National Review, December 31, 2011 by John Yoo
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286953/unavoidable-challenge-john-yoo
If the International Atomic Energy Agency’s November report is accurate, Iran will soon join the ranks of the world’s nuclear powers. Because of the Obama administration’s reluctance to confront this looming threat, others such as the Republican presidential candidates must begin preparing the case for a military strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.
KQED News, December 30, 2011 by Mina Kim
http://www.kqed.org/a/kqednews/RN201112301804
“We’re seeing a continued concern on the part of the courts that they don’t want to poach into what is regarded as an executive branch decision.”
San Francisco Chronicle, December 29, 2011 by Bob Egelko
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-12-29/news/30567772_1_abortion-rights-decisions-law-professors-rulings
If Congress passed a law prohibiting abortions and barring all judicial review, “it’s highly, highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would find such a law constitutional,” said Fred Smith, who teaches law at UC Berkeley. “There are so many avenues of review” for the case to reach the high court, he said.
Los Angeles Times, December 29, 2011 by Carol J. Williams
http://articles.latimes.com/print/2011/dec/29/local/la-me-death-sentences-dr
op-20111230
“It would be stunning if prosecutors were not impacted by these developments. The financial issues just have to weigh significantly in some cases because prosecutors, defense lawyers and everyone involved in
government in California has had to make extraordinarily difficult choices about how to spend the resources they have, and they are well aware of what capital cases cost,” said Elisabeth Semel, a UC Berkeley law professor and founder of the school’s Death Penalty Clinic.
KQED News, December 29, 2011 Host Kelly Wilkinson
http://www.kqed.org/a/kqednews/RN201112291730/a
“It’s part of the governor’s agenda to shift responsibilities to the local governments without giving them enough money to pay for it. It’s what we’re observing at the national level, too, the federal government is shifting responsibility onto the states and not giving them the money to pay for it. It’s what governments do when they don’t have enough money.”
Daily Journal, December 28, 2011 by Fiona Smith
http://bit.ly/A1iJm3 (registration required)
“The [Supreme] Court doesn’t seem to have come out with any clear doctrine, especially on when and to what extent they should presume state legislation is valid and to what extent they should put their thumb on the scales on behalf of the states,” Doremus said.
Reuters, December 28, 2011 by Joshua Schneyer and Brian Grow
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/28/us-energy-giant-newspro-idUSTRE7BR
0HS20111228
The near-blanket cancellation of the contracts raises the question of whether Chesapeake ever intended to pay if it failed to find oil or gas immediately, says Mark Gergen, a contract law professor at the University of California-Berkeley law school.
Chicago Tribune, December 25, 2011 by Steve Chapman
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-oped-1225-chapman-20111225,0,152834.column
In fact, as University of California at Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring notes in his book “The Great American Crime Decline,” births to unwed teens didn’t fall after the abortion decision they rose. “There were no visible signs of changes in the demography of births to match the theories,” he writes.
Bloomberg Law Podcast, December 24, 2011 Host June Grasso
http://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts/law/ (Inactive link; go to News Clips for article)
“There’s this perception that the SEC should be doing a lot more work on the fraud-prevention front, and if we want to go after individuals within companies engaging in fraud, the SEC should be doing it.”
The Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2011 by Stanley Lubman
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/12/23/chinas-wukan-protest-will-rights-awareness-spread/?KEYWORDS=Berkeley
The question now is whether the central government will address the root causes of the protests by implementing long-postponed legislation on rural land seizures and cracking down on corruption. For the Communist Party, the risks of inaction are clear. The protests signify an expression of rising rights consciousness among citizens that could grow in other towns.
American Banker, December 22, 2011 by Kate Berry and Jeff Horwitz
http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/176_247/preemption-fannie-freddie-fhfa-
kamala-harris-1045105-1.html (registration required)
Smith notes that the Housing Economic Recovery Act, which placed the GSEs in conservatorship, only said that states would have no authority over the FHFA – not the GSEs. “If you look at the language, the FHFA’s position that states don’t have any authority over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a bit of a jump,” he says.
The Media Institute, December 21, 2011 by Peter S. Menell, Herman Phleger
and Robert L. Bridges
http://www.mediainstitute.org/new_site/IPI/2011/122111.php
As deals with iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, MOG, Rdio, and Spotify attest, the major record labels are now willing to license their content to a wide range of download and streaming services. Yet these businesses are hobbled by competing with Grooveshark and other enterprises that abuse the DMCA safe harbor.
