I am happy to have joined an
amicus brief together with several other constitutional law professors (including fellow MOJ writers Rick, Robby, and Michael P.) -- but written by Doug Laycock and some excellent lawyers in Austin, Texas -- in
Stormans v. Salecky, an interesting case currently being litigated in the Western District of Washington and the Ninth Circuit. The case concerns the free exercise rights of several pharmacists at small pharmacies who have religious conscience objections to dispensing Plan B emergency contraception, and who are being compelled to do so by the Washington State Board of Pharmacy's regulations requiring all pharmacies to dispense certain drugs, without exception. I am particularly keen on the description in the brief of
Smith and
Lukumi-Babalu as representing a kind of range of general applicability -- the idea being that many cases will fall somewhere between those two points. That's nifty, because one often sees
Lukumi instead described as an "exception" to the
Smith "rule," which has different connotations and implications. You can read more about the case in Judge Leighton's most recent
opinion.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Ron Colombo has a new piece (with a superb title) on the religious free exercise rights of corporations. Agree or disagree, the article is both provocative and timely, as it relates to some of the religious freedom controversies currently vexing courts.
ADDENDUM: See also this interesting post by Michael Helfand related in part to the issue of conscience rights of for-profit organizations.
I wanted to call a little attention to this
event in New York City on November 15 sponsored by Covenant House, in which my friend Jim Horvath will be participating.
Covenant House does very good and needed work on behalf of homeless, abandoned, and abused youngsters.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Here's something nice on the occasion of All Saint's Day: a second entry (much delayed) in the classical religious musical canon. Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Vespers," or "All-Night Vigil," is a collossal achievement; my buddy Mark Movsesian introduced me to this masterpiece of Russian Orthodox music, and it's a lovely, holy, ghostly thing to listen to and think on in the quiet of the night. I hope you enjoy this version of my favorite -- #5 ("Nunc Dimittis"), and especially the ending in the deeps of the deep.
Via our friend Steve Smith (and the Institute for Law and Religion at the University at San Diego that he co-directs with Larry Alexander), here's a debate between Rick and Andy Koppelman. The subject of the debate: “Is Religious Freedom in America at Risk?” Professor Koppelman is clearly in a feisty, debating mood, as readers may remember that he took on Mike Paulsen over here at St. John’s a few weeks earlier. You can view the USD debate here.
Monday, October 29, 2012
I've posted a new essay, The Punishment Jurist, a short critical history of the thought of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, whose manner of expression is as furiously powerful as the wind of a hurricane. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
Monday, October 22, 2012
Warm congratulations to Rob for his new book, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Morality of Legal
Practice: Lessons in Love and Justice, to be published by Cambridge University Press next month. Rob's work at the intersection of religion, morality, and legal ethics has represented a unique and important contribution to the field over the years, and this book (whose introduction I remember seeing a few years back) promises more of the same. Here's the abstract:
This book seeks to reframe our understanding of the lawyer's work by exploring how Martin Luther King Jr. built his advocacy on a coherent set of moral claims regarding the demands of love and justice in light of human nature. King never shirked from staking out challenging claims of moral truth, even while remaining open to working with those who rejected those truths. His example should inspire the legal profession as a reminder that truth-telling, even in a society that often appears morally balkanized, has the capacity to move hearts and minds. At the same time, his example should give the profession pause, for King's success would have been impossible absent his substantive views about human nature and the ends of justice. This book is an effort to reframe our conception of morality's relevance to professionalism through the lens provided by the public and prophetic advocacy of Dr. King.
Friday, October 19, 2012
In an earlier comment thread involving the contest between original meaning and original intent and the
question whether there continue to be intentionalists out there swimming against the tide (do see Patrick Brennan's very good piece responding to Lee Strang's fine work), Jeff Pojanowski kindly called my attention to Richard Ekins's work on intent-based theories of interpretation.
I want now to note that Professor Ekins's new book, The Nature of Legislative Intent, has just been issued by Oxford University Press. I haven't gotten hold of a copy yet, but you can see a little bit of the book here. I'm really looking forward to this one, especially the chapter on joint intention and group agency which may well have broader application beyond the constitutional interpretive issue (always got criminal law on the brain...).
