so, SCOTUS struck down dc’s ban on handguns last week, in an opinion likely to create ripples across the country as more gun laws are challenged. an interesting article in the wsj law blog discussed the practical implications of the decision in terms of gun-buying in the city, the upshot of which seemed to be “nothing is going to change quickly.” the immediate reaction in the dc metro area seems to have been a flurry of interest among wannabe hand gun owners who are trying to buy guns in md and va.

given this backdrop (and the wsj interview particularly), a new development in the district caught my eye. the wapo reports that a new gun bill is being introduced by phil mendelson today. the liberalization of the city’s gun laws seems to be happening more quickly than i’d expected, but apparently not quickly (or liberally) enough for some.

alan gura, the attorney who argued against the gun ban before the supreme court, is apparently of the opinion that mendelson’s legislation doesn’t go far enough:

After looking at the draft yesterday, Gura said in an e-mail, “It’s a good start, but there are other issues with the code.”

In particular, he is concerned about the city’s decision to continue a ban on semiautomatic weapons, which he said is unconstitutional.

if i were a writer of very bad puns, i’d say gura was setting himself up for a heller ironic ending.

my friend M from law school had this insight to the heller opinion:

woo, now I can get a gun and shoot birds and puppies!

there’s just something about shooting puppies in our nation’s capitol that feels so patriotic.

yes, folks. that’s our highbrow legal analysis at work. full decision here.

kgf, an occasionally grouchy grammarian (you’ll never catch me saying “i wish i was…” lemme tell you) had this to say about scalia’s dismissal of the “A well regulated Militia…” clause:

the moral of the story is that subordinate clauses are unimportant and should be eliminated from the syntax thereby freeing the next generation from having to learn any grammar beyond text messaging.

LOL.

as a condition of recovering custody of their kids - taken from their homes without regard for due process or less-hostile alternatives, judge barbara walther is requiring that the yearning for zion flds parents

… be photographed, take parenting classes, submit to in-home inspections and remain in Texas during a continuing investigation by state child welfare authorities.

excuse me? i’m confused as to what gives walther the authority to require the parents submit to any of those things - as far as i know, they haven’t been charged with any crimes; does the investigatory power of the texas department of family & protective services extend that far?

i’d read the actual order, but walther’s court doesn’t seem to have an online presence.

(other information in the article disturbs me as well: the department and the judge seem to want to make it as difficult as possible for families to reunite, requiring that parents travel to where their children are, rather than returning the children to them. according to the article, the children are scattered around the state - and texas isn’t small. a comment by the spokeswoman for the department, marleigh meisner, also raises red flags: she mentions “where the children are being held.” held? does the department think they, too, have committed some crime?)

virginia’s attorney general wants to end the recent trend of democratic governors by securing the gubernatorial spot for himself. he’s been distancing himself from kaine’s policies, invokes god and prayer in his richmond times-dispatch columns, and thinks that philip morris is a good corporate citizen.

what a peach.

now he’s appealing the 4th u.s. circuit court of appeals ruling in richmond medical center v. herring that virginia’s abortion law is unconstitutional.¹

that’s just great.
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¹ virginia, that great commonwealth, couldn’t content itself with the right-wing label “partial birth abortion” and came up with the even more inflammatory - and nonsensical - term “partial birth infanticide.” the cliff notes version of the decision is that carhart II, the scotus decision upholding the federal pba ban, hinged on the doctor’s intent to perform a standard d&e vs. an intact d&e; the virginia statute makes no such distinction and therefore is distinguished from carhart II as imposing an undue burden on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion.

ginsburg’s scathing dissent in carhart ii is a must-read - not only does she go after the majority’s opinion, but flays - nay, dismembers - the congressional findings and recitations in the act itself. i think my favorite paragraph (and it’s hard to choose just one) is this:

Revealing in this regard, the Court invokes an antiabortion shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable evidence: Women who have abortions come to regret their choices, and consequently suffer from “[s]evere depression and loss of esteem.” … Because of women’s fragile emotional state and because of the “bond of love the mother has for her child,” the Court worries, doctors may withhold information about the nature of the intact D&E procedure. … The solution the Court approves, then, is not to require doctors to inform women, accurately and adequately, of the different procedures and their attendant risks. Cf. Casey, 505 U. S., at 873 (plurality opinion) (“States are free to enact laws to provide a reasonable framework for a woman to make a decision that has such profound and lasting meaning.”). Instead, the Court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety.

i’m gratified to read that the texas supreme court has ordered the return of the yearning for zion kids to their parents. i’m not crazy about the idea of marrying teenage girls off to older men,¹ but there is that whole freedom of religion thing we’ve had for two centuries. i’d rather freedom from religion, but that’s just me.

in other religious news, the military has suspended a marine (hopefully by his toenails) for proselytizing to iraqis; i just wish they’d do the same to military officers who can’t keep their religious yaps shut when it comes to their own troops.

and go read freakangels. it’s good for what ails ya.
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¹ for a postapocalyptic feminist perspective on flds-style family units, read the gate to women’s country.

reading the paper this morning, i came across something that bothered me. i know, that’s nothing new. it is, in fact, why i’d stopped reading the paper for longer than i care to admit.

what bothered me this morning was this: the d.c. attorney general has fired ten attorneys. the primary motivation for the cuts was to close a budget deficit; the particular attorneys were chosen due to their substandard performance. several of the attorneys are members of a union,¹ which plans to challenge the terminations. the president of the union had this to say about the firings:

