haven't been sick like this in years. My girlfriend keeps telling me I just have to stay in bed if I want to have any chance of getting better soon, but I don't like just lying here watching advertisements for Binder and Binder, Social Security Disability Advocates. I did that kind of work last summer, and I know that the $600 a month one can get from Social Security Disability would not be enough to live on. Still, it is hard to get focused on school again. I just picked up the trial record for the appellate brief I have to write in legal writing and wonder if I am ever going to be able to do this work day in and day out.



I am at a difficult point in my studies. Thus far I have been carried along on the spirit of naive curiosity. I knew so little about the law when I first started. I don't think I knew the difference between a law and an ordinance, let alone what a summary judgment was. The whole thing was such a mystery to me that it was exciting. I felt like I was learning a whole new way to see the world that I had not previously explored. Let's just say, the honeymoon is over.



It is not that I now find the law boring. Rather, I find it overwhelmingly complex and difficult. There is so much detail that I have to learn that I feel I have lost touch with my initial excitement. I must be experiencing what those students who always wanted to be lawyers experienced during the first year of law school: this stuff is technical, often very dry, and requires an immense amount of work to be successful. It is no longer enough to just be curious. If I am going to learn this stuff, I am going to have to want to learn it. Unfortunately, I am not blessed with one of those brains that can simply learn information for the sake of accomplishing the task at hand. I am the type of person who has to feel that what I am doing has meaning.



Lying in bed with aches and a stuffy head really gets you thinking about why it is you are doing what you are doing. Would I rather be doing something else? No. I have tried other "careers," and I can tell you that you run up against the same wall. I am up against the wall that separates armatures from professionals, getting by from solid accomplishments. This is not just a legal challenge but a challenge in myself to commit to something and do it the best I can. Maybe getting sick will help me get over this hump. As Nietzsche said:

“Enduring habits I
hate... Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my
misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect,
because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through
which I can escape from enduring habits.”

I feel like I have been going non-stop since this semester started. In fact, I feel like I have been going non-stop since law school started. So much so that I was not so much learning this semester but getting through. I feel like being out of the look sets me at a new starting point and maybe I will escape through the back door and begin to feel less overwhelmed by the mass of information I need to absorb.

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Sick Day

I have not taken a sick day like today in many years. I have asleep most of the day, only to awaken for some food and to walk the dog. Usually I can pull through the couple days a year when I get sick and make it to school, but this time it was too much. I think I have been fighting this for a while because I first starting feeling the symptoms a few minutes after I sent in the final copy of my Brief for legal writing last night at 11:00 P.M. It was a downhill slide from there. I must be in the mid-two-L slump. Life as a lawyer still feels very far away, and I do not feel like school is getting me very prepared. I am going through the motions, but I don't feel like I would know what I am doing if I was out there practicing. Maybe it is a good thing then that being a lawyer still feels far away.



The problem with legal writing is that you spend 8 weeks working on the same brief. If you make mistakes, you don't get to really learn from them because you only really write two briefs in the semester. It seems like it would be better if we spent less time on each brief and wrote more of them. Over the course of last year's legal writing class, I wrote four memos, and the last was considerably better than the first. That was the result of making mistakes on the first two and having an opportunity to start from the beginning on later memos without making the same problems. With this kind of learning, repetition is the key. I will stop complaining about legal writing now. Complaining about that class at law school is endemic. You would think we would all be more appreciative considering we supposedly have the number one legal writing program in the country.



Time to go back to bed. This has been too much thinking for my sick head today.

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Group Work

I am inherently averse to group work at school. I rarely study as part of a study group, and when I do, I do so only on a limited basis. It is not that I don't think groups can be helpful or even productive, but that is often the exception rather than the rule. I have said this here before, but there are people in law school who really shouldn't be there. A girl in my medical liability class responded to the professor's question about whether medicine was an exact science by saying: "Um, like, isn't that what we are learning in this class?" I wonder how she got into undergrad, let alone law school. Of course I want everyone to learn and be successful at law school, but there comes a point where you have to watch out for yourself. If that student asked me to be part of a study group I would decline without hesitation.



