Year: 2019
Snitches Get Disses
Eugene Volokh notes a disturbing federal case regarding 18 U.S.C. § 1513(e), part of the witness retaliation statute, which appears to criminalize retaliatory speech against witnesses: And U.S. v. Edwards, a nonprecedential decision handed down Thursday by the Sixth Circuit, read it precisely this way: Joy Edwards made numerous derogatory posts on Facebook about a… Read more
Have Keyboard, Will (not) Travel
I don’t normally blog about my day job, but I’m genuinely proud of the work I’ve been doing, and (for reasons that will become clear) this is as good a time as any to talk about it. For the last eight years, I’ve been developing legal technology for Thomson Reuters. It started when I applied… Read more
Is Chief Hopper a Perpetrator of Domestic Violence?
Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Dolores Abernathy on Westworld, has been taking a bit of flack on Twitter for this: https://twitter.com/evanrachelwood/status/1147213677247860737 (Because I don’t trust Twitter embeds, she wrote: “You should never date a guy like the cop from #strangerthings Extreme jealousy and violent rages are not flattering or sexy like TV would have you… Read more
Doing Something About Tuition Debt
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has a plan to deal with tuition loan debt: My plan for broad student debt cancellation will: Cancel debt for more than 95% of the nearly 45 million Americans with student loan debt; Wipe out student loan debt entirely for more than 75% of the Americans with that debt; Substantially… Read more
How Much is 16.5 Tons of Cocaine Really Worth?
A few days ago, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania put out a Twitter press release with a typical law enforcement estimate of “street value”: *BREAKING NEWS* 16.5 tons of cocaine has an approximate street value of over $1 billion. @ICEgov @CBPMidAtlantic @PhillyPolice @USCG https://t.co/GoY2bz4LlE — U.S. Attorney EDPA… Read more