Well, as my Constitutional Law students will tell you, I called the result, the vote, and the identity of the dissenter.  What was my basis? I recalled the Court’s ruling last year in U.S. v. Stevens (the ‘crush’ video case), read Alito’s dissent therein, and knew that neither Kennedy nor Scalia (with decent Free Speech rec

Credit to Jurist:  http://jurist.org/paperchase/2011/03/supreme-court-rules-corporations-lack-personal-privacy.php? Alright, last week, the Supreme Court ruled — unanimously — in FCC v. AT&T, that the FOIA’s “personal privacy” exemption does not apply to corporations.  Is this a good ruling?  Yes, it establishes

Well, that is an understatement.  However, one of the proposed bills targets speech — speech which was specifically the subject of successful litigation of which I was a direct part of the legal team.  In approximately 2008, Jack Stelmack served as an elementary school principal in Lakeland, Florida.  Without getting too deeply into my bel

Grateful acknowledgment to Harvey Kaye and New Deal 2.0: As many of you know, The Brett Law Firm Blog serves a dual purpose:  (1) Discussion of legal issues; and (2) Discussion of political economic issues.  The ongoing fight of public employees cuts across both areas.  The current threat from reactionary governors and legislators, such as Scott

First, I will, for once, quote Ronald Reagan, who stated that “one of the most elemental human rights [is] the right to belong to a free trade union.”  See http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12392 for more on Reagan’s commentary. We are presently witnessing an unprecedented assault upon workers’ rights to organize and collecti

Last evening, I was fulfilled by the opportunity of being a special guest lecturer at an ACLU function.  The principal topic of the discussion was Free Speech on the Internet.  Also, I did not realize — until after the lecture — that there was an extraordinarily special guest in the audience.  Bernard Cohen approached me following my

In all of the recent hubbub within my practice — including some travel — I neglected to acknowledge the exciting surrounding the Food Not Bombs appeal before an en banc panel of the Eleventh Circuit.  Following a good result from the District Court that granted injunctive relief versus the City of Halifax’s ordinance that severel

Full credit to Orrin Kerr at SCOTUS Blog:  http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/02/the-strange-case-of-ashcroft-v-al-kidd/: The Petitioner in this case is John Ashcroft, the former Attorney General, who is represented by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The Respondent is Abdullah Al-Kidd, a person who was detained under the material witness statute, who