In an earlier posting, Rick Esenberg expressed his opposition to recent George Soros-sponsored efforts to devise a plan to circumvent the operation of the Constitution’s venerable Electoral College.
The “problems” with the Electoral College are well-known. Its “winner-take-all” feature supposedly distorts the electoral process, and on four occasions (1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000), it has chosen a president who received fewer popular votes than one of his opponents.
Debates over the future of the Electoral College often assume that there are only two options: scrap the institution altogether or else accept that it will continue to operate as it has in the past. Scraping the Electoral College is usually assumed to require a constitutional amendment, although the Soros plan would actually leave the Constitution unchanged but seek to bind electors to cast their votes for the candidate with the largest national popular vote regardless of the results in their particular state.
There is an alternative, however, that would make the results of the Electoral College more democratic but would leave the Constitution unchanged.
Although it has long been the practice that individual states award ... Read more..
Archive for February, 2010
It is unlawful for any licensed dealer, manufacturer, or importer willfully and intentionally to request criminal history record information under false pretenses, or willfully and intentionally to disseminate criminal history record information to any person other than the subject of such information. Any person convicted of a violation of this prohibition commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided by statute. Moreover, any licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer or any employee or agency thereof who violates the above provisions commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided by statute. Any person who knowingly acquires a firearm through purchase or transfer intended for the use of a person who is prohibited by state or federal law from possessing or receiving a firearm commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided by statute.
There is a mandatory three-day waiting period, excluding weekends and legal holidays, between the purchase and the delivery at retail of any handgun. It is a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided by statute (1) for any retailer, or any employee or ... Read more..
Although there is authority holding that self-defense is not a viable defense to a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, it has also been held that there may be circumstances under which a convicted felon's possession of a firearm would be justified. According to this latter view, a convicted felon's temporary possession of a firearm does not constitute a crime if the following five circumstances are present:
(1) defendant is in present, imminent, and impending peril of death or serious bodily injury, or reasonably believes him- or herself or others to be in such danger;
(2) defendant must not have intentionally or recklessly placed him- or herself in a situation in which it was probable that he or she would be forced to choose the criminal conduct;
(3) defendant must not have any reasonable, legal alternative to possession of the firearm;
(4) the firearm must be made available to defendant without preconceived design; and
(5) defendant must give up possession as soon as the necessity or apparent necessity ends.
Necessity or justification may constitute a valid ... Read more..
Lindsey Draper recalls that when he was a student at Marquette Law School, he would sometimes pause to look at photos of previous graduating classes. He would have a hard time spotting anyone who was African American like him.
As Draper (L ’75) looked out at about 50 people, many of them African Americans who are current law students, in Eisenberg Hall Wednesday evening, he agreed that the situation, not only in the Law School but across the American scene, has improved for black people in recent decades.
But Draper, who went on to be an assistant district attorney and a court commissioner in Milwaukee County, and three other community leaders emphasized how far things still have to go before it can be rightly said that America has become a “post-racial” society. The four took part in a panel discussion on the state of black America sponsored by the Black Law Students Association.
There are still gaps, huge and small, between the opportunities and circumstances of white and black people in the United States, the panelists agreed. The election of Barack Obama as ... Read more..
There may be no crying in baseball, but there are plenty of fights that occur both on and off the field.
Take the owners of the LA Dodgers, Frank and Jamie McCourt. The couple filed for divorce in October 2009 and they continue to battle out their complicated issues in the courts.
After 30 years of marriage, Jamie McCourt filed for divorce from her husband in which she cited irreconcilable differences. Since then the power couple has fought over ownership of the Dodgers and other assets.
According to an article in Read more..