Group work can be a pleasure, and I am excited about my group for my forensics class. Everyone in the group is very intelligent, does their work independently, and when we get together, we do so for a limited amount of time to focus on the task at hand. It can work. The law, probably like most professions, requires skills of both independent work and group work. No one can get through law school alone, but for any group to work, each person has to bring a relatively equal amount of knowledge to the table, albeit different knowledge. We all see different things and focus on different aspects of a case or a project and by combining the different views, we all know more. You would think that with all of the cut-throat pressure of the One-L year, some of the idiots would have failed out and you could put a good group together with about any set of students. Not the case, and the same is probably true in practice.

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Disclaimer

It has been a while since I have blogged about blogging, but I think it bears repeating the purpose of this blog. I blog with my real name, so that I can take responsibility for what I write. After all, the contents this blog are nothing more than the thoughts of a single person, me. They do not reflect the beliefs or positions of my employers, my law school, my associations, or any other person. Nothing that I say should be taken as an accurate representation of anything other than my own personal thoughts. Because I blog with my real name, I am very aware of the consequences of my words, and I have stood by the policy that I do not say anything here I would not feel comfortable sharing publicly through another medium, such as a good old fashion conversation in person.

While this blog has been primarily a one-directional conversation, I am always open to hearing your comments. Unfortunately, the comment function is still broken and I am very limited in my computer skills. Therefore, if you would like to leave a comment, e-mail me at hiltops@gmail.com and I will post your comments to the blog. I will only exert so much editorial control as the blogger comments would let me. (keep or delete) Again, thanks for reading.

Men's Law Caucus and Other News

I apologize for the long neglect of this blog. I have not gone this long between posting since I began blogging. There are multiple reasons for my absence, the major one being law school. Sometimes it simply takes up all of my intellectual energies. My reservoir of resources was spent on establishing the Men's Law Caucus, which required two appearances before the Student Bar Association Board, a meeting with the Deans, a meeting with the Women's Law Caucus, a meeting with our to-be faculty advisor, and lots of politicking. The work paid off. Not only were we approved along a 12-1 vote with two abstentions, but we earned the respect of the SBA board by our respectful and persistent submission to the Boards, sometimes hostile, questioning. No previous group has been submitted to such scrutiny, which can be seen in one of two ways.

Either we were victims of some sort of reverse discrimination. Or we are simply on the cutting edge, which always creates resistance. I do not feel in any way like a victim. That might in itself be an indicator that things are still pretty good for an upper middle class white male. I would rather think that the lively discourse was the result of our little organization being on the cutting edge. We are pushing the envelop, so it seems quite normal to me that we would be treated differently. I am unsure if the difference in treatment should amount to "discrimination." It might in the most technical sense, but part of the reason we set out to set up this organization was to stir the soup. We like the shock value of out name and we think the shock has been productive in furthering the conversation on gender at law school, in the profession, and in personal relationships in general.

On a somewhat related note, I won the pot at our regular poker night. It is nice to win, and I will never turn down the $35 I took home after a night of fun, but winning is not really the point. The point is to get together with a bunch of friends who are very busy and have an activity that allows us to keep our minds busy while we laugh and relax. It was during a poker night that we decided to start the Men's Law Caucus after all. In the end, the organizations main purpose is based on this premise: the law should be fun. Yes, the law is very serious. Peoples lives are sometimes in your hands and often their money, their home, or their business, but it is a very fun profession. Like poker, sometimes you will loose, and sometimes you will make it big, but what would be the point of all the work if it was not fun?

I will trying and write more often. Until then. . .

Nothing Specific

I do not have anything specific to write about today, but it seems like a long time since I have written. In the meantime, I have received all of my grades. I stopped short of submitting an article along the same lines as my last post to the Prolific Reporter (our law school weekly publication) on the advise of someone who knows much more about university politics than me. I am happy with this discretion. I can get away with a lot more in this blog than in the more public forum of the PR, and the last thing I need is to piss off a bunch of law school professors. If I am going to do that, I am going to take some precautionary steps first like suggesting my late grade fee plan to the administration. Maybe that can be one of the projects of the new law school group that I am founding with some other students: The Men's Law Caucus.

