Below The Beltway

Today, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that a Louisiana law allowing the death penalty for rape of a child even when it doesn’t result in death is unconstitutional:
A divided Supreme Court ruled today that it is unconstitutional to execute someone who rapes a child but does not kill the victim.
In a 5 [...]

Markos Moulistas links to and reproduces an Associated Press story about the gay marriages in California, and then has this to say:
The dinosaurs at the AP think they know what the “spirit of the internet” is, and they claim it has nothing to do with copying pieces of information from other sources for purposes of [...]

Not surprisingly, there’s been a lot of discussion among bloggers about moves by the Associated Press to define what constitutes “fair use” of it’s articles by bloggers:
The Associated Press, one of the nation’s largest news organizations, said that it will, for the first time, attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its [...]

Senator Diane Feinstein has introduce a private relief bill to prevent the deportation of a high school valedictorian whose came to the United States with his parents when he was three years old:
FRESNO, California (CNN) — Plans to deport an Armenian high school valedictorian in Fresno, California, were put on hold Tuesday after Sen. Dianne [...]

I’m sure this one has OPEC shaking in it’s sandals:
A Miami lawyer is suing OPEC over the skyrocketing price of oil.
Attorney Larry Klayman claims in the lawsuit filed Monday that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is violating U.S. antitrust laws by fixing oil prices. Klayman wants a Miami federal judge to stop that from [...]

There seems to be a lot of blogospheric confusion over this story from The Kansas City Star:
It’s the only way Tory Bowen knows to honestly describe what happened to her.
She was raped.
But a judge prohibited her from uttering the word “rape” in front of a jury. The term “sexual assault” also was taboo, and Bowen [...]

Eugene Volokh  runs across one of the peculiarities of the practice of law in Virginia:
I just ran across this mysterious emotion, er, motion — “craving oyer” — in a Virginia case. This sentiment seems over 40 years dead in most places, but in the Old Dominion it’s still going strong.
Well, this is Virginia. We didn’t [...]

Sometimes the law is truly an ass, and this is one of those times:

(CNN) — A high school valedictorian’s plans to study medicine at a California state university have run headlong into the federal government’s attempts to return him and his family to Armenia.
“I haven’t been in Armenia since I was 2, so I don’t [...]

Apparently, KSM may approve of blowing up buildings but he isn’t too keen on the fact that Mr. Sulu will be getting married in a few months:
”I will not accept any attorney. I will represent myself,” Mohammed said. “I will not accept anybody, even if he is Muslim, if he swears to the American Constitution.”
Mohammed [...]

The Texas Supreme Court has handed a stunning, and seemingly final, defeat to law enforcement in the Texas FLDS case:
SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) — Texas officials had no right to remove about 460 children from a polygamist sect, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The Texas Supreme Court agreed with a lower court’s ruling, that Child [...]