Michael M. O’Hear – Page 186 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

The Final Frontier . . . for Law?

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:September 8, 2008
Post category:Speakers at Marquette

Marquette’s faculty workshop series continued today with a terrific presentation by Joanne Gabrynowicz of the University of Mississippi School of Law. Joanne, who directs the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air, and Space Law, brought us up to speed on the major legal challenges facing space tourism (“informed consent is the issue”) and other persistent difficulties relating to the commercial use of space (e.g., allocation of rights and responsibilities between public and private sectors). Joanne’s blog looks like a great resource for anyone interested in following these issues.

Mandatory Meetings in the Workplace

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:September 8, 2008
Post category:Labor & Employment Law

Paul Secunda takes on Wal-Mart in this new commentary for the Legal Times. Along with coauthors Melissa Hart and Marcia McCormick, he criticizes recent mandatory employee meetings at Wal-Mart that have allegedly pushed employees away from supporting the Democratic presidential nominee. They urge other states to follow the lead of New Jersey in adopting a Freedom from Employer Intimidation Act, which makes it unlawful for any employer to force its employees to attend employer-sponsored meetings whose purpose is to discuss the employer’s opinions on religious and political matters.

Edwards and Erosion of the Defendant’s Right to Self-Represent

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:September 7, 2008
Post category:Criminal Law & Process U.S. Supreme Court

In June, the Supreme Court offered its’ latest pronouncement on the right of criminal defendants to represent themselves in court. The Court first recognized this constitutional right in 1975 in Faretta v. California, a case that I like to present in my Criminal Procedure course as one of the few instances in which the Supreme Court has given any real weight to the dignitary interests of criminal defendants (which are usually subordinated in criminal procedure to competing objectives, such as judicial economy and reliable fact-finding). I think the Court was right that it is profoundly demeaning for the state to force a lawyer on an unwilling defendant, and then authorize the lawyer to decide how the defendant’s story will be presented to the jury. (I discussed this point at greater length in this essay a few years ago.) Yet, the Court’s post-Faretta decisions have generally worked to diminish the scope of the right to self-representation, and the most recent (Indiana v. Edwards, 128 S.Ct. 2379 (2008)) is no exception.