By Walter Olson
As the New York Times reports today, mass filing of accessibility lawsuits against Main Street businesses, long a cottage industry for Florida and California lawyers, has now reached Gotham in a big way: A small cadre of lawyers, some from out of state, are using New York City’s age and architectural quirkiness as the foundation [...]
New York Times Covers ADA Shakedown Lawsuits is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Tim Lynch
According to a lengthy article in today’s Washington Post, “hundreds of defendants nationwide remain in prison or on parole for crimes that might merit exoneration, a retrial or retesting of evidence using DNA because FBI hair and fiber experts may have misidentified them as suspects.” The report says government officials have known for years that [...]
Another Transparency Fail is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Juan Carlos Hidalgo
John Stuart Mill once said, “Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, and adoption.” It looks like the movement to end the failed war on drugs is about to enter the second stage, at least on a political level. For the first time since Richard Nixon launched the international war on drugs more [...]
The Drug Debate at the Summit of the Americas is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Trevor Burrus
Only a few days after deliberating over the eventual fate of the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court issued the opinion in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, which allows prisons to strip-search detainees regardless of whether prison officials have a reasonable suspicion that the prisoner may be carrying contraband. The decision precipitated a firestorm [...]
Strip Searches and Obamacare is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Walter Olson
In addition to my two earlier posts in this space on Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws, which I recommend reading in conjunction with Tim Lynch’s three recent posts, I’ve been doing a lot of writing on SYG and other issues in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. Here are some links: I wrote an op-ed for the [...]
Why Is Press Coverage of the Martin/Zimmerman Case So Bad? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Jim Harper
I found a release put out by the American Legislative Exchange Council today a little too meek. So let’s talk about the debate around ALEC, a group I’ve been involved with as a volunteer advisor since before I joined Cato. (The Communications and Technology Task Force used to be called “Telecommunications and Information Technology,” but [...]
Democracy EXPOSED! is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Tim Lynch
One objection that has been raised repeatedly against the “Stand Your Ground” laws is that gun owners can kill a person and then all we have is the shooter’s side of the story! The police will then have nothing to go on and so people are going to easily get away with murder. It seems to me that that objection [...]
Stand Your Ground: Law and Evidence is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Roger Pilon
In his recent preemptive attack on the Supreme Court, President Obama invoked what he took to be the conservative critique of “judicial activism”: I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint — that an unelected group of [...]
A Primer on ‘Judicial Activism’ is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Tim Lynch
On Sunday, the Washington Post ran a front page story on Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law. And in an article for Jurist, just published, I explain why there is really no connection between the Stand Your Ground Law and the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Here is an excerpt: Stand Your Ground laws are designed [...]
Stand Your Ground Laws Cont’d is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Roger Pilon
Today POLITICO Arena asks: Does Senator Grassley’s tweet, that the American people “r not stupid as this x prof of con law,” make an important point or was it disrespectful? Is this a sign that Obama’s Supreme Court comments won’t be going away? There’s enough disrespect to go around – for the president (Grassley), for the Supreme [...]
Obama’s Comments: A Gift that Keeps on Giving is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
