https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nryWkAaWjKg
Recently, Netflix release its original series “Orange is the New Black.” This engaging comedy-drama is about a federal woman’s prison. The show discusses many issues that are central to sentencing and prison reform.
Tushnet and Eskridge on Same-Sex Marriage Cases
On the most recent episode of Lawyer2Lawyer,
hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams will talk with Constitutional Law Professors Mark Tushnet and William Eskridge about what the history of both the gay rights and the civil rights movements have to say for the future of gay rights in America.
• Harvard Law Professor Mark Tushnet specializes in constitutional law and theory, with a focus in examining the practice of judicial review in the U.S. and worldwide. He has served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall. Currently, his focus is in constitutional history and the development of civil liberties. He is known for his critical and controversial analysis of Supreme Court rulings, including Brown v. The Board of Education and Roe v. Wade.
• William Eskridge, Yale Law Professor, focuses in statutory interpretation. He represented a same-sex-married couple from 1990-1995 who sued for recognition of their marriage and has published many books covering the political framework of gay rights. The historical component of his book GayLaw was the basis of an amicus brief he drafted for the Cato Institute and for much of the Court’s (and dissenting opinion’s) analysis in Lawrence vs. Texas, the decision which made same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state.
Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl UPDATE
In the fervor over the Supreme Court rulings regarding gay marriage and the Voting Rights Act, the outcome of Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl was lost. Luckily, Radio Lab, the podcast that initially brought this interesting case to my attention, has updated its coverage of the case following the High Court’s ruling.
Here is a link to the original story and a description of the update:
The Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of Baby Veronica’s adoptive parents, but the ruling itself doesn’t give clear answers to what will happen to Veronica, her two families, and the Indian Child Welfare Act. Tim reaches out to a collection of legal experts to help us understand the latest decision in this complicated, heart-wrenching case.
Stuff You Should Know: “How Miranda Rights Work”
Recently the popular, Stuff You Should Know podcast ran an episode titled “How Miranda Rights Work.”
Here is a synopsis of the episode:
Back in 1966, the Supreme Court decided that suspects in criminal cases had the right to be reminded that they didn’t have to talk to the fuzz if they didn’t want to, as stated in the 5th amendment. Since that ruling, scores of other cases have shaped and defined the ruling that created a staple of police procedural dramas.
Andrew Sullivan on Gay Marriage and SCOTUS Cases
Last Sunday, Fareed Zarakia interviewed Anderew Sullivan about the conservative case for gay marriage and the recent same-sex marriage Supreme Court cases.
Here is a description of the interview:
Sullivan: We’re part of families. Gay people don’t – they’re not born under a gooseberry bush in San Francisco and then just unleashed on the country to improve your dinner party conversations and interior design. You know, that’s not what happens. They’re born and bred in Texas, in Oklahoma, in Alabama. And they’re in the military and they’re part of this country’s entire diversity. And they want to be a part of their own families. And they’re more traditional than you realize.
So then began the battle you’re still battling, which is with conservatives.
Sullivan: I think the great disappointment, the great disappointment is that this was a really, in some ways, a conservative argument. This was a minority group seeking responsibility, commitment, pooling resources. If you’re a couple and something happens to one of you, you have someone else to take care of you, not the government. There’s a really powerful conservative case for this. And so many of the Republican Party just never grappled with it until it was too late.
But in Kennedy, you know, Anthony Kennedy, Reagan appointee, I think you see the last strains of that moderate conservatism, which is, we do have this new emergent population. How do we integrate them? How do we make them part? I don’t want us to have a separate but equal institution in civil unions. And that was the big threat. And then Bush, when he actually endorsed a federal marriage amendment, suddenly the entire gay establishment were like, oh, we’re with you.