For nearly two decades, Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West were the go-to experts who Mississippi law enforcement and prosecutors relied on when there was a potential homicide. Hayne performed the bulk of the autopsies in the state, while West was a dentist who touted his skill in bite-mark analysis and his pioneering use of UV light on human skin to detect trace markings he claimed he could match to objects. But after years of investigations and countless testimonies from the men, their claims of expertise began to fall apart—and wrongful convictions began coming to light.
Mar 7, 2018 8:05 AM CST
Feb 21, 2018 8:00 AM CST
As general counsel for the Teamsters Union Local 810, Mark Torres spends his days arguing for workers' rights. But another of his passions is writing; he published his debut crime novel A Stirring in the North Fork in 2015.
So when he was approached by Hard Ball Press to write a bilingual children's book explaining the importance of labor unions in ways that kids could connect with, Torres agreed. Good Guy Jake (or Buen Chico Jake) tells the story of a sanitation worker who breaks the rules by taking toys from the trash along his route, but for a good reason: He fixes the toys and donates them to a local shelter so that children can have presents at Christmas. When Jake's manager discovers that Jake has been violating regulations, it's up to Jake's union representative, his lawyer and an arbitration judge to determine whether Jake has to lose his job or whether there's a more fitting solution to the problem.
Feb 7, 2018 8:30 AM CST
To Bryan Garner, editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary, Justice Antonin Scalia was a friend, a mentor, a collaborator and a fellow lover of words. In the wake of Scalia’s death on Feb. 13, 2016, Garner reflected back over their relationship, from their first brief introduction in 1988 to the trip they took to Asia together in the last weeks of Scalia’s life. Those reflections turned into his latest book, Nino and Me: My Unusual Friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia.
Jan 17, 2018 8:30 AM CST
You have reason to believe you’re being monitored by the government—that they are following you and cataloging everywhere you go and everyone you talk to. The knowledge haunts you, and it has a chilling effect on everything you do. But can you sue to stop it, or even to find out whether it's really happening?
Jan 3, 2018 10:00 AM CST
In this month’s Modern Law Library, we read a thrilling tale of dueling toymakers, corporate espionage and a group of brats taking on the queen of the Dreamhouse.
Professor Orly Lobel, author of You Don’t Own Me: How Mattel v. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie’s Dark Side, speaks to the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles about how an intellectual property dispute between the maker of Barbie and the creator of Bratz spun into a legal battle that would last more than a decade.
Dec 20, 2017 8:30 AM CST
As a former federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., Paul Butler once worked to put people in prison. Now, he has come to believe that prisons should be abolished.
Dec 6, 2017 8:30 AM CST
One day, there is a knock at the door, and you are handed a letter. The letter lists your friends, your activities, and the possible legal consequences you might face for those activities. The letter also says that you may be the next to be shot—or to kill someone else.
Nov 15, 2017 7:30 AM CST
Richard and Mildred Loving did not set out to be civil rights pioneers. But in 1958, police burst into their home and arrested them for violating the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. Richard was white, and Mildred was not. They were legally married in Washington, D.C., but that did not protect them in Virginia. After years of living in virtual exile from their home state to avoid prison time, the Lovings looked to the courts for relief. And 50 years ago this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court granted that relief in Loving v. Virginia, striking down Virginia's law against interracial marriage and declaring that the freedom to marry is "one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."
Oct 4, 2017 9:15 AM CDT
If you mention a terrorist attack in which a Libyan suitcase bomb brought down an airliner, most people will be quick to remember Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed on Dec. 21, 1988 in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. But there is another, similar attack that happened nine months later, on Sept. 19, 1989.
Sep 6, 2017 8:43 AM CDT
The rights to free speech and freedom of the press were guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. But when it was first passed—and for its first hundred or so years—the First Amendment was not the robust defense we think of today.
Legendary civil rights attorney Floyd Abrams joins the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles to discuss his book The Soul of the First Amendment in this episode of the Modern Law Library.
Aug 3, 2017 11:55 AM CDT
You know after a breakup when your family tells you “the right one will come along?” You begrudgingly take their advice with the proverbial grain of salt because even though…
Jul 24, 2017 4:00 PM CDT
What do lawyers and lexicographers have in common? The main job of both is to determine the meaning of words.
In this episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles talks with Kory Stamper about her work as a lexicographer and editor for Merriam-Webster; her new book, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries; and her position as chief defender of the word "irregardless."
Jul 19, 2017 8:30 AM CDT
In this special mega-episode of the Modern Law Library, the ABA Journal's Lee Rawles speaks with all three finalists for this year's Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction about their novels, careers—and the first time they remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird.
Jul 5, 2017 8:30 AM CDT
In time for the 80th anniversary of one of the most sensational trials in U.S. history, The People v. Charles Luciano, comes a novel so deeply rooted in fact its…
Jul 1, 2017 10:33 AM CDT
Richard Rothstein spent years studying why schools remained de facto segregated after Brown v. Board of Education. He came to believe that the problem of segregated schools could not be solved until the problem of segregated neighborhoods was addressed—and that neighborhoods were de jure segregated, not de facto.
Jun 21, 2017 8:30 AM CDT
Although the Osage Nation had been forced from their ancestral lands by the U.S. government, through shrewd and careful bargaining, they retained the mineral rights to one of the richest oil fields in the world: Osage County, Oklahoma.
But the wealth of the Osage Nation, instead of insuring the prosperity and safety of the tribe, made its members targets for what was later known as the Reign of Terror. The task of solving dozens of murders fell in the 1920s to the newly formed FBI and its young director, J. Edgar Hoover.
Jun 7, 2017 9:21 AM CDT
Almost 30 years before Linda Brown and her parents took on the Topeka Board of Education in Brown v. Board of Education, Martha Lum’s parents Jeu Gong and Katherine sued…
May 17, 2017 8:41 AM CDT
If you are a bystander and witness a crime, should intervention be a legal obligation? Or is moral responsibility enough?
May 3, 2017 8:30 AM CDT
In the 1960s and 1970s, a series of deadly prison riots convinced corrections officials that long-term solitary confinement was the only solution to control the “worst of the worst.” Supermax…
Apr 19, 2017 8:30 AM CDT
