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Thinking about warmer climes? So are we.

OK, so this story is pretty much what happens when somebody has to gin a daily blog post up out of nothing. But it’s that kind of March day here in Ithaca, New York, the North American seat of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (we are not making that up). Winter has been going on much too long and we’re in for snow, rain, sleet, and freezing muck. The students are all off on spring break. Naturally, our thoughts turn to those who are climatically much better off than we are: our users.

Over the past month, we’ve had a surprising number of visits from people who are not afraid to get sand in their laptops:

50 from Nassau
42 from the Caymans (no, not banking law)
6 from Marbella
1 from Iraklion
1 from Vanuatu

Oh, and 7 from Yellowknife, judicial center of the Northwest Territories, where the average high temperature for March is 11.8 degrees Fahrenheit. See, we feel better already.

Right-to-bear-arms argument tomorrow

On Tuesday, March 18th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in District of Columbia v. Heller. It will be the Court’s first evaluation of the Second Amendment in almost 70 years, and it raises a question that has been long and passionately debated: whether the amendment provides an individual right to possess guns or a state’s right to form a militia, such as a National Guard unit. We ran this two weeks ago, but since the case is being argued tomorrow we thought we’d remind you:

The District of Columbia bans possession of handguns, and bans anyone from carrying a handgun or other deadly or dangerous weapon without a license within its borders (the “Gun Ban”). It also requires that any firearms which may be kept within the District, such as rifles, be kept either disassembled or with a trigger lock. These are some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. In 2003, Mr. Heller filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia claiming that these laws violate his Second Amendment right to “keep and bear Arms.” The District Court found that the Second Amendment does not give an individual a right to gun ownership except where the individual is a member of an organized militia, but the Court of Appeals reversed the decision. It found that handguns are lineal descendents of the pistols in use at the time of the American Revolution, and held, therefore, that the Gun Ban is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on March 18th.

The Supreme Court has not taken a Second Amendment case since 1939, and has never decided whether the Second Amendment confers a right to bear arms upon individuals or only upon the militias it refers to in its opening clause. In the intervening 69 years, the federal and state governments have passed many laws regulating and restricting the ownership and use of guns. Should the Supreme Court uphold the D.C. Circuit’s invalidation of the Gun Ban, it could have a substantial impact on these gun laws and will almost certainly lead to more litigation as gun rights advocates challenge those laws as violating the Second Amendment. If the Court finds that the Gun Ban is constitutional, it will strengthen the ability of government to regulate gun ownership, and may result in more restrictive gun laws across the country.

The full analysis, including a comprehensive set of links to briefs on both sides of the argument, is here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/07-290.html

Thursdays: we imagine the ignorance of others

Most of us have heard the phrase “ignorance of the law is no excuse” (any moderately adventurous junior-high-schooler has probably heard it more than once). It was first recognized in the seventeenth century (it is often attributed to Coke), but probably had its origins a lot earlier than that. Many — including us — have interpreted it as a mandate for legal publishing. After all, if we’re going to be expected to know this stuff, there should be a place where we can read it, right?

Today’s question is a little different take on this old bromide. Surely this saying conjures up a picture in your mind. Who is that ignorant person? What part of the law don’t they know? What can be done about it?

Answers in the comments, please….

How come the flag has only 48 stars, Daddy?

About once a week, we get a note from somebody who’s been reading 4 USC 1:

The flag of the United States shall be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; and the union of the flag shall be forty-eight stars, white in a blue field.

Usually it’s accompanied by a snide remark about our up-to-date materials, or an expression of concern for our mental health. Our eccentricity takes a different form — we try to figure out how and why these things happen. Turns out that the remaining two stars were added by executive order (you can see this in the Notes to 4 USC 1). The algorithm (“one star per state”) is given in 4 USC 2.

There are lessons in this for the novice researcher who’s reading statutes:

  1. Always, always read the notes.
  2. It’s a good idea to look at the sections of the US Code or CFR that are adjacent to the one you (or the search engine) thought you wanted. Taking a look at the “embracing” table of contents — the one that includes the particular section you’re looking at — is usually a good idea, too. Often they have important and helpful information — or they show you what you were really looking for.

Oh, and the way legal information is organized makes no sense, anyway.

(nudge) Funny names for legislation (nudge)(nudge)

So, the fact that we turn to the US Code’s Table of Popular Names for entertainment is probably just a sign that nobody at the LII has a social life, to speak of. But let’s face it — sometimes the US Code is good for a few laughs about something other than its content. This is never more true than when posturing politicians try to market legislation by giving it catchy names, like for example the Lead-Zinc Small Producers Stabilization Act of October 3, 1961.

