Federal Law & Legal System – Page 100 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Proposed Amendments to the Federal Rules

Post author:Richard M. Esenberg
Post published:December 6, 2010
Post category:Federal Civil Litigation

OK, I admit to not being the biggest fan of NPR but I do listen and have always heard various events introduced, in dulcet tones, as coming from the National Press Club. Where was this club and how do you join? Can someone like me ever get in?

Well, I still don’t suppose that I can join, but at least I’ll be able to get in this Thursday when I’ll have the privilege of joining several others for a discussion on proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure – at the National Press Club in DC. My paper discusses limitations on e-discovery as informed by generally applicable and neutrally established document retention and retrieval policies. The notion is informed by a philosophy that I tried to follow as general counsel of Rite Hite Holding. We should try not, I used to say, run our business for purposes of litigation. Something about the tail wagging the dog.

I am sure that this event at the National Press Club will not be broadcast. Even public radio has some required threshold of excitement.

Erwin Chemerinsky to Speak in Milwaukee December 8

Post author:Edward A. Fallone
Post published:November 29, 2010
Post category:Constitutional Interpretation U.S. Supreme Court

Erwin Chemerinsky — Dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law and a noted constitutional law scholar — will speak in Milwaukee on December 8 at the Pfister Hotel. The event is sponsored by the Milwaukee Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society (ACS). Doors open at 5 pm.

Dean Chemerinsky is expected to speak on the impact of the Roberts Court and on the future of constitutional law. More information is available at the website of the American Constitution Society: http://www.acslaw.org/node/17692.

Cleaning Up the ACCA Mess

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:November 27, 2010
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Federal Sentencing U.S. Supreme Court

David Holman has a helpful new article exploring the mess that has become the Armed Career Criminal Act jurisprudence in the wake of Begay v. United States. (I’ve blogged about this unfolding jurisprudence several times, e.g., here and here.) The ACCA, of course, imposes a fifteen-year mandatory minimum for felons in possession of a firearm who have three or more prior convictions for a “violent felony” or a serious drug offense. It is the definition of “violent felony” that has occasioned so much litigation and so many unsatisfying judicial decisions over the past couple of years. I’m glad to see David’s article because I think legal scholars have not been paying nearly enough attention to recent developments in this important area of federal criminal law.

I think David is correct to trace the jurisprudential difficulties to the tension between two lines of Supreme Court decisions.