Unused and Probably Unusable

To quote another legal epistolary writer (Aaron Streett; the extra T at the end is probably for Terrific), "Greetings, sportsfans!" See here, for the first March issue of his periodic chatty Supreme Court opinion, order and grant roundup. I highly recommend it to all SCOTUS groupies. Prawfsblawg reprints them, but you can get them delivered straight to your inbox by mailing him at the link at the end of that post. Streett, an associate in Baker Botts' Houston office, provides all the inside baseball commentary one could want, in a breezy and entertaining tone. Oh look, there's links to all of them at Baker Botts.

Anyway. Hello to those who enjoy watching athletic events. How's your NCAA tournament treating you? Thought so.

I had an intention to write about Gender and Change in Heinlein's writing. So that'll be my next topic, because I think it's got more juice for me right now than the grim-seeming discussion of war crimes that I had planned. I'd planned to unroll that one in mid-August 2006, and then the topic so disheartened me that I went and did things I felt like doing more instead.

So: forthcoming, a discussion of gender-bending, gender roles, stereotypes, cross-dressing, a bit about sexuality (although that's not the focus), and gender as a mutable characteristic in the works of R. A. Heinlein. Because after all, if I can't write what I feel like, what am I doing out here in the blawgoverse, anyway?

Other posts I'm brewing up: a quick perusal of the controversial No Child Left Behind act, which has been heavily criticized as elevating testing, and particularly apparent improvement in testing, over real education, as well as skewing priorities in educating students - like, how much to test-prep vs. other skills, how much to the bottom quintile vs. the next vs. the next. My favorite example of unhappiness was the NY Times article about an excellent school that had been deemed a failure under NCLB. I might do a more searching review of what's being said about it. Wikipedia now notes in the No Child Left Behind Act article that "a new Congress has already started considering major revisions, as one group of 50 Republican senators and representatives introduced legislation in March 2007 that would provide states much greater freedom from NCLB's controls and punishments." - but as always, trust Wikipedia only so far. How do we KNOW that they introduced such proposed legislation unless we go looking through THOMAS ourselves?

Also, a possible HF post on addiction, and another on wealth and power.

Until next time, that's today's unused & unusable inside baseball! (Again, a tip of the imaginary hat to this guy.)

... and convicts when the case made by the prosecution is "overwhelming" despite having personal sympathy for the defendant. See NYT, March 7, 2007, "Libby Guilty of Lying in C.I.A. Leak Case," Neil Lewis.

One of the 11 jurors who spoke publicly after the verdict said that there was great sympathy for Mr. Libby in the jury room, but that the case presented by the prosecution was overwhelming.

Of course, the line "The verdict meant the end of a nearly four-year investigation into the leak of the identity of the Central Intelligence Agency officer" was quite incorrect. The case isn't even over. The jury's duty has been completed, but as the article makes clear, the action continues.

Counsel for the defendant will file post-trial motions to grant a new trial, and will seek appellate relief when that fails (as is likely). Before that, the sentence needs to be handed down, on June 5. The article quotes uninvolved experts as estimating a Guidelines sentence of 20-27 months, but of course in the brave new post-Booker world, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are advisory, not mandatory. A departure (upwards or downwards) does not have to be justified by extraordinary circumstances. However, most Circuit Courts of Appeal have been far more willing to approve upward departures than downward departures, looking at the latter with great skepticism and reversing such sentences, stating that the sentencing judges did not give adequate reasons for the departure. Upward departures, meanwhile, are routinely approved as being reasonable. Doug Berman of Sentencing Law Prof has done so much good work on the issue that it's unnecessary to marshal up the evidence on one's own. See, for example, this post, in which he notes the Fourt Circuit's reversal of an upward departure:

"This is a noteworthy event in part because it is a rare event," Berman posts.

And for his useful collection of links of interest on those who wish to handicap the Libby sentencing, see here, with "On to Sentencing, Scooter!".

I'm not interested in gloating over Libby's downfall, but I do feel some satisfaction that a felony conviction came out of this investigation into one of the more public and shameful examples of treasonous politics ("So Novak's Talking: Thoughts on the Plame Mess" posted here on 8/1/05) in recent history.