NPR

More on Gideon: An “Unfunded Mandate”?

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More on Gideon: An “Unfunded Mandate”?

Fifty years later, the American legal profession has failed to answer “Gideon’s trumpet,” or so says Stephen Bright, visiting Yale Law professor and president of Southern Center for Human Rights.  According to Bright, Gideon v. Wainwright represents essentially an unfunded mandate.

Following Attorney General Eric Holder’s statements that the nation’s public defense is “in a state of crisis,”  NPR’s Talk of the Nation explored the state of the public defense system with Bright as well as Douglas Wilson, Colorado State public defender.

This discussion runs 30:16 minutes.

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the seminal decision as was discussed in yesterday’s blog post: Gideon Turns 50.

“If A Driverless Car Crashes, Who’s Liable?”

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“If A Driverless Car Crashes, Who’s Liable?”

That is the question explored by NPR’s Planet Money team on a recent episode of Morning Edition (5 minutes).  Increasingly automobile manufacturers are developing cars that drive themselves.  As a result, there is an interesting legal question about whether “drivers” or auto manufactures should be held liable when such cars crash.  The worry is that if car companies are held liable, they will stop developing this technology.

Flawed Dow

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Flawed Dow

This is Planet Money episode (29:02 min) discusses Dow Jones industrial index, its history, and why it is an over-hyped economic indicator.  After explaining how the Dow Jones industrial average is calculated, Jacob Goldstein, NPR’s economics correspondent, argues against using the Dow as any sort of serious measure of the health of the economy.  Part of the reason that I post this story is because it explains what stock prices represent, a topic recently discussed in Professor Germain’s Business Associations class.

Top Republicans and Corporations File Amicus Breifs Supporting Same-Sex Marriage

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Top Republicans and Corporations File Amicus Briefs Supporting Same-Sex Marriage

As NPR’s Talk of the Nation reported, several prominent Republicans filed an amicus brief in support of same-sex marriage this week.

Some of the conservative signatories include:

  1.  Jon Huntsman Jr. (former Utah governor and presidential candidate)
  2. Meg Whitman (who for California governor supporting Prop 8)
  3. Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Richard Hanna (R-NY);
  4. Stephen J. Hadley (Bush national security adviser)
  5. Carlos Gutierrez (Bush’s commerce secretary)
  6. James B. Comey (Bush Justice Department)
  7. David A. Stockman,(Ronald Reagan’s budget director)
  8. Deborah Pryce (R-OH) (retired House member who was part of the Republican leadership)

These conservatives join Ted Olson, who argued on behalf on George W. Bush before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore and served as his solicitor general, and is now part of the counsel of record arguing for same-sex marriage.

Moreover, major companies such as Apple, Intel, Facebook, and eBay have united to pen an amicus brief in favor of same-sex marriage, arguing that bans on same-sex marriage hurt the economy.