Federal Government Antitrust Policy Returns to Reality

Last fall, I commented on this blog about the potential effect of an Obama administration on the nature of antitrust enforcement in the United States. In particular, I noted that a new Obama administration might focus on repairing the lack of antitrust enforcement that had resulted over the past few years through a slavish adherence to Chicago School analysis. On Monday of this week, Christine Varney, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, revealed an antitrust plan for the Department of Justice that removed any doubts that the Obama administration is shifting dramatically from the “theoretical economics” laden Chicago School antitrust philosophy and practices that dominated the enforcement goals of the Bush administration to a pragmatic antitrust policy based on the realities in the marketplace.

Rejecting the “laissez-faire” views that the Antitrust Division had practiced over the past eight years and attempted to enshrine in a policy statement in 2008, Ms. Varney declared that small- and medium-sized competitors, suppliers, and distributors are encouraged to whistle-blow on any anticompetitive practices. Indeed, she stated the government would welcome hearing from those who were suffering at the hands of dominant entities. Although Ms. Varney did not go so far as to adopt the European Union view of dominance as against the evolved modern American view that monopoly in itself is legal and that the burden is on the plaintiff to show that the defendant had attempted to further its monopoly position through anticompetitive practices, she hinted that challenges based on dominance will be given a much more welcome hearing. Moreover, Ms. Varney indicated that mergers will be scrutinized very carefully, especially in certain sectors of the economy. 

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Dahmer and the Insanity Defense

Greg O’Meara has a new article on SSRN about the trial of Jeffrey Dahmer, “He Speaks Not, Yet He Says Everything; What of That?”  Text, Context, and Pretext in State v. Jeffrey Dahmer.  As part of the prosecution team in Dahmer, Greg has a unique perspective on the trial.  In dissecting the strategies used by both sides in litigating Dahmer’s sanity, Greg draws on a treasure trove of documents from the prosecution’s case file, as well as the work of Sigmund Freud, Paul Ricoeur, and others.  This paper is sure to become an indispensible resource for anyone studying the Dahmer case in the future.  Here is the abstract:

In State v. Dahmer, the defense attempted to lead the jury through a series of inferences to conclude that the defendant was insane at the time he committed each of the fifteen murders charged; it portrayed a client who was fully cooperative and honest once the authorities arrested him. To make this approach work, the defense needed narrative distance between the defendant and the jury so he could not be cross examined about his meticulous planning of each murder or his prior inconsistent statements. This paper briefly lays out the development of the defense of insanity, focusing on the different professional aims of law and psychiatry. It then fleshes out how this tension emerged during the Dahmer trial and analyzes how the attorneys attempted to exploit it in terms of Paul Ricoeur’s narrative theory. It concludes that the defense was ultimately unsuccessful because it failed to give the jury an adequate context for understanding a life both as ordinary and complex as Dahmer’s.

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The Importance of Being Logical

I went to see the Star Trek movie this past weekend with my twelve-year-old son, Andrew.  He was the one dressed in full Klingon regalia (true story).  The star of the movie is undoubtedly everyone’s favorite Vulcan, Mr. Spock.  As you will recall, Spock is the character who always insists on behaving logically.  Seeing the movie made me reflect on legal education and the importance of being logical.

Teaching Constitutional Law, it is easy to get wrapped up in ideological conflicts and to overlook the key role that logical syllogisms play in the construction of Supreme Court opinions.  Certainly the students do not immediately grasp the connection between formal logic and Supreme Court decision-making.  They begin the semester with the assumption that the members of the Court merely vote their ideologies.  As the students assimilate the various interpretive theories for reading the text, such as textualism or intentionalism, they flirt with the possibility of deriving the meaning of the Constitution in an objective manner.  However, the inconsistent manner in which the members of the Court employ these interpretive methods soon frustrates a fair proportion of the class.  Some students begin to drift towards the view that the decisions of the Court are merely bald assertions of political power, while others begin to flirt with nihilism and the belief that the entire interpretive enterprise is arbitrary.

My personal view is that the United States Constitution is a political document, constructed via compromise between various interest groups and left intentionally ambiguous in several key respects. 

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