Five teenagers in Loudoun County were caught and pleaded guilty to vandalizing a historic schoolhouse in Ashburn, Virginia with racist graffiti. As punishment, the prosecutor compiled a list of books for the teenagers to read and write reports on. The Virginia judge condoned the sentence and probation agreed to enforce this alternative form of punishment. The New York Times published an article about this with further details about the sentence, reasons behind this arrangement, and the full list of books approved. The article is available here. In addition, Loudoun County’s Attorney’s Office released a press statement available here.
The first question that went through my mind when I saw in the news that there is a bill pending in Congress to terminate the Department of Education:
What will happen to my student loans?
Here is a link to the bill that was introduced by Representative Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky). The Congress.gov website does not have the text of the bill available yet. But, a local news outlet reported that this Republican sponsored bill proposes termination of the Department of Education on December 31, 2018. The article goes further to explain the past history of legislators trying to dismantle the Department of Education with little success.
The results are out. The American Bar Association released their list of 100 of the top law blogs as of this year. The full list is available here.
A shout out to Procedurally Taxing for finally making the list this year!
Hello, readers! My Tax Court internship has officially concluded, so I have returned to my blogging platform.
Two more disclaimers:
Thanks for reading!
First, the postings on my blog are my own words and Legal Biscuit’s words. Second, I will be taking a brief hiatus from providing legal advice and posting on my blog because tomorrow I start my judicial internship/summer law clerkship. Third, because I consider myself an ethical person and I abide by the rules of professional responsibility, during the duration of my internship/clerkship, I will not be publishing or blogging.
Thank you for being my avid readers and followers. I hope to return once my employment is completed.
After an approximately $30 million dollar donation, one of the largest the school has ever received, George Mason University has agreed to rename its law school after the late Justice Antonin Scalia. As part of the terms of the donation, with money partially received from the Koch brothers/Koch Foundation, the George Mason University School of Law will convert its name from Mason Law to the Antonin Scalia School of Law or Scalia Law School for short. The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post both published articles about the change on or around April 1st, but the name change is no April Fool’s joke.
While the country is deeply saddened by Justice Scalia’s death, many are still in shock over the loss of a truly influential judge. It is Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution that gives the President, with advice and consent of the Senate, the authority to appoint judges of the Supreme Court. As the current President Obama fights with Republicans in the Senate over the appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice, it will be interesting to see how upcoming case decisions will change due to the loss of such an outspoken legal figure.
Forthcoming Supreme Court decisions will, for the most part, be reviewed as an eight judge panel. This means that decisions that were originally 5-4 could result in a 4-4 even split. That being said, Tom Goldstein from SCOTUS Blog wrote a piece addressing this issue. Read his article here.
Most notable of Goldstein’s post is this:
If Justice Scalia was part of a five-Justice majority in a case – for example, the Friedrichs case, in which the Court was expected to limit mandatory union contributions – the Court is now divided four to four. In those cases, there is no majority for a decision and the lower court’s ruling stands, as if the Supreme Court had never heard the case. Because it is very unlikely that a replacement will be appointed this Term, we should expect to see a number of such cases in which the lower court’s decision is “affirmed by an equally divided Court.” (emphasis added)
Also, please be sure to check out SCOTUS Blog’s other coverage on Justice Scalia’s death available here.
Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away. While I missed my opportunity to meet Justice Scalia in person when he spoke at my school, he has had an impressive impact on all Americans through his literal, originalist, textual interpretations of the law and written decisions. His death marks the end of an era on the Supreme Court.
Further details about Justice Scalia’s life and passing are detailed in this New York Times article and this NPR broadcast. While this comes as shocking news to a lot of people since his death was so unexpected, the upcoming presidential election now takes an interesting turn as both parties fight to obtain power to appoint the next Supreme Court justice if current President Obama does not appoint a new justice soon. Things are about to get a lot more interesting in the current presidency and in the upcoming presidential elections.
Legal Biscuit 