Over the next few weeks I plan to “purposefully avail myself of the benefits and protections” of the library. Kulko v. Superior Court, 436 U.S. 84, 89 (1978). I will attempt to maintain “continuous and systematic ties” with this blog. International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 315 (1945). However, in the event that I cannot maintain such ties, I am confident that by maintaining “minimum contacts” with this blog over the next few weeks, any posts that arise out of said contacts will not offend our “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Id. at 320.

Update: I realize that this isn’t funny for non-law school students (it may not be funny for law school students for that matter). It goes more to my state of mind.

I am reviewing jursidiction for my procedure class. This quote by Justice Stevens, in dissent, put me in stitches for some reason…

It is undisputed that appellee maintained no place of business in Florida, that he had no employees in that State, and that he was not licensed to do business there. Appellee did not prepare his French fries, shakes, and hamburgers in Michigan, and then deliver them into the stream of commerce “with the expectation that they [would] be purchased by consumers in” Florida. Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 487 (1985).

I just got this wonderfully funny picture of someone wearing one of those BK birthday crowns, sending Burgers, Shakes and Fries down the stream of commerce… Oh dear, I think I need to get some more sleep.

I feel like I am hearing the English language for the first time. The following was in the New York Daily News:

A real-estate lawyer who knows both men said the two made an odd pair.

Omansky, he said, is a hard-edged type whose bald head and “Fu Manchcu mustache” give him an imposing look.

Schlosser, whose speciality is finding and structuring property deals for third parties, “looks and comes across like a milquetoast,” he said.

I thought he was calling that dude some kind of breakfast…

I am reading Brogan v. United States, 522 U.S. 398 (1998), wherein the court is deciding whether an “exculpatory no” defense should be allowed in cases where a defendant has made a false statement to the Government. I was intrigued by the court’s use of the word trilemma. Up until this point I had used dilemma to mean “a problem.” I had not thought of it as “a choice between alternative courses of action.” Note below, Scalia’s humorous use of the singular.

He argues that a literal reading of § 1001 violates the “spirit” of the Fifth Amendment because it places a “cornered suspect” in the “cruel trilemma” of admitting guilt, remaining silent, or falsely denying guilt. This “trilemma” is wholly of the guilty suspect’s own making, of course. An innocent person will not find himself in a similar quandary (as one commentator has put it, the innocent person lacks even a “lemma,” Allen, The Simpson Affair, Reform of the Criminal Justice Process, and Magic Bullets, 67 U. Colo. L. Rev. 989, 1016 (1996)). Brogan at 404.

Note from Dictionary.com:

It is sometimes claimed that because the di- in dilemma comes from a Greek prefix meaning “two,” the word should be used only when exactly two choices are involved. Nevertheless, 64 percent of the Usage Panel accepts its use for choices among three or more options.

Also interesting to note - Blogger’s spellcheck tried to change trilemma to “trillion” and MS Word tried to change it to “dilemma” or “trireme.”

Update: I wanted to promote Heidi’s interesting note from the comments -

“Lemma” is actually a word, y’know. It’s used a lot in mathematics. It’s kind of like a theorem, but not as cool. So saying “I have a lemma” is like saying, “I can prove an interesting result.” In other words, you can demonstrate that logically, you must choose that one option.

I just took the speed reading test and scored a surprising 350 wpm. I say surprising because I have always considered myself a fast reader. Apparently I am somewhere between an oral reader and an auditory reader. I am told I need to work on suppressing my sub-vocalization (apparently I am one step away from moving my lips when I read).

via Unfogged

Arrested Development (of early 90s Hip Hop Fame) is suing Fox for trademark infringement. Thomas v. Twentieth Century Fox, No. 03CV10389-4 (DeKalb Super. filed Oct. 16, 2003). In the complaint, the band calls the name of the new sitcom a “confusingly similar imitation” of the band’s name.” Wait a minute… that looks like the “same name” as the band’s name. The funny part is that AD alleges that Fox’s new sitcom is causing “irreparable harm” to the band’s name and reputation.

Ok, guys. I was down with “Tennessee” and “Mr. Wendal” back in the day. But let’s be serious - your reputation has been shot for about a decade. You should hope people get confused…

Via Cicero’s Ghost

Update: Speech had this to say about the law suit - via Launch media:

Fox has no more right to use ‘Arrested Development’ for its show than a band would have to name itself after one of Fox’s sitcoms

According to the article, Arrested Development, which broke up in 1996, has re-united and is currently working on a new album, Among The Trees, which will be released in 2004. I think it is hilarious that this article is on KKYX.com a “Classic Country” radio station’s website.

The Washington Post reports that the Supreme Court is gearing up to wade into the issue of whether prisoners at the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are entitled to access to civilian courts to challenge their open-ended detention.

What’s fascinating about this case to me is the fact that both sides agree that if the detainees were held on U.S. soil, they would be entitled to some constitutional rights. But the Executive branch is using the fact that Guantanamo Bay is not on U.S. soil to claim that under Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950), the U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction to hear any case brought by detainees.

According to the Washington Post:

How to characterize Guantanamo Bay is of such importance because it is clear that noncitizens do have certain constitutional rights if they are within United States territory. On the other hand, the court has frequently invoked the Eisentrager precedent, even out of its wartime military context, to stand for the proposition that outside the territorial reach of the United States, aliens have no such rights.

The brief filed for the Britons and Australians by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a liberal public interest law firm in New York, told the court that “we alone exercise power at Guantanamo Bay” and that the base should therefore be treated for jurisdictional purposes as part of the United States. In the administration’s view, not only is that conclusion incorrect but it is not one that the court is free to make. The determination of sovereignty over a particular territory is “not a question on which a court may second-guess the political branches,” Solicitor General Olson said in his brief.

The court seems a little hot and bothered by the audacity of the Executive branch. The Post notes:

It was evident on Monday that this, too, was a question on which the justices want to have the final word. That conclusion emerged from a comparison of how the administration phrased the question presented by the two cases with how the justices phrased it in their order granting review. Solicitor General Olson said the question was whether the federal courts had jurisdiction to decide the legality of detaining “aliens captured abroad in connection with ongoing hostilities and held outside the sovereign territory of the United States at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.”

The Supreme Court, by contrast, said it intended to decide the jurisdiction of the courts to hear challenges to “the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.” The court’s question incorporated no assumption about whether the base was or was not “outside the sovereign territory of the United States.”

I am working on my memo for my pass / fail Lawyering class. I find it amazing that I always end up working harder and longer on assignments for this class than my graded courses. I think it has something to do with the fact that I feel as if I am accomplishing something when I write for this class. It’s hard to know if you are on the right track in, say, contracts since your only feedback on whether you are learning the material comes at exam time. Lawyering provides me with a sense of how far I have come.

My memo is starting out much like Heidi Bond’s. But sadly, unlike Heidi, I don’t even have a clear enough understanding of the issue to offer an emphatic “Hell No!” to the client.

II. Question Presented
Does 18 U.S.C. §1001 govern the making of staments to the federal government that will more than likley be false in the future?

III. Short Answers
Probably not?

IV. Discussion (long answer)
I am pretty sure probably not?

I have got a long way to go tonight.

There is an interesting article in this month’s Fast Company about how Mapquest gathers its data. There are actually people who drive around all day long recording details about various roads and routes. Shocking… I couldn’t think of another way to do it, but it seems so… so tedious.