Whither Scalito?

Edward Lazarus, a lawyer who won a recent Supreme Court opinion for a client on death row, asks what kind of Justice will Samuel Alito be? After leading with the idea that new Chief Justice Roberts has turned out to be more cutting and partisan than he seemed, Lazarus goes on to describe the opposite surprise regarding Alito. After the Court granted review in Holmes, but before oral argument, Alito replaced Sandra Day O'Connor. It seemed, at the time, that this could only be bad news for Holmes [Lazarus's client]. O'Connor was a very strong advocate for the line...

The Brand identity

The Aryan Brotherhood began as a prison organization in the 70's, when race riots were common in prison. It's members call it 'The Brand' and branched out from white prison supremacy to dealing narcotics, racketeering, extortion, murder. They've created a criminal organization that rivals the mafia's. When Gotti wanted to punish the black guy who punched him out in prison, he went to the Brand. Now 40 people have been indicted and four are currently on trial. The Aryan Brotherhood launched a campaign a decade ago to become the most powerful criminal organization in the world, a former high-ranking...

Did Texas execute the wrong man?

The Houston Chronicle investigates the case of a teenager executed in 1993....

Beef: It's what's [censored]

I almost let this one slip past: In a decision that seemed to twist logic unmercifully to arrive at a prescribed conclusion, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday declared that those ads promoting "Beef: It's what's for dinner" are not the work of an industry council promoting their product, but are in fact "government speech." Therefore it's acceptable to use the coercive power of government to force beef producers who don't agree with or like the ad campaign to pay for it. Most Americans who see those agricultural industry promotion ads -- think also "Got Milk?" or "the other white meat"...