
China Daily reports that on November 5 internet service was restored in Xinjiang.
Image: China Daily - President Hu Jintao visiting the region in August 2009
Commentaries on law, language, and politics




The Chinese courts seem to be using rules of thumb: the most egregious offenders get the most severe punishment, and the scale slides down. This has a surface appearance of fairness. Defense attorneys in capital cases will doubtless recognize the futility of a direct assault and will have to focus on the arbitrariness of the imposition of death sentences. For example - in the SanLu cases "substantial certainty" that someone will die sufficed. In the Xinjiang cases some killers were executed and others spared.
The guidelinesissued by the Supreme People's Court in drug cases make distinctions based on quantity, whether children were involved, etc. But looking across the range a coherent pattern does not emerge: some who personally killed are spared; others who risked grave or fatal harm to others are not. Such divisions may be ground which Chinese capital defense lawyers can till. - GWC

Dean Wade's reluctance to put a full panoply of risk-utility factors before lay jurors may well be justified, but the reality is that, in design cases, jurors will be charged with the duty to make an informed evaluation concerning design reasonableness, and the trial courts will be responsible to provide the jurors sufficient guidance to accomplish this task. Cf. George W. Conk, Compared to What? Instructing the Jury on Product Defect under the Products Liability Act and the Restatement (Third) of Torts, 30 SETON HALL L. REV. 273, 277 (1999):
"The quality of decisions will be better served if jury instructions invite the presentation of evidence and spur arguments that evoke the full vibrancy of the moment of design for the jury (and the court it assists). The clamor of the competing considerations in the good and prudent designer's mind should be heard in the courtroom and in the jury room.".
Bugosh v. I.U. N. Am., Inc., 971 A.2d 1228, 1248 (Pa. 2009)
Images: Justice Saylor, me


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According to research by the political scientist Larry Bartels, presidents running for re-election have benefited when economic growth occurred late in their terms rather than at the start.Democrats running in 2010 have no such consolation, however, and if they lose effective control of Congress, much of the promise of Obama’s presidency may be lost too. A little presidential impatience now would be a good stimulus in itself.


It is the Court's opinion that the negligence of the Corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MRGO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness. ... The Corps had an opportunity to take a myriad of actions to alleviate this deterioration or rehabilitate this deterioration and failed to do so. Clearly the expression "talk is cheap" applies here.



LECTURETHE ROBERT L. LEVINE DISTINGUISHED LECTURE OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO IMMIGRANT REPRESENTATION: EXPLORING SOLUTIONS DEEPENING THE LEGAL PROFESSION’S PRO BONO COMMITMENT TO THE IMMIGRANT POOR REPORT OF SUBCOMMITTEE 1: INCREASING PRO BONO ACTIVITY
REPORTS OF SUBCOMMITTEE 2: ENHANCING MECHANISMS FOR SERVICE DELIVERY
REPORT OF SUBCOMMITTEE 3: ADDRESSING INADEQUATE REPRESENTATION | |||||||||