1) Best. Footnote. Ever.
Twelve extremely eminent law professors — Vikram Amar, Randy Barnett, Robert Bork, Alan Dershowitz, Viet Dinh, Douglas Kmiec, Gary Lawson, Earl Maltz, Thomas Merrill, Robert Nagel, Richard Parker, and Robert Pushaw — have submitted an amicus brief in defense of Scooter Libby. The judge’s order granting the request contained this footnote:
It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics’ willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.
Curtsy: Hilzoy and The Debate Link.
2) Riborkulous and Hypoborkable.
Judge Robert Bork is suing the Yale Club of New York City for a million dollars plus punitive damanges because he fell while climbing onto a one-foot-high speaker’s dias (the dias lacked stairs or a handrail). I’m sorry to hear of Judge Bork’s injuries, and hope he recovers completely.
Nonetheless, Judge Bork better hope his case’s Judge isn’t a fan of Judge Bork’s legal opinions. To quote Judge Bork ((Bork and Olson, Trial Lawyers and Other Closet Federalists, Washington Times, March 9, 1995)) :
Our expensive, capricious and unpredictable civil justice systems present precisely the kind of conflicting and costly state regulation of commerce that the Commerce Clause was designed to solve. Lawsuits, verdicts, settlements and the insurance necessary to defend and indemnify against them, are driving up the cost of goods and services everywhere, and consumers are paying the bill. The litigation explosion has no respect for the state lines because commerce and insurance are now national. Interstate commerce and trade have become the principal victims of a runaway liability system.
Courts are now meccas for every conceivable unanswered grievance or perceived injury. Juries dispense lottery-like windfalls, attracting and rewarding imaginative claims and far-fetched legal theories. Today’s merchant enters the marketplace with trepidation – anticipating from the civil justice system the treatment that his ancestors experienced with the Barbary pirates.
As The New York Personal Injury Blog points out, Bork’s case seems exceptionally weak; it is difficult to imagine Robert Bork the judge having much sympathy for Robert Bork the plantiff.
Curtsies to Overlawyered, Volokh, and (again) The Debate Link.
HA! Those are funny. I really don’t like Bork btw. His comment on the Ninth amendment (a blot) really annoyed me.
I don’t know all 12 of those professors, but Barnett represented the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative before the Supreme Court, and also authored an amicus brief in Lawrence v. Texas arguing against sodomy laws. He has written in opposition to the War on Drugs and the Rehnquist Court’s deference to state lawmaking. Whatever other disagreements one might have with his politics, it strikes me as unfair for the court to suggest that he only chooses to write on behalf of wealthy or connected clients.
Dershowitz takes many cases pro bono, particularly involving indigent criminal defendants. Again, there may be plenty to disagree with in other aspects of his politics, but there’s not really a basis for the court to suggest that he lends his name only to cases involving rich or powerful defendants.
I didn’t see a reference to the actual brief that was filed. Here it is:
Link to Just One Minute
Here is where they pissed the judge off:
No wonder the judge was so snippy. They just rode into town and trashed the judges decision that the prosecutors appointment was legal. That opinion then negates the entire trial that the judge just presided over.
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DEFINITELY the best footnote ever.
And Bork is no surprise. Those kinds think the only lawsuit that isn’t “frivolous” is the one they filed.