State Tax Notes, December 21, 2011 by David Gamage and Darien Shanske
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1974886
Our key analytical observation is that TILs insert two conceptually vacuous notions ‘tax’ and ‘increase’ into the fiscal constitutions of the states that have them. It is at least in part because this combination is incoherent that TILs do not work.
-PolitiFact, December 20, 2011 by Louis Jacobson
http://bit.ly/vxLTZu
“There are certainly cases in which the Supreme Court has held the executive branch unconstitutional.” Probably the biggest, he said, was Youngstown Co. vs. Sawyer (1952), in which the court overruled an executive order by President Harry Truman to nationalize steel mills to avert a nationwide strike.
-San Francisco Chronicle, December 25, 2011 by Bob Egelko
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2011/12/25/history-not-gingrich-says-presidents-obey-courts/
Choper said allowing a president to override the courts would be particularly dangerous in cases involving the Bill of Rights, where the judiciary is often the last line of defense for an individual facing the power of government.
-Oakland Tribune, December 19, 2011 by Angela Woodall
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19575870
In contrast, counties haven’t begun to deal with the level of care needed by the offenders left in the state system, he said. “You would have to start all over.” And there is the risk they could be pushed into the adult prison system.
-San Francisco Chronicle, December 26, 2011 by Marisa Lagos
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-12-26/news/30558005_1_juvenile-offenders-adult-criminal-justice-david-steinhart
UC Berkeley Law criminologist Barry Krisberg, who has helped monitor reforms at the Department of Juvenile Justice mandated by court orders, warned that counties could face litigation over their facilities if they take the serious, violent juvenile offenders.
-The New York Times, The Bay Citizen, December 31, 2011 by Trey Bundy
http://nyti.ms/A0OOZ5
“It seems like a big mistake to walk away from a deal where the state was going to pay you and now you have to pay them,” said Barry Krisberg, a criminologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
The New York Times, December 18, 2011 by Ian Ayres and Aaron S. Edlin
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/opinion/dont-tax-the-rich-tax-inequality-itself.html?scp=2&sq=Berkeley&st=nyt
Enough is enough. Congress should reform our tax law to put the brakes on further inequality. Specifically, we propose an automatic extra tax on the income of the top 1 percent of earners a tax that would limit the after-tax incomes of this club to 36 times the median household income.
The Nation, December 16, 2011 by Josh Eidelson
http://www.thenation.com/article/165195/fighting-privatization-occupy-activists-cuny-and-uc-kick-high-gear
Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley has called for Berkeley to build more virtual campuses, rather than “bricks and mortar” ones.
-The Associated Press, December 14, 2011 by E.J. Tamara
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/aclu_citizens_jailed_under_us_immigration_program_2/
In October, a study by the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law &Social Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, found that ICE arrested more than 3,600 U.S. citizens through Secure Communities between April 2008 and April 2011.
-Los Angeles Times, December 15, 2011 by Paloma Esquivel
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1215-detained-citizens-20111214,0,3469916.story
Although the exact number of U.S. citizens detained on immigration holds is not known, a study published earlier this year by researchers at UC Berkeley found that citizens made up 1.6% of Secure Communities cases analyzed.
-The Daily Journal, December 28, 2011 by Robert Iafolla
http://bit.ly/zbY0ew (registration required)
The Berkeley report analyzed data from Secure Communities, a program that feeds illegal immigrants arrested by local law enforcement to ICE, and argued that it encourages racial profiling, splits up families and snares people that it shouldn’t.
-Queens Chronicle, December 29, 2011 by Cory Bennett and Rebecca Ellis
http://bit.ly/vYgHLw
It is difficult to estimate how many children follow deported parents, though Aarti Kohli, director of immigration policy at the University of California Berkeley Law School, found that if both parents are deported, the children follow if they are younger than teenagers. If one parent is deported, families frequently separate, with the non-deported parent staying with the children.
Chicago Tribune, December 14, 2011 by Jessica Tobacman
http://bit.ly/wsnH2f
Although the law does not require websites to bar children under 13, “the industry response to the law has led to age restrictions,” said Jason M. Schultz, one of the authors of the study of preteens on Facebook and an assistant clinical professor of law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law.
chinadialogue, December 13, 2011 by Justin Gerdes
http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/4679
This litany of incidents illustrates the growing pressure the public and NGOs are able to wield in the fight against pollution in China, Alex Wang, attorney and visiting assistant professor at UC Berkeley Boalt School of Law, argued. “There’s no doubt that there seems to be an increased pressure and intensity,” he said. Armed with an ever-expanding body of environmental law, these players are pushing for change in the corporate world.