Jurisprudence

We have lost a civil rights icon and immigration reformer.  The first Latino on the California Supreme Court, Cruz Reynoso, passed away yesterday after a long illness. He celebrated his 90th birthday last weekend. 

Here is a story on Cruz's passing in the Los Angeles Times.

Former California Supreme Court Justice and Professor Emeritus Cruz Reynoso penned an op-ed for PostEverything, a feature of The Washington Post. The piece is titled "I'm Mexican-American, and I was a judge. What Trump is doing is appalling." In it, Reynoso takes on remarks from presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who wishes to disqualify U.S.

On Wednesday, September 23, I presented the annual Anthony Kennedy Lecture at the Lewis & Clark Law School.  The subject of my talk was "Liberty or Equality?", and the topic was Justice Kennedy's majority opinion in the recent Obergefell case, recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

Congratulations to Professor Gabriel "Jack" Chin, whose PrawfsBlawg post "Getting Law Review Fans Out of the Closet: Liptak on Jacobs and Waxman" just won a Green Bag Exemplary Writing Award.

Here's the award winning entry in its entirety, cross-posted from PrawfsBlawg (originally published on October 21, 2013):

Wealth and income inequality have been getting a lot of attention in recent months--at least in the New York Times.

Many commentators and some Republican Senators have been suggesting that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan should undergo particularly rigorous questioning in the Senate because the "paper record" setting out what she believes and stands for is rather thin. This thinness is due in part, say some Kagan detractors, to the fact that she is not, and has never been, a judge.

For years after John Paul Stevens arrived in Washington, Court-watchers across the ideological spectrum typecast him as a “wild card” whose fact-conscious approach led to “maverick” results.