Insights < BACK TO ALL INSIGHTS
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
FEATURED
December 6, 2024
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
By: James Trusty
As the presiding judge scolded Hunter Biden’s attorneys this week, “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”[1] But what exactly is that history he claims is being re-written? Judge Scarsi was challenging the largely academic issue of whether a pardon signed at noon, for instance, protects against crimes committed on the same day at dinnertime. That is a very limited run at the notion of “preemptive” pardons, and it seems to be strictly a question of chronology. The judge did not seem to question the idea of…
Supremely Improbable
July 30, 2024
Supremely Improbable
By: James Trusty
President Biden’s pronounced objectives for Supreme Court “reform” are improbable, politically lifeless under a particularly lame duck presidency, and motivated by transparently November-driven calculations. But even if the proposed changes are doomed from the start, they push public discourse on a couple of issues that are red meat for the democrats. The stated reforms are superficially simple ones: 1) to “clarify” that “there is no…
Presidential Immunity Ruling Stirs Sound and Fury
July 5, 2024
Presidential Immunity Ruling Stirs Sound and Fury
By: James Trusty
The immediate and eventual impact of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision in Trump v. United States is both considerable and dramatically misrepresented. The initial consequences include likely delay to the January 6 prosecution out of D.C. and the setting of hearings—in D.C., Georgia and south Florida—where the judges will be required to make factual findings as to whether the evidence supporting the indictments reflect “official…
Facebook Friends and Judicial Ethics
February 15, 2011
Facebook Friends and Judicial Ethics
By: Ifrah Law
Last December, another legal ethics commission addressed the question of whether a judge may become a “friend” on a social networking site with attorneys who appear as counsel in the judge’s courtroom. The Ohio Supreme Court Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline opined that a judge may “friend” attorneys as long as the judge takes care to protect the integrity and impartiality of the…
Is D.C. on the Way to Legalizing Online Poker?
February 2, 2011
Is D.C. on the Way to Legalizing Online Poker?
By: Ifrah Law
An amendment introduced to the District of Columbia Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Support Act and approved with little fanfare or advance warning could signal a major change in the law of i-gaming. The amendment, introduced by at-large Democrat Councilmember Michael A. Brown, would allow the D.C. Lottery to administer online poker by defining the D.C. Lottery to include both “games of skill and games of…
Amicus Briefs Urge Reduction in Rubashkin Fraud Sentence
January 25, 2011
Amicus Briefs Urge Reduction in Rubashkin Fraud Sentence
By: Ifrah Law
We first posted about Sholom Rubashkin—the former plant manager at the now-defunct Agriprocessors, Inc. — back in May 2010, when Rubashkin was awaiting sentence for more than 80 counts of fraud in connection with his operation of the kosher slaughterhouse. Since then, Chief U.S. District Judge Linda Reade of the Northern District of Iowa sentenced Rubashkin to 27 years in prison, an action that sparked…
California Court OKs Warrantless Search of Cell Phone
January 19, 2011
California Court OKs Warrantless Search of Cell Phone
By: Ifrah Law
The text messages in a defendant’s cell phone are in no way different, for the purposes of a police search after an arrest, from the defendant’s clothing or a cigarette package. That was the holding of the California Supreme Court on January 3, 2011, in People v. Diaz, a case in which the state’s highest court approved the police’s warrantless search of the text message…
Why Is an Assault on Congress Member a Federal Crime?
January 12, 2011
Why Is an Assault on Congress Member a Federal Crime?
By: Ifrah Law
The charges against Jared Loughner for shooting Representative Gabrielle Giffords put into sharp focus a little-known federal statute, 18 U.S.C. 351. This law provides for a death penalty for killing a member of Congress, a presidential or vice presidential candidate, or a Supreme Court justice, as well as imprisonment up to life for attempting to kill such a person. Loughner is charged under this statute…
