The panel judges—or at least one member—apparently were not pleased after seeing Hennessy’s sketch. Sargent called Hennessy the next day to express the dismay of the panel. “I was baffled. I didn’t get it,” Hennessy says. “That starts to weigh into the right of free expression.”

Nev.'s lieutenant gov. indicted over college fund - AP

Nevada's lieutenant governor indicted - USA Today

 Lt. Gov. Krolicki indicted - Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nevada Lt. Gov. Krolicki indicted in misuse of funds - Reno Gazette-Journal

I thought his most interesting remarks had to do with how the Supreme Court is increasingly returning to Blackstone's "text first" method of interpreting laws — before trying to imagine what legislators might have had in mind, and before implementing their own policy preferences, judges should read the law and apply the plain language to the situation at hand. Only if the language is unclear, or if the meanings of words have changed over time, should judges move on to other methods of interpretation.

He had two examples, an anecdote and a statistic, to back this up. The anecdote was that in the Second Amendment case D.C. v. Heller, both the majority opinion and the dissent were originalist; both took the language of the law and asked what those words meant at the time they were written. The statistic was that in recent years (I forget the exact time frame), judges have used dictionary definitions more often than they have through the entire history of the court.

Other jokes, labeled "P&T" in the subject heading to indicate they were "puerile and tasteless," were cruder and more sexually explicit and used language that defies quotation in a general circulation newspaper.

Governor Blagojevich has taken us to a truly new low. Governor Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree....

Blagojevich and others were working feverishly to get as much money from contractors, shaking them down, pay to play, before the end of the year....

At the end of the day, the conduct we have before us is appalling....

If it isn't the most corrupt state in the United States, it's certainly one hell of a competitor....

the FBI agents that participated in this wiretap investigation, were thoroughly disgusted and revolted by what they heard, and I think even the most cynical agents in our office were shocked....

The scandal surrounding Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's alleged attempt to sell President-elect Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat widened on Wednesday, threatening to taint a rising Democratic star and pull in one of the nation's biggest labor unions.

Reporters here are sometimes described as adventurous when they write for other sections.

And then there's John Schwartz.

In his career here, he has experienced zero-gravity twice, flown a jetpack, ridden in a prototype of a lunar truck, driven a car shaped like a cupcake, gone down into the sewers of Albuquerque, ridden out a hurricane in New Orleans in the Corps of Engineers bunker, gotten zapped with one million volts of electricity by a giant Tesla coil while wearing a metal suit, and drunk water made from recycled urine and sweat. And he has done it all with an effusive combination of serious science and learned mirth that has made his byline a cult favorite among readers and assignment editors around the paper.

Now, we're proud to announce, John will undertake the greatest adventure of them all: working for the National Desk as the paper's national legal correspondent.

There are, in fact, many flavors of Schwartz. Those who have only known John in his incarnation as the paper's own Tom Swift may not be aware that he is also a lawyer (JD '84 from UT), who wrote extensively about legal issues during his time at the Washington Post. He covered the dozens of suits brought by states against the tobacco industry, and profiled the law firms that work for big tobacco. He was also there for the early days of cyberlaw, writing about the evolution of First Amendment law on the Internet and the Communications Decency Act.

That makes him the perfect candidate to replace the nearly irreplacable Adam Liptak in covering the law and alternating with Adam in writing the weekly Sidebar column. John will continue the paper's franchise coverage of courts and legal issues around the nation, from gay marriage to capital punishment to the latest thinking about executive power. His deep understanding of science and the online world will help us expand our legal coverage into those areas, especially as we integrate more closely with the web. And he will do so with his trademark clarity and cleverness.

As you can see from the accompanying photo, he was elated to get the job, and we feel the same way.

Suzanne Daley and David Firestone

Madigan's filing suggests Blajojevich might be removed under a clause stating governors are replaced if "unable to serve because of death, conviction on impeachment, failure to qualify, resignation or other disability"—the "other disability" here being that lawyers and political foes would challenge in court any action he takes.

