Questions:
- In the last 50 years or so, how many U.S. Supreme Court cases dealt with Fifth Amendment self-incrimination?
- Of the four Court eras covered by the database (Warren, Burger, Rehnquist and Roberts), which court era had the most number of liberal decisions?
- How many cases from Ohio made it to the U.S. Supreme Court?
Answering these types of questions just got easier. Released this week, the Supreme Court Database allows anyone to search, pull up cases, and perform simple analyses. This new database has created quite a stir on the legal blogs. [click to continue…]
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analysis,
supreme court
We watch the movie "Wall Street" as part of my M&A class. Recently, we came to the scene where Gordon Gekko proclaims that greed is good:
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.
A recent paper by Wang & Murnighan (HT: Prof. Ribstein) suggests Gekko may have taken a few economics classes on the side while working his way up through the school of hard knocks: [click to continue…]
According to a report by the Congressional Budget Office, H.R. 3962, the bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought to the House floor last week costs $343 billion less than the bill that it replaced, H.R. 3200. How was this accomplished? [click to continue…]
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CBO,
congressional budget office,
H.R. 3962,
health care financing reform,
health care reform,
health insurance reform,
Nancy Pelosi,
pelosi bill
Let's have some fun! Below is a sampling of haunted courthouses, haunted jails and even haunted libraries. Some of the ghostly apparitions were caught on security cameras or web cams!
Haunted Courthouses
Haunted Jails
Haunted Libraries
Buying a Haunted House?
Can you back out of a deal if you bought a home but then discover it is haunted? Can you get your money back? Well, in New York in 1991 there was such a case, Stambovsky v. Ackley, 572 N.Y.2d 672 (NY App. Div. 1991). It seems that Helen Ackley owned the home and knew that it was haunted. In fact, so did everyone in the neighborhood. Helen enjoyed the ghosts but the new owner, who was from New York City, did not know about the house’s reputation, did not enjoy spending $650,000 for a haunted house and wanted out of the deal. In the end, the court let the potential buyer out of the contract. More information with picture of the home here and here.
The judge had great fun writing the opinion, sprinkling references to ghosts, hauntings, paranormal phenomena, and even the Ghostbusters movie. The opinion begins with…”Plaintiff, to his horror, discovered that the house…” The judge also stated that the “as a matter of law, the house is haunted.” The court opinion is fun to read, is only 6 pages long and can be found here. More about the story here.
Happy Halloween!
Tagged as:
Ackley,
haunted courthouse,
haunted house,
haunted jails,
haunted library,
Stambovsky
But this time it's not because of a technicality. A Pennsylvania judge has been sending children to jail on first-time misdemeanor offenses in order to provide financial support to the for-profit prison company that paid him millions under the table. Can you imagine losing two years of your childhood at the age of twelve for taking your mom's car on a joyride that injured nobody? It's a real crime.