Our school already has a Woman's Law Caucus, and while they admit men , they are decidedly focused on issues of women in the law, which is a good thing. There are also lots of other groups, 32 in all, that fulfill the needs law students who either have a specific political leaning, interest in a particular area of law, or who share a certain ethnic identity. There is, however, no group for students who are not politically active "ethnic" students interested in the study of business law (for example). I heard that some students at the University of Washington started a Men's Law Caucus, but it became somewhat controversial because they never went through the official process for starting an organization and printed up a bunch of t-shirts that could be interpreted as mocking the Woman's Law Caucus. While I do find it kind of amusing when I tell people we are starting a Men's Law Caucus, my intention in helping found this group was not to mock. I talked with a lot of students who said they wanted to be involved in a law school group for the camaraderie, the networking opportunities, and for their resumes, but did not know where they fit in with the other groups. So we are just a law school group for a law school group's sake!

What I did not forsee is that this group is basically shaping up to be a fraternity. Never did I think I would be part of a fraternity; although, never did I imagine I would be a lawyer. On the other-hand, I am very excited, and I think it is going to be a lot of fun. We are planning a charity poker night event, a charity run, and possibly a law school "Man of the Year" talent show. We also hope to sell Men's Law Caucus briefs with the words "Case Briefs" printed on them (law school joke.) Look for them coming soon!

We go before the Student Bar Association board next Monday and ask for approval. The only thing we have left to do is find a professor who will be our faculty advisor. In that, I am very grateful I did not piss off the law professors by proposing a fee for turning in late grades.

Late Grades

Some days I feel I am getting ripped off by my law school. When all is said and done, my legal education is going to cost me the price of a small house in some states (probably not Seattle because of the out-of-control housing market.) I realize that I am getting a pretty good product for my money, and after I have passed the bar, start working, build a successful practice and work honestly and hard, a law license can be a license to print monety. However, that does not mean that I should not expect the highest quality from my professors and my school.

If you think back a month ago, I was just finishing up my finals. As a matter of fact, I took my first final six weeks ago. With the exception of extreme weather, which is a real possibility this winter, or sickness, if I showed up late for any final, I would be failed in that class without exception. Whereas the standard for students is quite high, our esteemed professors live under a somewhat more relaxed standard. The deadline to turn in grades was last Friday, and it is not unusual for the registrar to take some time trying to sort out grading curves and such, but I would expect to have most of my grades by this point. Not so. I am lucky to have two of my five grades. I talked with a student today who hasn't received any grades yet. There are some classes where this situation is shameful; I hada class with 9 students in it and we all turned in papers 5 weeks ago and we have not received grades yet. Also, this class is not even curved, so the grades cannot be held up in some administrative process. The only answer is that the professor has simply has not finished. (I found him totally incompetent to teach, so I don't know why I thought he would be competent to grade our papers)

I propose a new system. I even understand that several law schools already have this system in place. For every day that a professor is late in turning in grades, he/she will be charged 100 dollars to be placed in a fund for student organizations. Every students who completed a course has already fulfilled his/her contractual obligations of paying the university, attending classes, and taking the final, but in this bargain, the deans, the administrators, and the professors have all the power-- at least for the meantime!

Winterland

We are having wild weather here in Seattle this winter. The city is covered in snow again. It seems like schools are closed at least one day a week for the last two months and I have been wearing my warmest winter clothes that I never even unpacked last year. I feel like I am back in Colorado again, which I prefer to last January when we were in the middle of 30 days of constant rain. The only real inconvenience I have had to deal with is the ice sheet I have to pass on my walk to school. It was almost impossible when I walked to campus yesterday in my dress shoes to give my first oral argument for legal writing. I thought it went pretty well. I do not really have a problem getting up in front of others and talking. It is not much different than teaching, and same rule applies: the better prepared you are, the better it goes. That is the same principal that applied to working in restaurants; there, prep takes much more time than actully cooking. The difference with the law is the proportions. An oral argument before the appeals court is 10 minutes long, and most lawyers would be commiting malpractice if they did not spend at least 10 times that amount of time in preperation, and most probably spend more like 100 or 1000 times that. Well, I better go start preparing. . .

Court Rules!