But there are no clear standards for how justices would determine a governor's fitness to serve, said John Marshall Law School professor Ann Lousin. A bill to set them out was abandoned in the 1970s. "Nobody thought it was that important," she said.

Legal experts doubt the court will wade far into a deep political morass given those flimsy legal handrails to grasp.

Some legal experts have expressed skepticism about Madigan's move. Mark Rosen, professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, said it's questionable whether the court should act as an alternative to the Legislature on the question of removing a popularly elected governor.

"Given the awesomeness of what impeachment is and given all the members of the legislative branch that have to play some role, it would be surprising if there were such a streamlined alternative," [Rosen] said.

The group believes community notification laws fail to protect the public, because they don't distinguish dangerous predators from otherwise harmless men and women who foolishly had sex with underage lovers, served their sentences and don't need a lifetime of public scrutiny.

Tamm says he initially considered contacting Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter for The New Yorker, but didn't know where to reach him. He'd also noticed some strong stories by Eric Lichtblau, the New York Times reporter who covered the Justice Department—and with a few Google searches tracked down his phone number.

It’s not easy topping someone who, if the federal charges against him are true, tried to sell the Senate seat of the president-elect.

Brown, who is required to defend state laws unless he cannot find reasonable legal grounds to do so, said after Prop. 8 passed Nov. 4 that he would support the initiative before the state's high court.

But in a lengthy filing late Friday, he argued that the constitutional amendment was "inconsistent with the guarantees of individual liberty" in California's governing charter.

"Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification," Brown said.

The authors of the state Constitution, he said, did not intend "to put a group's right to enjoy liberty to a popular vote."

Prop. 8 "does not broadly seek to diminish or eliminate the constitutional or civil rights of gays and lesbians," but is simply "about restoring and maintaining the traditional definition of marriage," Starr said. Decades of legal precedents, he said, require "judges - as servants of the people - to bow to the will of those whom they serve."

The court ruled 4-3 on May 15 that California's ban on same-sex marriage violated the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians to marry the partner of their choice and discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. Prop. 8 amended the state Constitution to overturn the ruling and declare that only marriage between a man and a woman is "valid or recognized in California."

. . . [V]ery few rehabilitation programs have the evidence to show that they are effective. The resort-and-spa private clinics generally do not allow outside researchers to verify their published success rates. The publicly supported programs spend their scarce resources on patient care, not costly studies.

And the field has no standard guidelines. Each program has its own philosophy; so, for that matter, do individual counselors. No one knows which approach is best for which patient, because these programs rarely if ever track clients closely after they graduate. Even Alcoholics Anonymous, the best known of all the substance-abuse programs, does not publish data on its participants’ success rate.

LEGAL PROS GET PRIMED FOR A PAYDAY FROM MADOFF SCANDAL

Leave it to the lawyers to find a silver lining in the Bernie Madoff scandal.

Just as it began to look as if the credit crunch was going to put the squeeze on attorneys, the alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme by Madoff swooped in and is breathing new life into the legal profession.

"What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?" (referring to widespread pans of his performance in office)

"[F]or some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

"He didn't have the decency to notify anyone what he was about to testify. That was extremely disappointing." (referring to Jim Comey's testimony about Gonzales' role in trying to strongarm an ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft into reauthorizing a secret surveillance program)

“I want our writers to start reporting,” Mr. Lacey said. “One of the things that happened with the Internet and blogging is that it made simple punditry in newsprint irrelevant. It’s no longer timely.”

(“Everything I do is reporting,” Voice columnist Nat Hentoff said by phone. “I have no patience for people who write off the top of their heads based on what other people have said.”)

“I’m going to change the dynamic,” Mr. Lacey said. “It’s true for any paper we operate: We have a reputation for doing hard news. We call people up and get the information. We dig the records up. If people aren’t comfortable with that, they’ll have to find employment elsewhere."