(GVR: Grant, Vacate, and Remand — a disposition that is the US Supreme Court’s way of telling a lower court “don’t waste our time; go do what we told you to do.” The court grants certiorari–agreeing to take the case; vacates the judgment below; and remands the case–sends it back to the lower court with instructions to get it right next time).
And that, friends is what happened today in Briscoe v. Virginia–the case that was widely feared (or hoped) to limit the reach of this summer’s decision in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. That’s right, folks–you really really have to put the analyst on the witness stand!
And for the record, that is exactly what I predicted they were going to do when they granted cert in this case.
Posted by AndyCowan on January 25th, 2010 :: Filed under
A Day in the LifeTags ::
forensic evidence,
law and science,
legalese,
old fashioned beatdown
As an astronomer-cum-lawyer and a big word nerd, I am thrilled to see that the Supreme Court took a break from being serious yesterday to learn a new word:
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Posted by AndyCowan on January 12th, 2010 :: Filed under
A Day in the Life,
Judicial Pearls of WisdomTags ::
almost but not quite entirely unlike law,
law and science,
overheard in court,
Things that are funny,
words that are in fact words
Yesterday at the public defenders’ conference:
The presenter, a psychologist, puts up a picture of two teenagers in profile, nose to nose, forehead to forehead. The teenagers are breaming and blushing. She asks “what’s this a picture of?”
The audience, immediately and unanimously, “statutory rape!”
Actually, she was looking for an “above the waist” answer: ‘young love.’
Oh.
Posted by AndyCowan on June 12th, 2009 :: Filed under
A Day in the LifeTags ::
almost but not quite entirely unlike law,
law and psychology,
law and science,
Things that are funny
On his Twitter Feed, “Skelly Wright” of Arbitrary and Capricious offers a bit of practical advice:
To teen in court: if you want to beat a [urinalysis] for marijuana, make sure the friend’s urine you’re substituting won’t be positive for opiates.
Oops.
Posted by AndyCowan on May 21st, 2009 :: Filed under
A Day in the Life,
Client Service,
Law for the LaymanTags ::
drugs,
forensic evidence,
law and science,
not my client,
Things that are funny,
things that are wrong
On Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down a California ban on the sale of violent video games to minors. The opinion, in Video Software Dealers Association v. Schwarzenegger, is available here. It’s a pretty quick read.
Towards the end of the opinion, the Court lays out the policy rationale behind its legal analysis:
In evaluating the State’s asserted interests, we must distinguish the State’s interest in protecting minors from actual psychological or
neurological harm from the State’s interest in controlling minors’
thoughts. The latter is not legitimate… Violence has always been and
remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even
obsessive theme of culture both high and low. It engages the interest
of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic
fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault is aware. To
shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent
descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.
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Posted by AndyCowan on February 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
In the News,
Judicial Pearls of Wisdom,
Law for the LaymanTags ::
first amendment,
law and science,
social science and law