“it may be the way things are done at big law firms. i don’t think it’s a good way to run civil service.”

i’m boggling at that statement. it seems to me that big law firms are efficient, successful operations. why wouldn’t you want to run the civil service in the same way? granted, civil servants get paid a fraction of what an associate at a large firm can make, and if we can’t afford pay parity, there should be other inducements to attract the best and brightest to public service jobs. good health care, a decent pension plan, generous vacation benefits, perhaps. but i don’t think lax performance standards should be among them.
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¹ i’m philosophically pro-union, as i believe they rectify the inherent power inequality in the company/worker relationship. being an attorney myself, though, i wonder if attorneys need such assistance - we’re generally a well-educated (or perhaps just overeducated) bunch, capable of making rational decisions and by dint of our J.D., commanding comfortable salaries without the enhanced bargaining power of unions.

that said, i do think that contract attorneys should organize. not necessarily to secure better pay ($35/hour plus overtime isn’t anything to sneeze at, even in dc and nyc), but perhaps for better benefits and to minimize the profiteering of the temp agencies that place them. contract work is essentially white-collar piecework, where the attorneys are kept on a very short leash and working conditions can aggravate a host of chronic health problems. (no joke; just try sitting still for ten to twelve hours a day, staring at a computer screen, clicking clicking clicking away. and remember: these aren’t teenage gamers we’re talking about.)

that said, if contract attorneys were to unionize, it might just speed outsourcing doc review to places like india.

apparently, in texas you can only take kids away from their parents without a court hearing if they’re in immediate danger (however that’s defined).

those 400 FLDS kids? not shown to be in immediate danger, according to the third court of appeals in austin. the grounds for removing the kids were “legally and factually insufficient,” they decided.

the texas department of family and protective services kept insisting that the entire ranch was essentially one household, which gave them grounds to search the whole damn place on the basis of a few unsubstantiated phone calls alleging abuse by a single person against the mystery caller. barbara walther, the trial judge who was presiding over the whole farce, accepted that argument. FAIL, said the third court of appeals, in footnote 10:

10. The notion that the entire ranch community constitutes a “household” as contemplated by section 262.201 and justifies removing all children from the ranch community if there even is one incident of suspected child sexual abuse is contrary to the evidence. The Department’s witnesses acknowledged that the ranch community was divided into separate family groups and separate households. While there was evidence that the living arrangements on the ranch are more communal than most typical neighborhoods, the evidence was not legally or factually sufficient to support a theory that the entire ranch community was a “household” under section 262.201.

hah. not only is 51st district judge barbara walther woefully out of touch (don’t get me started on her “they don’t need to breastfeed” rationale), but she’s also wrong. “The district court is directed to vacate its temporary orders granting sole managing conservatorship of the children of the Relators to the Department.” according to npr, walther has 10 days to comply with the ruling.

the next question: will the FLDS members try to sue the government of texas, the department of family and protective services, or its agents? and could they succeed?

dc is so bent on prohibiting its residents from owning handguns¹ it took the issue all the way to the supreme court.

now the city is going to arm its patrol officers with assault rifles.

while it’s arguably safer to have handguns in the hands of police officers than criminals, i don’t think that necessarily extends to the average law-abiding citizen. i’m left with the thought that this move must be in reaction to a concern (i’d say likelihood, but i haven’t read the transcript of the oral arguments or paid much attention to legal commentators’ opinions on the subject) that the lower court ruling on the dc gun control ordinance will be upheld by the supreme court or remanded to the lower court for a narrower review. “hey! let’s throw MORE high-powered guns at the problem!”

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¹ D.C. CODE §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), AND 7-2507.02

the bush administration believes there’s a terrorism exception to the fourth amendment. the ACLU (and possibly my crim prof) disagrees.

incidentally, i heard yoo justify his legal gymnastics during my 3d year. i wanted to bathe afterwards.

and in the nick of time, too - great flying spaghetti monster, there’s a terminator television series starring summer glau!

too bad it’s on fox.

i’m sure there will be more exclamations of surprise from me (and responses of, “duh, laloca” from my cadre of four devoted readers) as i re-enter the world of the living.

oh, and a word to the wise (or those who would be wiser than me): working 155 hours in 13 days, trying to keep on top of laundry, remembering to eat, finding time to sleep, trying to notice an ongoing home remodel (kitchen - done; laundry room - done; bathroom… er….) is not the way to live one’s life. not even if you’re limiting it to 13 days.

you’re liable to end up in the ER with nervous exhaustion. no kidding. i’ll tell you all about it one day.

the more interesting story is that you get there because your husband, who has been running himself ragged trying to take care of you and not just noticing the remodel, but actually coordinating it, as well as working 13 hour days himself and trying to get a book finished, play with the dog, exercise the ferret, and fill in for a perpetually absent boss… you get there because he spikes a 103 degree fever, has rigors, chills, and a host of other symptoms that make you think he’s got meningitis.

and when you take him to the ER… lo and behold, he’s got meningitis (viral, not bacterial). yay differential diagnosis skills of the MPH. (as opposed to the differential diagnosis skills of the JD, who says to her friend, “you know, your wife is about to file divorce papers on your ass.”)

anyhoo. that’s been doings since the new year. i’m tired and going to sleep.