Many RWU Law grads take the Connecticut bar exam and the state bar provides much helpful data that facilitates comparisons between and among regional law schools.
The results for the February exam...
From the Washington Post: "NRA money helped reshape gun law" by Peter Finn
March 13, 2013: In 1977 ... it was ... a wacky notion: that the Constitution confers an individual right to possess a firearm. ...
More than 35 years later, no one is laughing. In 2008, the Supreme Court endorsed for the first time an individual’s right to own a gun in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. ...
For proponents of stricter gun control, the NRA’s encouragement of favorable legal scholarship has been a...
From The Huffington Post: "Second Amendment Lawsuits Expose Rift At The Top Of Gun Rights Movement" by Christina Wilkie
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2013 -- In the insular world of gun rights groups, Alan Gottlieb is a man on the make. Over the past five years, his Bellevue, Wash.-based nonprofit, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), has raced to expand gun rights, building on one of the most significant court rulings in decades. Now, Gottlieb is hoping to open the legal floodgates by litigating...
FROM the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL: “High court weighs sealing of records” by Katie Mulvaney
PROVIDENCE, Oct. 29, 2012: In February 2003, the state police charged Eileen Morrice with obtaining more than $500 under false pretenses. The charge — her first and only — stemmed from the state’s over-calculation of her unemployment payments.
Morrice entered into an agreement with state prosecutors that April in which she admitted the extra money wasn’t rightfully hers. She pleaded no contest, agreed to pay $...
[Read Part 1]
BRISTOL, R.I., Sept. 14, 2012 – After a busy morning, Justice Alito sat down for lunch with RWU Law’s faculty, where Professor Colleen Murphy asked him about the similarities between the law and religion, namely in the importance each institution gives to tradition and ritual.
Justice Alito said tradition and ritual work best when politics are kept out of the mix, and raised the example of the 2010 State of the Union address, in which he was shown on camera mouthing disagreement...
Read the ABA Journal Story
Read the Associated Press Story (in the Boston Globe)
Read the ProJo's "Breaking News" Story
See Video and Story at WPRI Channel 6
Read Story at WJAR Channel 10
See photo gallery at Salt Lake City's Deseret News
BRISTOL, R.I., Sept. 14, 2012 – Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, spent the day at RWU Law Friday, meeting with students, teaching a Constitutional Law class and participating in a “fireside chat” with the...
From the BALKINIZATION Blog: "Why Presidents Cannot Run Against the Court" by Professor Jared Goldstein, Guest Blogger
Saturday, April 14, 2012: With the prospect that the Supreme Court may strike down the Affordable Care Act, many commentators, including Marvin Ammori on this blog, have argued that President Obama should “campaign against the Court.” It is not really a plausible campaign strategy.
Contrary to popular conception, Franklin Roosevelt did not campaign against the Court in...
From RHODE ISLAND LAWYERS WEEKLY: "GPS ruling breaks new ground on privacy rights" by Albert Turco and Kimberly Atkins
February 9th, 2012: After punting on the issue in the past, the U.S. Supreme Court has again waded into the choppy waters of privacy protection in the digital age in a case involving the warrantless use of a GPS device on a suspect’s car.
But while still not ruling on the privacy issue directly, this time five justices gave a strong indication that individuals’ privacy...
From the ABA Journal: "Unknown Knowns: Torture Suits Against Rumsfeld May Revive a 40-Year-Old Liability Case" by Leslie A. Gordon
Feb 1, 2012 - Asked in 2002 whether there was any evidence that Iraq had supplied terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously opined: “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are...
From the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL: "With Justice Breyer presiding..." by Edward Fitzpatrick
BRISTIL, R.I., Oct. 30, 2011 -- Pick your least favorite U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Perhaps it’s Roe v. Wade, or the decisions forbidding prayer in public schools. Perhaps it’s Citizens United, or the decision that effectively handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush.
“What we do affects a lot of people — it might affect you,” Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer said at the Roger Williams...
From PAGE A1 of the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL: "Insight from high court justice" by John Hill
BRISTOL, R.I. (Oct. 27, 2011) - When some look at the job of United States Supreme Court Justice, they think how they could use the power of the high court to make new law. But Stephen G. Breyer, who has had the job for 17 years, said it's more like border patrol.
The role of the court, and the Constitution, is not to tell people how to live their lives, he told two sessions of students at the Roger Williams...
Effect of High Court Ruling Still Unclear in R.I.
By Randal Edgar, Providence Journal, State House Bureau
The experts and pundits are saying Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance will change the landscape on corporate spending in federal elections, but local observers say there are lots of pieces to shake out before it becomes clear what the impact will be in Rhode Island.
[… S]ome observers offered sharp criticism, saying [the ruling] will further pollute the election process —...
