Archive: February 2023

Is ‘Forensic Science’ A Misnomer?

With the exception of DNA analysis, a great deal of so-called “forensic science” — that is, the analysis of tool marks, bite marks, hair comparisons, fingerprints, blood spatters, arson patterns, and […]

You Are Being Scanned

It’s 1890. Responding in part to the invention of “instantaneous” photography, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis write The Right to Privacy, urging legal recognition of “the right to be let alone,” which […]

Person marking paper with red pen

The Case for Contractions (PDF)

In a very short browse on Westlaw, I found some sentences that, in my view, would be improved by contractions: […]

Justice Breyer Retires From the Court

Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement from the Supreme Court closes the book on a nearly 30-year term filled with erudite opinions. But it also marks the end of a unique presence in oral arguments. […]

International Association of Women Judges to receive 2023 Bolch Prize for the Rule of Law

Pictured Above: Evacuees wait to board a plane in Kabul, August 2021. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Isaiah Campbell, Alamy Photo) The Bolch Judicial Institute has named the International […]

Case Processing Time Standards Take Hold in State Courts

For centuries, courts have grappled with the question of speedy and timely justice. Until the 20th century, this was almost exclusively viewed as a legal question: At what point does […]

David F. Levi

The Rule of Law “Must Always Be Won Anew”

Dear Friends: This is my last publisher’s note. As of Jan. 1, 2023, retired U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm is the new director of the Bolch Judicial Institute and the […]

Legal Tradition — Or Symbol of Subjugation?

Recently a huge controversy erupted in Zimbabwe over the alleged purchase of British horsehair wigs for Zimbabwean judges. Given the financial challenges ordinary Zimbabweans face, it was not surprising that […]

Turning Square Corners: Judge David R. Hansen

More than a century ago, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote that upstanding citizens “must turn square corners.” Senior Judge David R. Hansen, United States Court of Appeals for the […]

Judges, Judging and Otherwise

Ask the average person to imagine what a judge does, and the answer will most likely be something right out of a courtroom from Law & Order — or Legally Blonde, Just Mercy, My […]