Posts Tagged ‘London School of Economics’

Missing from the Awlaki memo: Almost everything that really matters

Due process is flexible, in light of the circumstances. But what kind of meaningful trial could U.S. citizen and terror suspect Anwar Awlaki have received if the government were allowed to kill him first, and try him afterwards? Once you concede Awlaki had a due process interest in his life – and one always has a due process interest in one’s life – then a post-deprivation trial must by definition have failed the due process test. That test never yields a result where the amount of due process owed to the private citizen is zero, both before and after deprivation of the due process interest. That’s why death penalty appeals are so long and tortuous: if you don’t get it right before you execute the defendant, there is no opportunity to correct it.

Bonus Baby Befuddlement

Bonus Baby Befuddlement            As a number of commentators have pointed out, the $165 million in AIG retention bonuses that have so preoccupied us all in the last couple of weeks are a mere distraction.  Our economy has huge problems to solve, and the bonuses are neither at the heart of the problems nor, in […]

The Disappeared Trial

Standing by itself, the growing unavailability of summary judgment might tend to increase, not decrease, the number of trials, but it is coupled with another development that leads the other way, what I call “mediation hell.”