I interviewed once with a DOJ bigshot who looked at my resume and said: “I see you’re into philosophy. Well, around here, we don’t sit around pondering the philosophical implications of the Fourth Amendment.” Turns out we do: a lot of agents really like to ponder the philosophical implications of th ...

I am preparing a serious post reflecting on the continuing relevance of the dichotomy in ethical theory between emphasis on character and emphasis on rules (virtue ethics vs. deontology and utilitarianism) as one teaches criminal procedure. I will reflect on Officer Bart Turek and what insights we c ...

Jonathan Simon's post on Haiti and security is a good reminder that immigration policy has got to be a component of any meaningful foreign policy, security policy, or drug control policy. The legislative process being what it is, we do one bill at a time, but this integration should be in the back o ...

Here’s a small linguistic/sentencing conundrum that has bugged me for a long time, involving the meaning of “is,” and– in trying to settle that one– the meaning of “most.” This has nothing to do with sex, and I’ve put most of it below the fold because it’s only for people really interested in senten ...

Will any terrorism defendants raise a religious insanity defense? If so, courts may have to squarely address the constitutionality of such a defense. I have written about this in the past, and have a forthcoming article in the Journal of Law and Religion with more discussion of the problem that will ...

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE... Early Morning Jokes. Enjoy! Knock knock. Who's there? Ugandans who think it's okay to kill gays. Ugandans who think it's okay to kill gays who? Ugandans who think it's okay to kill gays can kiss my ass. - Q: Why did the homophobic Ugandan cross the road? A: Just a ...

Back in November, Paul Horwitz blogged here about a paper he's working on called Democracy as the Rule of Law, and linked to it at SSRN here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=150280. Paul makes a sophisticated argument that the concept of the "rule of law" is more nuanced than it i ...

Holier-than-thou bigots: Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks. The theme of the event, according to Stephen Lang ...

Happy 2010 to Prawfsblog readers. Starting this week, I have a number of substantive posts planned. In my next post I will initiate a dispute with Paul Horwitz on the question of whether criminal torture prosecutions (such as John Durham's, if it comes to that) undermine or strengthen democracy. Fir ...

Happy new year everybody! It's a brand new month, and so it's time to welcome some new and returning voices to the conversation. Please welcome Lyrissa Lidsky (UF), Caleb Mason (SW), and Jeff Yates (SUNY Binghampton in Poli Sci)! We're also excited to welcome back Wes Oliver (Widener). Some of our g ...