Off-Color Thoughts on Watching Fireworks on the Fourth of July
by Eric Lane
Brennan Center for Justice
July 6, 2010

EXCERPT:

On the Fourth of July, we celebrate our independence from England. Most Americans know this. We also celebrate our national commitment to the autonomy and equality of all men and women -- though the adopting Continental Congress thought only about the equality of white men. Through the Declaration of Independence we pledged to each other “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” It is this sharing, “that sense of shared sacrifice and responsibility-for ourselves and one another,” in President Obama’s words, that makes us Americans.

Read the full article at brennancenter.org.

Professor Scott Fruehwald's article An Introduction to Behavioral Biology for Legal Scholars has been featured on The MacArthur Law & Neuroscience Project Blog. The article appears at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1627363.

In addition, Professor Fruehwald has moved into the top 1000 on the all-time SSRN downloads list at 951. He also is 640th for downloads for the past year and 473rd for new downloads per paper for the past year.

In New York Magazine, Professor Bennett Capers discusses the possible legality of the NYPD conducting vehicle checkpoint searches in the vicinity of Times Square and other New York landmarks in response to the attempted terrorist act in Times Square last week. The article is titled “The Siege We Live With.”

EXCERPT:

Next up might be car checkpoints, in Times Square and elsewhere. “You could start to see an increased police presence on the ground,” says Kris Coleman, a former FBI agent and CIA officer who runs his own security firm. “You might see the occasional vehicle checkpoint as well.” In Times Square, “the primary purpose would be to keep this landmark area safe from explosives—not arrest people,” says Bennett Capers, a law professor at Hofstra. “Legally, it’s probably fine. It passes the special-needs test.”

Read the full article at nymag.com.

Professor Andrew Schepard participated in the Families Matter Symposium at the University of Baltimore School of Law organized by the American Bar Association Section on Family Law from June 24th to 25th. The purpose of the Symposium was to convene national leaders from different disciplines to create an agenda for “changing the practice of family law from an adversarial and divisive process to one that focuses on methods that are less destructive to families and children.”

For more information visit www.ubalt.edu.

How Two Questions Caused Death Penalty Misstep
A. G. SULZBERGER
New York Times
July 1, 2010

EXCERPT:

“The prosecutor is not allowed to advance his or her case by exploiting the fact that the defendant did something that he has every constitutional right to do,” said Eric M. Freedman, a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra University. “If it were permitted, the constitutional right would be undermined.”

Read the full article at nytimes.com.