If you could not tell from previous posts, I began law school with a certain innocent ignorance. Not having had much experience with the law, luckily, I had very little understanding about how the law actually worked. Also, until recently, I had not exhibited any interest in the legal profession, and I still find myself asking: "how did I end up here?" No matter how I arrived half way through law school, I am glad to be here, but to be honest, I do not feel I know that much more now than when I started. At least I am smart enough to know that is both true and false.

It is true that I am still quite ignorant of how one would prosecute a law suit through the legal system. Sure I am more familiar with some substantive theories of liability and the basic procedural framework, but the day to day experience of court feels very foreign. It is false because if I really look back and compare what I know now with what I knew the summer before entering school, it is quite staggering. Although less ignorant, I still feel quite innocent. I am still amazed at the legal method for resolving conflicts. When you consider the intensity of conflict that can arise between two parties, it is shocking that the law actually works. This trick seems to stem from several aspects of the law that allow for resolution. First, the evidentiary rules limit the facts that parties can actually argue. Having to introduce only relevant evidence, the conflict is condensed to be more manageable. Secondly, while the law does change, in many ways, the law is the law. Parties must argue to either conform or differentiate the facts from the law, but before a case gets to the level of appeals, the judge must apply the law. Finally, everybody has to follow the rules; otherwise, it would not work. Your client may hate the opposing party, but as a lawyer, you can only make any reasonable argument why you should win. Your power comes from knowledge, persuasion, ethics, and creativity and not by pure force (knowing the judge probably helps).

All of this might see painfully obvious. I guess I am trying to come to terms with the legal profession that I am becoming more and more enamored of. On the other-hand, I still feel very intimidated by this profession. It may sound simple, but that does not mean that it is. Right now, the time when I will feel comfortable in a court room feels very far off. Tonight, these are just the ramblings of a tired law student at the end of what felt like a very long week.

Semester Preview

I am just about to head to class for the beginning of a new semester. As much as last semester was focused on the more philosophical and theoretical questions of the constitution and policy, this semester is going to be a focus on the nitty-gritty details of contemporary litigation. I have legal writing again this semester, where I will be preparing pre-trial and appellate briefs and making oral arguments. I am also taking evidence and forensics, which I will hopefully be able to put to use this summer after I get my Rule 9 certification (a limited license to practice law prior to passing the bar and under direct supervision of an attorney.) Unfortunately, because I am doing plaintiff's work, we do whatever we can to resolve claims before they ever see a court room. Still, the statutes are about to run on a bunch of our cases, so I might get some court time after all.

I do have a couple of substantive courses to balance out the procedural emphasis of this semester. My medical liability course looks fairly interesting. My doctor/med school friends have already put in a request that I fall on the defense side of that issue. Then there is the class I am most looking forward to, constitutional law and terrorism. Our professor is the U.S. Attorney for the Western States and we are going to have a lot of really interesting speakers in that class. I am sure I will be tying in some of the topics from that course to posts on this blog. It is nice to have a class that is so contemporary as to be in the news daily. We are Reading Hamdan v. Rumsfeld for the first class and meeting with the former defense council for detainees in Guantanamo.

Looks to be an interesting semester. I will keep you all updated as it shapes up.

Happy New Year

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads this blog. It means a lot to me that someone besides myself finds my thoughts interesting enough to keep checking in--I have no choice but to stay tuned. I am currently enjoying my break away from school and from spending time on the computer. I will begin posting again regularly this weekend and I hope to post 2-3 days a week during the coming semester. Again, happy New Year and come back soon for new and evolving thoughts on my law school experience.

Heavy Environmental Impact

A study at the University of Illinois by Sheldon H. Jacobson found that 938,000,000 extra gallons of gasoline are burned each year because Americans are overweight. How about getting some of those overweight Americans off their rumps and onto bikes? It would help their health and help environment, right? Well, it might help their health; however the healthier they become and the longer they live, the more carbon emissions an individual puts out. In a study that came out last July, bike commuters actually produce more carbon over their lifetime because they live longer. Sometimes, you just can't win for loosing.

