Stories by Mark Pulliam on Southeast Texas Record

We have seen many examples of an “engaged judiciary” at the state court level, and it isn’t always pretty. Advocates of resuscitated constitutional protection for economic liberties—which were demoted to second-class status during the New Deal with the abandonment of the “substantive due process” doctrine in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937)—often argue in favor of a more rigorous standard of judicial review, across the board, when laws are challenged. This heightened judicial role is some

It is not surprising that those at opposite poles of the ideological spectrum generally view public policy issues—and proposed solutions—differently. What is surprising is when conservatives adopt the rhetoric of the Left (along with the accompanying narratives, memes, and canards) regarding a subject as important as criminal justice.

Like unruly schoolchildren using the presence of a substitute teacher as an opportunity to misbehave, in Veasey v. Abbott, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, has sent the jurisprudential equivalent of a spitball at the U.S. Supreme Court knowing that the deadlocked Court would probably take no corrective action.

George Will has enjoyed a long career as a public intellectual, an especially illustrious one for a Right-of-center figure. For over four decades, Will’s commentary has appeared in intellectual magazines and newspapers including National Review, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. He has many books to his name as well as a widely syndicated newspaper column, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1977. A Ph.D. from Princeton, he’s also a familiar talking head on television, often sporting a bow tie

Societal attitudes and mores can and do change dramatically over time, but (aside from Humpty Dumpty) the meaning of commonly understood words does not. Slavery, existing at the Founding, was abolished following the Civil War through the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution. Suffrage, which many states could and did restrict to white men (and literate property owners at that), was eventually extended to blacks and women through the 15th and 19th amendments.

The Jurisprudence of Civil Asset Forfeiture by MARK PULLIAM|Leave a Comment 3 Hand grabbing money bag The seizure by the state of assets connected to crime is a controversial subject. Asset forfeiture’s proponents—mainly law-enforcement agencies—view it as essential to fighting crime (especially the drug trade), because it deprives wrongdoers of the fruits of their illicit activities.

The cowardice of Fisher II suggests that Justice Anthony Kennedy fears another confrontation by the “Wise Latina.”

Groupthink dictates different treatment of “judicial independence.” Judges usually manage to stay out of the news, but two of them in California have been getting lots of national attention lately: U.S.

This column first appeared on Library of Law and Liberty Crumbling infrastructure in Detroit, MichiganCrumbling infrastructure in Detroit, Michigan Ever since people began migrating in large numbers from America’s rural areas to its urban areas in the 19th century, cities have presented unique challenges: sanitation, housing, transportation, education, public safety, and fire protection, to name just a few.

The long-awaited decision from the Texas Supreme Court in the school finance case, Morath v. Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, was issued on May 13, 2016. (The case was argued over eight months earlier.) The court’s jargon-laden 100-page (!) decision can be summarized with this sentence: “Despite the imperfections of the current school funding regime, it meets minimum constitutional requirements.”

In an election season abounding with ironies, one of the strangest is the campaign now being waged by Houston personal injury trial lawyer Jared Woodfill to lead the Republican Party of Texas.

Outrageous persecution by politicized Travis County D.A.’s office finally halted by Texas’s highest criminal court.

This is another post on the races currently underway for three seats on the Texas Supreme Court. I have previously written ... about the race between incumbent Justice Debra Lehrmann and challenger Justice Michael Massengale for Place 3, and the potentially confusing race between incumbent Justice Paul W. Green and challenger Rick Green for Place 5. In this post I discuss the race between incumbent Justice Eva Guzman and challenger Joe Pool Jr. for Place 9.