Monthly Archives: April 2013

blogging Fed Courts 3.5: justiciability outline

Posted on April 29, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

In the last Fed Courts post, I finished up questions of “justiciability” — that is, threshold questions that determine whether you have a “case or controversy” that can be heard in federal courts. The four types of justiciability problems I … Continue reading →

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Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, blood, and citizenship

Posted on April 29, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

The transcript of the oral arguments in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl is available here. Matthew Fletcher and Kate Fort take a look at the arguments presented, and in particular appeals by Lisa Blatt and Paul Clement to some sense … Continue reading →

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blogging Fed Courts 3: political questions

Posted on April 25, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

The last major set of cases that the Court often refuses to hear, along with those suffering standing or mootness/ripeness problems, are the so-called “political question” cases. Here the issue is not so much that the party hasn’t suffered/isn’t suffering … Continue reading →

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blogging Fed Courts 2: mootness and ripeness

Posted on April 25, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

So this post continues my attempt to explain the content of my Federal Courts class in something resembling plain English. Part 1 dealt with standing. The requirement that a plaintiff have “standing” to bring suit is one of the ways … Continue reading →

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Boston bombing, some additional reading

Posted on April 23, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

Eric, over at SOTSOGM, was kind enough to link to my previous post, so I’d like to return the favor and direct you to his troubling meditation on the often-fruitless search for meaning in horrendous acts of violence: [W]e try … Continue reading →

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Lindsey Graham’s silly “enemy combatant” gambit

Posted on April 21, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

Sen. Lindsey Graham (and some of his colleagues) would like to treat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an “enemy combatant”: The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, … Continue reading →

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notes from the 38th annual Federal Bar Indian Law Conference

Posted on April 18, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

I attended last week’s Federal Bar Indian Law Conference in Santa Fe. It was a great time and there were a lot of terrific panels. I can’t claim I paid attention fully at every moment – I was working on … Continue reading →

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“Baby Veronica” oral arguments

Posted on April 16, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

I’m hoping to have more out soon about Federal Courts doctrine, and also some notes from last week’s Federal Bar Indian Law Conference in Santa Fe. Until I can get all that out, though I just wanted to flag a … Continue reading →

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kermit gosnell

Posted on April 13, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

PLEASE NOTE: Some of the links in this post lead to graphic and frankly horrifying material. I also briefly discuss some of that material below. Use caution. Also, this is a post about abortion, a subject that generates strong feelings. … Continue reading →

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blogging Fed Courts 1.5: standing outline

Posted on April 6, 2013 by thehandsomecamel

I’ll move on from yesterday’s post soon, but I thought it might be a worthwhile exercise to try to outline the main points regarding standing. In my mind, the skeleton of standing doctrine looks something like this: Injury. Cognizable. Concrete. … Continue reading →

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