Half Way

Believe it or not, I am almost half way through law school. The almost consists of finishing my constitutional law take home final, but I do not have much more to go. I just handed in my 25-page paper surveying governmental programs dealing with homelessness, which you can download here if you are interested. It is definitely not my best work. The class was a lot of fluff. We went on three field trips, and when we were in class we either had guest speakers or watched PBS documentaries from the late 80s on dislocated populations. I have never done so much research on the Internet for a paper before. I went to college at a time when teachers still frowned upon using the Internet for research, but I think things have gotten a lot better since then. People were afraid they would not be able to verify information, but now that so many legitimate sources publish their information on the web, it seems archaic to go to the library and root through volumes of journals. Anyway, I will post again this weekend with a semester wrap up.

Getting to know your Justices, and yourself.

This semester has felt very different from all of last year. There was something so intense about the One-L year, as if all of life was wrapped up in law school. I am still studying a lot, but last year at this time I do not remember ever forgetting that I was at law school. I worked last Friday; I went out to dinner tonight; I watched a movie last night, and during all of those activities, I kind of felt like I was just living like a normal human being. Sure, I have not had a weekend where I did not study for at least 4-5 hours per day, but I am not behaving all that different than I would if I was simply working. I guess this means I am “thinking like a lawyer” – working on weekends – and that I have learned to find some balance in my life.

As to the law and my life, I learned recently that a former Supreme Court Justice came from my hometown and went to college at my alma mater, the University of Colorado: Justice Byron White. That is about where our similarities end. He was a professional football player with the nickname of “the whizzer,” and he tended to vote with the more conservative wing of the court–he joined Rehnquist in dissenting in Roe v. Wade. As a Kennedy appointee, he is further proof that you never quite know what you are going to get with a justice. O’Conner, who wrote the Casey opinion essentially upholding Roe was appointed by Reagan, so for people who are freaking out about the two new appointees to the court, history tells us to just wait and see; often justices do not act on the bench as we think they might. Still, in my inquiry into the personalities of the Supreme Court, I was excited to see that Fort Fun had produced a SCOTUS justice (Supreme Court of the United States). After learning that the rumor of Kip Winger growing up in Fort Collins was untrue, he grew up in Denver, I did not think there were any famous people from our little outpost on the boundary between the mid-west and the west. Around Seattle, everyone talks of their golden judicial child, Justice William O. Douglas– a decidedly more liberal justice.

Heeding my own words, supra, I do not want to simply reduce any justice to a single categorical description of liberal or conservative. One thing I have learned this year is that most Constitutional law questions are more complicated than a simple either/or category. By the time a conflict has moved its way through the lower courts, it has been stripped of much of the detritus of the individual facts, but unhinged from those facts, what remains is often a very difficult to answer question, such as trying to figure out what is meant my “liberty” in the 14^th Amendment’s “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” With such a daunting task, it is good that the court has justices with different perspectives and a good sense of humor.

Getting to Know your Justices

Check out this video of a discussion with Justice Breyer and Justice Scalia. These two justices represent the two major opposing perspectives on constitutional interpretation. Who seems to make more sense? The discussion is particularly void of any specific factual scenarios, so you get constitutional interpretation without the baggage of an individual case. What is interesting is not only the places where they disagree but also the beliefs and perspectives they share. Also, thanks to my faithful reader J. for pointing out some legal humor in a recent Supreme Court Opinion, Lopes v. Gonzolaz, where Justice Souter quotes Alice in Wonderland:

Reading §924(c) the Government’s way, then, would often turn simple possession into trafficking, just what the English language tells us not to expect, and that result makes us very wary of the Government’s position. Cf. Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U. S. 1, 11 (2004) (“[W]e cannot forget that we ultimately are determining the meaning of the term ‘crime of violence’”). Which is not to deny that the Government might still be right; Humpty Dumpty used a word to mean “‘just what [he chose] it to mean— neither more nor less,’”5 and legislatures, too, are free to be unorthodox. Congress can define an aggravated felony of illicit trafficking in an unexpected way. But Congress would need to tell us so, and there are good reasons to think it was doing no such thing here.6

You can see here how Souter is employing his own method of interpretation to determine what the statute is talking about. I wonder if I can quote Alice in Wonderland in my finals? Probably not. Supreme Court Justices get a bit more leeway.