Free Republic

The California AG endorses denying licenses based on the applicant's "hatred" or "racism." Friday, the day after the New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen Supreme Court decision, the California Attorney General wrote a letter to California law enforcement and government lawyers, expressing "the Attorney General's view that the Court's decision renders California's 'good cause' standard to secure a permit to carry a concealed weapon in most public places unconstitutional." California thus seems ready to promptly shift to a fundamentally shall-issue regime, in which pretty much all law-abiding adults can get licenses to carry concealed weapons. Nor will...

Judge David N. Hurd just decided this in A. v. Hochul; it's a temporary restraining order, to maintain the pre-mandate status quo until Sept. 28, when the preliminary injunction hearing will take place. (The mandate requires a vaccination by Sept. 27 for some covered employees and Oct. 7 for others, so its practical effect may be quite short, if the judge hands out a decision on the preliminary injunction at the hearing or shortly after it.) The order doesn't give detailed reasons, but that's not uncommon in such temporary orders.Because the rationale for the order has to do with the...

As I noted Wednesday, some people are arguing that Donald Trump Jr. committed a crime by expressing willingness to accept unspecified information that came from the Russian government and that was offered as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” (The incident happened before the hack of the Democratic National Committee was revealed, so there’s no indication that Trump Jr. thought that the offered information had been obtained illegally.) The theory is this: 1. A federal statute makes it a crime for “a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make … a contribution or donation of money...

Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein defended the University of California, Berkeley at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, and suggested colleges shouldn’t have to accommodate controversial speakers. The hearing was sparked by countless free speech violations on college campuses across the country, where conservative speakers are often shouted down by leftist protesters, physically assaulted or in some instances prevented from speaking at all. ... In a heated back-and-forth with one of the panelists at the hearing, UCLA law professor and First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh, Feinstein declared, “One of the problems that I have is that there is an expectation...

Can your religion legally excuse you from doing part of your job? This is one of the questions in the Kentucky County Clerk marriage certificate case. But it also arises in lots of other cases — for instance, the Muslim flight attendant who doesn’t want to serve alcohol and who filed a complaint on Tuesday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over the airline’s denial of an exemption. The question has also arisen before with regard to: * Nurses who had religious objections to being involved in abortions (even just to washing instruments that would be used in abortions); *...

Several readers have asked: If the Rolling Stone article describing the alleged gang rape of a UVA student at a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity party is materially false, could the Rolling Stone be successfully sued for libel? This is a good illustration of some important libel law principles, so I thought I’d write about it.

Threats by members of the Los Angeles City Council to use the city’s pension funds to penalize investors if they sell the Los Angeles Times to Charles and David Koch could be illegal and unconstitutional, experts say.A proposal by councilman Bill Rosendahl would allow the city to yank investments by the city’s three pension funds in the Tribune Co., which owns the Times, if the company opts to sell the paper to someone who does not uphold “the highest terms of professional and objective journalism.”Rumors that libertarian industrialists Charles and David Koch might buy the paper spurred him to propose...

Backers of laws that let pretty much all law-abiding carry concealed guns in public places often argue that these laws will sometimes enable people to stop mass shootings. Opponents occasionally ask: If that’s so, what examples can one give of civilians armed with guns stopping such shootings? Sometimes, I hear people asking if even one such example can be found, or saying that they haven’t heard even one such example. Naturally, such examples will be rare, partly because mass shootings are rare, partly because many mass shootings happen in supposedly “gun-free” zones (such as schools, universities, or private property posted...

Few scholars have led a life as varied as Eugene Volokh’s. Born in the Soviet Union in 1968, Volokh immigrated with his family to the United States at age 7. A prodigy, he entered the University of California at Los Angeles at 12 and graduated at 15 with a degree in math and computer science. At the same time he contributed to the family software business, which became very successful thanks in large part to Eugene’s programming skills. In his 20s, interested in new challenges, Volokh went to law school, starting on a path that would eventually lead to clerkships...

A UCLA law professor is petitioning the Nebraska Supreme Court to review a case involving e-mails sent to Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln when he was a candidate for office. In June, the state Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of UNL student Darren Drahota, who had been found guilty of disturbing the peace and fined $250 for e-mails he sent to Avery in January and February of 2006. At the time, Avery was also a UNL political science professor. Eugene Volokh, a UCLA Law School professor who specializes in First Amendment law through teaching, writing and textbooks, filed the...

Did anyone watch the Abrams Report at 5:00 EST on MSNBC?????? I was flipping channels and heard him say to a guest "sorry I did not leave you much time but I spent more time on the 2nd amendment which I am passionate about" I figure he was either discussing the Wal-mart suit or the DOJ document recognizing the 2nd amendment as an individual right put out this past week. I believe he is a big anti so I'm curious what he said and who was on.. Does The Abrams Report repeat later tonight. I checked the web page but...

GUEST OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Los Angeles Say that an I.R.S. agent leaks a politician's income tax return to a newspaper reporter, an act that is a federal felony. The newspaper may have a First Amendment right to publish the information, especially since it bears on a matter of public interest. The government, meanwhile, is entitled to punish the agent, to protect citizens' privacy and ensure a fair and efficient tax system. To punish the agent, prosecutors may need to get the leaker's name from the reporter; but if the reporter refuses to testify because of a "journalist's privilege" to protect confidential...

Tuesaday at 6pm pst and 9pm est, Congressman Billybob will interview UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh! Eugene Volokh teaches free speech law, copyright law, the law of government and religion, and a seminar on firearms regulation policy at UCLA Law School. Before coming to UCLA, he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Volokh also worked for 12 years as a computer programmer, and is still partner in a small software company which sells HP 3000 software that he wrote. He...

December 6, 2002, 12:25 p.m. Who’s Right on Second? Living, breathing decisions. By Eugene Volokh omeone asked me a few days ago, after the Ninth Circuit's latest decision about the Second Amendment: Shouldn't courts read the Second Amendment as part of an evolving Constitution? Say the Ninth Circuit was wrong, last year's Emerson decision from the Fifth Circuit was right, and the Framers thought of the Amendment as securing an individual right. Shouldn't judges update it due to the passage of time, based on evolving standards of justice and practicality? 1. Well, here's one way to justify this position: The...

(CNSNews.com) - Seven states do not have clauses in their constitutions allowing citizens the right to keep and bear arms, an attorney and research director of the Colorado based Independence Institute warned Friday at the opening of the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Reno, Nev. Those seven states are Maryland, Iowa, New Jersey, California, Minnesota, Delaware and Massachusetts, according to attorney David Kopel, who in addressing an NRA firearms law seminar, called on members in those states to write their legislators to get such clauses enacted. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution does contain the following language....