Archives for May 2011

HLPR Online editorial staff

The ACS 10th Anniversary National Convention will be held June 16–18, 2011, at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C. The opening gala dinner will feature Attorney General Eric Holder, and featured speakers include Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser of the Department of State. ACS notes,

[t]he ACS National Convention brings together more than a thousand of the nation’s top lawyers, judges, law students, policymakers, scholars and activists to learn, debate and strategize. The 2011 National Convention will provide participants with the opportunity to engage with exciting speakers, participate in rigorous debate and discussion of critical legal and public policy issues, visit with their members of Congress, network with lawyers and companies from around the country, and contribute to the development of a progressive vision of the Constitution, the law and public policy.

For more information on the event, including registration information, please visit http://www.acslaw.org/pages/convention11

Jessica Jackson

Last Monday, in a widely publicized opinion, the Supreme Court upheld a federal court’s order that will provide some relief for overcrowded California prisons.  This opinion, which has received a vast amount of media coverage, lays out the disgusting conditions that were reported to the three judge panel in the Federal District court in Brown v. Plata.  While this is an enormous victory for California, it leaves one to wonder how such injustices occurred in the first place.

The record contained reports of prisoners being kept for 24 hours in “telephone booth sized cages” after the prison ran out of treatment beds for suicidal inmates, a prisoner being found in a pool of his own urine and a “nearly catatonic state,” prisoners being forced to wait up to 12 months for necessary mental health services, and prisoners dying from preventable diseases that could have been caught had the medical wards not been backlogged. As Justice Kennedy points out, a state that incarcerates a person thereby takes responsibility for that person; the state is then obliged to provide for the person, and to ensure that his or her basic needs are met and that he or she is not placed in danger.

[Read more…] about Human Dignity within US Prisons

Michael Stephan 

The Supreme Court’s controversial decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) drew speculation from both sides of the gun-rights debate as to what our Second Amendment means today.  The Second Amendment, which was largely unexplored by the Court until Heller, was held to protect individuals’ rights to possess firearms and to use those firearms for traditionally lawful purposes unrelated to service in a militia.

Now, three years later, we are still unclear about the contours of our Second Amendment as courts grapple with Heller and its progeny.  That may soon change, however, as courts reconsider run-of-the-mill constitutional law cases as Second Amendment cases.  A recent Ninth Circuit case, for instance, does just that. 

[Read more…] about Effects of Heller Become More Apparent

Jake Laperruque

Disney may be pleased with pirates right now, but the rest of Hollywood isn’t happy; digital piracy, the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted films and television shows, continues to occur en masse over the Internet.

Fortunately for the industry, the federal government is stepping up to act, as Judicary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy pushes forward with the PROTECT IP Act.  The bill seeks to combat copyright violations by creating new causes of action that can be used for private suits, and enhancing the government’s power to crack down on violators.

[Read more…] about Pirates Attack!

HLPR Online editorial staff

Today’s Roundup reflects the fact that over the last few weeks no single theme has stood out as the subject of interest among our bloggers.   Instead, posts have covered a little bit of everything.

Here’s a sample!

• Marshall Thompson compared Bin Laden’s capture to that of a Nazi war criminal and questioned whether a new trend is emerging.
• Jessica Jackson highlighted more financial problems for the already dilapidated American public defense system.
• Anthony Kammer compared the housing bubble that helped to devastate the American economy to a growing bubble in higher education that’s burdening law students today.

Check out these posts and others at the HLPR Blog!