Posts Tagged ‘The Volokh Conspiracy’

Brett Kavanaugh for SCOTUS Roundup

Tuesday, July 10th, 2018

Lots of reactions this morning to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

First up, Jonathan Adler of The Volokh Conspiracy offers up an overview of Kavanaugh’s career (including links to his decisions):

Judge Kavanaugh is widely respected on the Supreme Court. Many of his clerks go on to clerk at One First Street. More importantly, his opinions attract notice from the justices. Several of his dissents have been vindicated by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. His dissents showed the way for the Court in Michigan v. EPA (White Stallion Energy Center v. EPA concerning mercury emissions), UARG v. EPA (CRR v. EPA concerning GHG emissions), Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (concerning separation of powers), and D.C. v. Wesby (concerning qualified immunity). And even when certiorari was granted, Judge Kavanaugh’s dissents have been noted in subsequent Supreme Court cases (as in Lexmark International v. Static Control Components which favorably cited Kavanaugh’s dissent in Grocery Manufacturers Association v. EPA). This suggests other justices will take the new junior justice’s opinions quite seriously, especially on administrative law.

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)

Second, Kavanaugh is also a strong believer in the Second Amendment. From his 2011 Heller v. District of Columbia (the follow-up lawsuit to the original Heller decision) dissent:

In Heller, the Supreme Court held that handguns – the vast majority of which today are semi-automatic – are constitutionally protected because they have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens. There is no meaningful or persuasive constitutional distinction between semi-automatic handguns and semiautomatic rifles. Semi-automatic rifles, like semi-automatic handguns, have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens for self-defense in the home, hunting, and other lawful uses. Moreover, semiautomatic handguns are used in connection with violent crimes far more than semi-automatic rifles are. It follows from Heller’s protection of semi-automatic handguns that semi-automatic rifles are also constitutionally protected and that D.C.’s ban on them is unconstitutional.

(Hat tip: J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ.)

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut gave Kavanaugh what amounts to a strong endorsement on that very subject:

Respectable liberal Alan Dershowitz endorsed Kavanaugh as well: “He has a lot of support from centrist academics. He is regarded as a very scholarly, very smart person. I probably will disagree with many of his opinions, but it’s hard to question his qualifications for the job.” (Hat tip: BigGator5.)

Via Stephen Green at Instapundit comes this list of top six unhinged reactions to the Kavanaugh nomination. I especially liked the Women’s March drafting their blurb on what an extremist whoever Trump picked for the court was, then just leaving “XX” instead of inserting Kavanaugh’s name when they sent out the press release…

Finally, liberals want you to know that the Federalist Society and Opus Dei are evidently the same thing. Maybe somebody should explain to them the difference between real life and a Dan Brown novel…

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Posted in Guns, Media Watch, Supreme Court | No Comments »

Follow-Up: Eugene Volokh and Glenn Reynolds on Issues Surrounding the Portland Assault Video

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

Several commentators on yesterday’s post and video about a man being assaulted by liberal thugs for the crime of videotaping Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber at an event open to the public at Emmanuel Temple Church in Portland, Oregon, opined that no crime had been committed, since the videographer was on private property, and thus should have complied with a request demand to stop filming.

I’m not a lawyer, so I am not clear on the issue, namely: Does a political event open to the public, but set in a private space, count, for the sake of the law, as occurring in a public space or a private space? I can see how both might apply, depending on the circumstances and on individual state law.

To clarify the issue, I asked two of the leading legal lights of the blogosphere, Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy and Instapundit Glenn Reynolds for their opinion on the issue.

Volokh’s response:

Neither the press nor other speakers have a right to stay in a church when the owners or the agents tell them to leave. The same is true for other private property, except in a few states as to large shopping malls. Moreover, the owner of property has the right to use reasonable, nondeadly force to eject trespassers. But if the event is billed as open to the public, then trespassers wouldn’t be trespassers until they’re told to leave and refuse. I haven’t seen the video, so I can’t speak to the facts in this case.

Reynolds’ response:

I agree with Eugene. As a practical matter, if I were the filmer in question I would probably sue for assault, etc. on general principles. Fear of lawsuits causes people to do all sorts of things; it might as well make them more reluctant to hassle photographers. But that’s just me following the “punch back twice has hard” philosophy propounded by a great man.

Thanks for both gentlemen for clarifying some of the legal issues involved.

A few points:

  1. It is unclear from the video whether the people asking ordering the videographer to stop taping are representatives of the church or not. Indeed, the only name badge visible is not “Emmanuel Temple Church” but “African-American Alliance.”
  2. A lot of people have stated that videotaping is not free speech. true, but irrelevant, since the First Amendment right in question here is not freedom of speech, but freedom of the press.
  3. If they had wanted to eject the videographer, they could have attempted to do that. They did not. Instead they punched him.
  4. Why was John Kitzhaber (or his lackeys) so adamant that no one was allowed to film him at a public event that they were willing to assault people to prevent it? Given all the previous incidents, you have to wonder if someone has sent out a memo from the Democratic National Committee telling candidates to prevent themselves from being filmed at all costs.
  5. If so, a fat lot of good that will due them in an age of small, cheap, ubiquitous cameras.

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Posted in Democrats, Media Watch | 1 Comment »