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The Chief Justice’s 2017 Year-End Report – Chief Justice John Roberts: “…We have a new challenge in the coming year. Events in recent months have illuminated the depth of the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace, and events in the past few weeks have made clear that the judicial branch is not immune. The judiciary …
Crowdsourcing accurately and robustly predicts Supreme Court decisions. Daniel Martin Katz, Michael James Bommarito II, Josh Blackman. arXiv:1712.03846 [physics.soc-ph] “Scholars have increasingly investigated “crowdsourcing” as an alternative to expert-based judgment or purely data-driven approaches to predicting the future. Under certain conditions, scholars have found that crowdsourcing can outperform these other approaches. However, despite interest in …
EFF: “Protecting the highly personal location data stored on or generated by digital devices is one of the 21st century’s most important privacy issues. In 2017, the Supreme Court finally took on the question of how law enforcement can get ahold of this sensitive information…EFF filed briefs both encouraging the court to take the case …
Lawsky, Sarah B., A Logic for Statutes (December 14, 2017). Florida Tax Review, Forthcoming; Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 17-28. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3088206 “Case-based reasoning is, without question, a puzzle. When students are taught to “think like lawyers” in their first year of law school, they are taught case-based common-law reasoning. Books on …
National Center for State Courts – “A state-of-the-art courtroom designed to speed the progress of complex commercial cases is now up and running in Westchester County Supreme Court’s Commercial Division, which serves as a forum for the resolution of complicated business disputes. The Division’s Integrated Courtroom Technology (ICT) part, located in Westchester County’s Supreme and …
United States of America v. 15.919 Acres of Land (More or Less) by Susie Cagle, Special to ProPublica. December 20, 2017. This story was co-published with the Texas Tribune. [A fine example of a graphic narrative – well done – succinct – direct – and understandable.] “In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security began building …
Dahmani, Maher and Vermeille, Sophie, Open Data for Case Law: A Digital Republic for Predictable and Attractive Legal Rules (September 13, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3084841 “The “Lemaire Act” for a Digital Republic, dated October 7, 2016, establishes two new default principles with respect to government data and public court opinions – with the enactment …
“The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility has issued Formal Opinion 478 that provides the nation’s judicial branch guidance related to the ethical boundaries of independent factual research on the internet. The guidance is consistent with the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct, but notes that judicial notice is governed by …
Crowdsourcing Accurately and Robustly Predicts Supreme Court Decisions — By Daniel Martin Katz, Michael Bommarito, Josh Blackman – via SSRN “ABSTRACT: Scholars have increasingly investigated “crowdsourcing” as an alternative to expert-based judgment or purely data-driven approaches to predicting the future. Under certain conditions, scholars have found that crowd-sourcing can outperform these other approaches. However, despite …
Politico: “Senate Republicans have declared war on the American Bar Association. Since 1953, the venerable legal organization has played a critical, behind-the-scenes role in assessing judicial nominees and their fitness to serve on the bench.But with the ABA emerging as a major stumbling block in President Donald Trump’s effort to transform the courts, the GOP …
TRAC: “The latest case-by-case records from the Justice Department covering all of FY 2017 indicate that federal criminal prosecutions for weapons offenses grew by 10.8 percent over the levels seen during FY 2016. This is the third year in a row to see an increase in federal weapons prosecutions. Prosecutions during FY 2016 had risen …
Aaron Mackey – EFF: “Anonymous online speakers may be able to keep their identities secret even after they lose lawsuits brought against them, a federal appellate court ruled last week. The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Signature Management Team, LLC v. John Doe is a victory for online …
