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How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
FEATURED
December 6, 2024
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
By: James Trusty
As the presiding judge scolded Hunter Biden’s attorneys this week, “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”[1] But what exactly is that history he claims is being re-written? Judge Scarsi was challenging the largely academic issue of whether a pardon signed at noon, for instance, protects against crimes committed on the same day at dinnertime. That is a very limited run at the notion of “preemptive” pardons, and it seems to be strictly a question of chronology. The judge did not seem to question the idea of…
Supremely Improbable
July 30, 2024
Supremely Improbable
By: James Trusty
President Biden’s pronounced objectives for Supreme Court “reform” are improbable, politically lifeless under a particularly lame duck presidency, and motivated by transparently November-driven calculations. But even if the proposed changes are doomed from the start, they push public discourse on a couple of issues that are red meat for the democrats. The stated reforms are superficially simple ones: 1) to “clarify” that “there is no…
Presidential Immunity Ruling Stirs Sound and Fury
July 5, 2024
Presidential Immunity Ruling Stirs Sound and Fury
By: James Trusty
The immediate and eventual impact of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision in Trump v. United States is both considerable and dramatically misrepresented. The initial consequences include likely delay to the January 6 prosecution out of D.C. and the setting of hearings—in D.C., Georgia and south Florida—where the judges will be required to make factual findings as to whether the evidence supporting the indictments reflect “official…
Was This Identity Theft? Sixth Circuit Should Limit Meaning of That Term
March 5, 2013
Was This Identity Theft? Sixth Circuit Should Limit Meaning of That Term
By: Nicole Kardell
What’s in a name? When you think of identity theft, you typically think of someone taking a person’s name plus some other identifiers, like their address and Social Security number or credit card number, to go on a spending spree or drain the victim’s bank account. You may think of fraudulent impersonation. But what if someone falsely stated that another person gave him permission to…
Va. Court Declines to Decide Status of Poker Under State’s Gambling Law
March 4, 2013
Va. Court Declines to Decide Status of Poker Under State’s Gambling Law
By: Ifrah Law
On February 28, 2013, the Virginia Supreme Court issued an opinion in which it declined to address the legality of playing poker in the state but left open the possibility for the issue to be decided in a future case. The full opinion in the case, Daniels v. Mobley, is available here. Charles Daniels, a former poker hall operator who operated charitable bingo halls in…
This Gaming Case Didn’t Have to Be Prosecuted
February 26, 2013
This Gaming Case Didn’t Have to Be Prosecuted
By: Ifrah Law
A Nevada man now has a criminal record – simply because he placed a bet in a casino in Las Vegas and a casino employee didn’t ask him enough questions. Robert Walker recently pleaded guilty in federal court to one misdemeanor count involving a record-keeping violation and was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation. He was also ordered to pay a $250 fine and…
Does ‘Speech or Debate’ Trump the Right to Defend Oneself in Court?
February 20, 2013
Does ‘Speech or Debate’ Trump the Right to Defend Oneself in Court?
By: Jeffrey Hamlin
On February 5, 2013, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives filed a brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to hold that U.S. legislators and their aides cannot be forced to testify about their legislative activities, even when their expected testimony might help exonerate a criminal defendant. The case raises interesting questions about the balancing of…
Domain Name Seizure – It’s Not Just a U.S. Law Enforcement Tactic
February 12, 2013
Domain Name Seizure – It’s Not Just a U.S. Law Enforcement Tactic
By: Ifrah Law
We have previously reported in this space about the use of domain name seizures by American law enforcement – for example, here and here. Recent media reports show that domain name seizure has become the go-to tactic for law enforcement for other countries as well. Canadian police made a series of arrests during an invitation-only Super Bowl party attended by 2300 people as part of…
