By Leah Braukman

Gerald Magliocca of Concurring Opinions recently dedicated a blog entry to his favorite U.S. Supreme Court opinion, the 1970 admiralty law case Moragne v. States Marine Lines. The case was the first to recognize a wrongful death action in maritime law, overturned 84 years of precedent, and explained the history of the relevant law, from the ‘felony-merger’ doctrine in England to the Death on the High Seas Act. “Take a look sometime”, urged Mr. Magliocca. “You’ll be glad you did.”

Inspired by the notion of having an all time favorite Supreme Court opinion, I contacted a few of New York Law School’s professors to find out which Supreme Court opinion was tops in their personal Hall of Fame – and I was fascinated by their answers.

Drumroll, please……

Professor Nadine Strossen chose West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette of 1943. When asked why she so favors this particular case, Professor Strossen smiled and shot back, “Where to start?”   Read more »

By Steven Ward

Anyone who watches NFL games each week is witness to organized warfare, with players delivering excruciating and merciless blows to the opposition. To deal with the frequent injuries, players are often given a shot of the painkiller Toradol, known medically as Ketorolac, before games.

A dozen former NFL players have filed a class-action in U.S. District Court in New Jersey against the league, claiming that they weren’t warned of the consequences of taking the drug. The players allege that among other side effects, Toradol masked pain, which masked the symptoms of concussion.  Playing through their head injuries, the suit states, has brought on long term debilitating conditions, such as “anxiety, depression, short-term memory loss, severe headaches, sleeping problems and dizziness.”

If the NFL is taking these allegations seriously, it has a funny way of showing it:  it still permits the painkiller to be administered during play.

In a recent NY Times op-ed, former Denver Broncos player (2003-2008) Nate Jackson, who is not a party to the lawsuit, wrote of his own experiences with the drug, which included routinely lining up with his teammates before games for injections. He was never quite sure why.

As to how much Toradol he was given during his tenure with the Broncos, or the results of any tests given at the time of his playing, the op-ed was silent — not because Mr. Jackson didn’t want to tell us, but because he couldn’t.

He can’t access his medical records: “Even after I filed a workers’ compensation lawsuit against the Broncos a year ago that later included a request for that folder,” he writes, “I still don’t have it. The team hasn’t released it to me.”

How can this be? All of us have an absolute right to our medical records, right?   Read more »

By Ryan Morrison

SOPA. PIPA. ACTA. The TPP. Bills that involve governments around the world trying to put a stranglehold on the Internet.

Core issues of freedom are involved. And as comedian John Oliver put it on his podcast, “It’s a shame this stuff is so important because it’s really damn boring.”

Luckily, some people actually find “this stuff” fascinating, and are working from the political sidelines, doing everything in their power to speak up for the rest of us when it comes to the Internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is that group, and of that group, one man stands apart from the rest. We mean that, of course, because he was willing to sit down and speak with us.

Trevor Timm is a 2011 NYLS alum, and he’s done us proud.  He graduated near the top of his class, passed the bar, and now serves as an advocate-journalist in the San Francisco Office of the EFF. He also wrote for this very blog, and now he’s back to catch up with us.  We spoke over Skype on the evening of February 3, and again on February 18.

Thank you for taking some time to talk to me. I follow you on Twitter and read your articles, but I’m still amazed at how you’ve become such a respected and well known writer. How did you make the leap from new law grad to working for the EFF?

Thanks for inviting me. I got heavily involved with Legal as She is Spoke and the Program in Law & Journalism with New York Law School at the beginning of my second year. Professor Zierler helped me get a job with former New York Times general counsel James Goodale where I worked on free speech issues for more than two years. My last year, I also had a terrific internship with the General Counsel of the New Yorker. And at school, I worked as a research assistant for Professor Nadine Strossen, former President of the ACLU.  I was always pretty good with time management!

On top of all that, I was on Twitter night and day trying to make a name for myself by analyzing free speech issues in the news. I was able to get a strong following on there from my writings on Wikileaks, and this helped seal the deal when I applied a job at the EFF.

Here I am, and I love it. I get to do what I did for LASIS as a career, on subjects I enjoy writing about and even affect the public discourse.   It couldn’t be more satisfying.

Yes, I know from reading your tweets and articles that you care deeply about what you do.  And lately, you’ve been writing a lot about SOPA and PIPA. Thanks to advocates like yourself, the two bills have now been tabled indefinitely. What next?   Read more »

By Katherine Lazarow

Detective Herlihy, father of three, surprised his wife with a bracelet on Valentine’s Day and went off to work. A few hours later, he was caught in a deadly shootout in a crowded subway station.

Michael McBride, 52, was wanted for the Monday shooting of his girlfriend’s daughter. According to witnesses, he’d concealed his .22-caliber revolver in a folded copy of the NYDaily News. When street detectives recognized him and called out for him to stop, he raced into the station, where the gun battle ensued.

At least 17 shots were fired at West 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem, scattering commuters and killing Mr. McBride.

Det. Herlihy was wounded but survived. Many other officers are not so lucky.

“Isn’t there a way of getting handguns out of the hands of potential criminals” ? That’s the question the media and the public ask each time an incident like this occurs.  The NYPD believes it may have the answer.

Welcome to the new world of crime prevention envisioned by Terahertz Imaging Detection, a new technology that measures energy coming off of a person’s body, and detects anything that’s blocking that energy, such as a gun. Currently being tested by the NYPD, it consists of a portable scanner placed on police cars that can be aimed at a particular person to reveal any concealed weapons. Terahertz rays (also called T-rays) are similar to x-rays but less powerful; they can penetrate fabrics and plastic, but can’t pass through metal or water.

The T-ray scanner could be a valuable tool in the battle to reduce the crime rate and prevent gun violence. But at what cost? If the police use the scanners to check every person walking down a particular street for concealed weapons, are they violating these citizens’ right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment? What if the T-ray scanners are used only after a person has been stopped by the police due to suspicious behavior?

The media didn’t carefully examine these questions.  We will.   Read more »

By Halina Schiffman-Shilo

Every once in a while, I get so worked up about my hometown that I decide to finally, finally write an open letter to the members of Congress telling them how I feel. It would go something like this:

“Dear Congressperson,

Please keep your personal politics and religious beliefs out of my city.

All the best,

Halina”

I never do, though, because unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

A few weeks ago, the Huffington Post reported that Arizona Representative Trent Franks (R) wants to pass a law in Washington, DC, which would prohibit women 20 weeks pregnant or more from obtaining abortions. There is no exception for cases of rape or incest. More recently, Utah Senator Mike Lee (R) introduced a similar bill for Washington, DC in the Senate. Now, abortion politics aside, you may be wondering how a representative from another state could pass a law for the citizens of DC—citizens, I might add, who did not vote for either Representative Franks or Senator Lee.

If you’re not from DC yourself, you’re probably wondering how this can be.  HuffPo didn’t explain so LASIS will.  Read more »