LQ points out that we went and saw the Ninth Circuit this morning, where I got into a bit of a tiff b/c they told us we had to get out of line to go put our bags away and then, while I took our bags upstairs, they handed out the tickets to get into the courtroom while I was gone. My friend was nice enough to give me his, and claims that he had the better seat in the overflow room where they projected the arguments onto a big screen, but still...I felt bad taking his ticket. AND they made me throw away my Diet Coke at the door. How hard would it have been to send out an email yesterday that said "No bags allowed. No drinks, even bottled water." I mean, c'mon.
Anyhoo...since M. is taking a nap, and I'm doing Admin homework (which is conveniently located in Blogger apparently), and pretty soon we're about to start in on the Raspberry Vodka, I just thought I'd give a quick update on the courtroom experience this morning.
Judge Tallman was my favorite. He was really quick-witted and didn't hestitate to call the attorneys out on their arguments, but he made some pretty funny jokes too. He was kind of more personable than I thought a federal judge might be, and obviously incredibly smart. All three judges on the panel were great (the other two were Canby and Rawlinson), but he stood out for some reason.
The cases were interesting (3 of the 4 anyway)...I don't think I'm going to talk too much about them...I'll leave that to the real legal scholars. But, the stop-loss case was interesting, and perhaps after M. leaves and I have more time I'll put up my impressions, having been a victim of stop-loss myself. (Here's the info: Appellant's Opening Brief, Government's Brief, Appellant's Reply Brief).
If you're interested, the two line decision on stop-loss is already up.
Since that's probably more actual legally related news than you've ever gotten here before, I want to reassure you that I'm fine (I haven't gone over to the dark side of all law all the time), and in fact am going to wake M. up from her nap right now and start on the vodka. HOORAY FOR VODKA!