OK, so we were just kidding about that one, and if you followed the link you now know that it is listed as “omitted”, which is what the Law Revision Counsel’s Office says when they forget that they left something in the glove compartment with all the parking tickets. But seriously, folks, there are some funny ones.

Take, for example, the “Oh, Grab Me” Act. It was part of a series of legislative events surrounding the Embargo Act of 1807, an essentially punitive act leveled at the British — and very disruptive at a time when the economies of the post-colonial US and the UK were still deeply interlinked. “Oh-grab-me”, you will note, is “embargo” spelled backwards, and is thus the first example of palindromic wit in American legislative history. Its effects were undone by the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, which seems fitting, somehow.

Thursdays: Tell us a story

Every Thursday, we ask you questions. Sometimes we need help with a reference question. Sometimes we need better heads than ours to interpret odd facts that pile up, like dustbunnies, in the corners of the LII. Sometimes we need an alibi. Or bail.

Today, though, it’s an easy one — we want to get to know you better. We really don’t know much about the people who use our site, and we don’t know much about who is reading or subscribing to this blog. So…. we hope you’ll use the comments to tell us your story. Why are you here? How often do you come to the LII site? What’s your favorite collection? Do you have professional or personal reasons to visit us? What are they?

We didn’t hear from many of you last week. We know you’re out there. We can hear you breathing. Tell us a story.

LIIBULLETIN : the right to bear arms (District of Columbia v. Heller)

The District of Columbia bans possession of handguns, and bans anyone from carrying a handgun or other deadly or dangerous weapon without a license within its borders (the “Gun Ban”). It also requires that any firearms which may be kept within the District, such as rifles, be kept either disassembled or with a trigger lock. These are some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. In 2003, Mr. Heller filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia claiming that these laws violate his Second Amendment right to “keep and bear Arms.” The District Court found that the Second Amendment does not give an individual a right to gun ownership except where the individual is a member of an organized militia, but the Court of Appeals reversed the decision. It found that handguns are lineal descendents of the pistols in use at the time of the American Revolution, and held, therefore, that the Gun Ban is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on March 18th.

The Supreme Court has not taken a Second Amendment case since 1939, and has never decided whether the Second Amendment confers a right to bear arms upon individuals or only upon the militias it refers to in its opening clause. In the intervening 69 years, the federal and state governments have passed many laws regulating and restricting the ownership and use of guns. Should the Supreme Court uphold the D.C. Circuit’s invalidation of the Gun Ban, it could have a substantial impact on these gun laws and will almost certainly lead to more litigation as gun rights advocates challenge those laws as violating the Second Amendment. If the Court finds that the Gun Ban is constitutional, it will strengthen the ability of government to regulate gun ownership, and may result in more restrictive gun laws across the country.

The full analysis, including a comprehensive set of links to briefs on both sides of the argument, is here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/07-290.html

Der Kugelschreiber da mia tinha est sur la table


Like everything else about web statistics, it’s hard to be sure what our users’ browsers are telling us about the languages they speak. But by any measure the LII is a polyglot place. LII users’ Accept-Language headers show them using 73 different languages.

English is in first place by a long shot (in both US and UK flavours flavors), followed by French, German, Spanish, two variants of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Polish, and Dutch. Slovenian is tied with several others for last place.

Sites linking to the LII are also linguistically diverse — 32,100 in French, 800 in Chinese, 517 in Arabic, and 220 in Vietnamese.

New papers from our colleagues

law_2line_red.gifOur friends and colleagues here at Cornell have just announced publication of these working papers in Cornell’s Research Papers Series at SSRN :

The Anti-Network: Global Private Law, Legal Knowledge, and the Legitimacy of the State
American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2008, Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-025
 Annelise Riles *

Plaintiphobia in State Courts? An Empirical Study of State Court Trials on Appeal
Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-006
 Theodore Eisenberg * and Michael Heise *

Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution
 Bernadette A. Meyler *

The State Attorney General and Preemption
PREEMPTION CHOICE: THE THEORY, LAW, AND REALITY OF FEDERALISM’S CORE QUESTION, William Buzbee, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2008, Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 08-001
 Trevor W. Morrison *

Reversal, Dissent, and Variability in State Supreme Courts: The Centrality of Jurisdictional Source
NYU School of Law, Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper No. 08-01, NYU School of Law, Law and Economics Research Paper No. 08-01, Cornell Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series
 Theodore Eisenberg * and Geoffrey P. Miller *

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