By K. Michele Hunter

A few weeks ago, jury selection began for the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson’s physician, Dr. Conrad Murray. The Los Angeles Times reported that out of a potential jury pool of 147 LA citizens who indicated they are able to serve on the two-month trial, only three reported that they knew nothing about the case—due, no doubt, to extensive media coverage of the pop-star’s death in 2009 and the accusation of Dr. Murray that followed. This means that the search to find 12 of Murray’s impartial peers in time for the speedy trial he requested, invoking his Sixth Amendment right, is far from over. Read more…

By Tim Huffstutter

Yasir Afifi is an American citizen and a college student in California. Last fall, Afifi took his car in for a routine oil change. The mechanic called him back to take a look at the underside of the vehicle because of a strange discovery. A wire was poking out of the right rear wheel well. The mechanic removed a device, but neither man knew what it was. Afifi posted pictures of it online and asked for help. A couple of days later, six agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) showed up at his apartment door, lights blazing, and demanded the return of their property. The strange device was a global positioning system (GPS) tracking device; the FBI had been surreptitiously following Afifi for anywhere from three to six months. Read more about Afifi here. Read more…

By Anonymous

GPS tracking devices are commonplace in today’s society, but they aren’t just for helping drivers get from one place to another anymore. Police departments across the country are using the devices to catch criminals and solve crimes. The advantages are substantial: they’re cheap, they’re accurate and have a long battery life. But most importantly, they’re effective. In Ohio, officers tracked the car owned by a suspect in a series of armed robberies and were able to catch the suspects after they committed yet another robbery. In Virginia, there were a series of 11 unsolved cases of sexual assault in 6 months. Police had a suspect and were able to monitor his car via GPS to establish ‘hunting behavior.’ This eventually allowed them to physically follow him and intervene as he attacked another woman. The court was clear that the GPS tracking was just one piece of the puzzle, with eyewitness police evidence serving as the basis for conviction. While it may be just one piece, it is an important one that should not be denied to our law enforcement officers. Read about the Virginia Court of Appeals’ decision here. Read more…

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is presenting a number of lectures over the next few weeks. Ranging in topics from the Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings controversy to the little-publicized life of Patrick Henry, these lectures should be quite interesting for anyone interest in American history.

All lectures are in the Hennage Auditorium which is in the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, just a block away from the Wren Building or William & Mary Law School. Admission to the the lectures is included with admission to the museum, which, by the way, is free for William & Mary students and members of the Williamsburg community.

In Defense of Thomas Jefferson

Friday, October 15 at 5:30 p.m.
In this startling and revelatory new book, William G. Hyland Jr. shows not only that the evidence against Jefferson is lacking, but that in fact he is innocent of the charge of having relations with Sally Hemings. “In Defense of Thomas Jefferson” has just been published by St. Martin’s Press and nominated for the Virginia Literary Award for 2020. The book concerns the major historical controversy surrounding Mr. Jefferson, his slave, Sally Hemings and the DNA results. Books available in the Museum Store with book signing immediately following the lecture.

Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution

Wednesday, October 20 at 5:30 p.m.
The problems that plague America today—corporate welfare (bailouts), an out-of-control central bank (the Fed), and skyrocketing public debt were part of a program advocated more than two centuries ago by Alexander Hamilton. He called it “The American System,” but it was really the corrupt system of government that existed in England against which the American Revolution was fought. That is why Thomas Jefferson fought Hamilton and his party every step of the way, as did the next several generations of Jeffersonians. Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo, professor of economics in the Sellinger School of Business and Management at Loyola University in Maryland, discusses his latest book. Copies will be available for purchase in the Museum Store with a book signing to follow the lecture.

Patrick Henry: American Patriot and Prophet

Tuesday, November 9 at 5:30 p.m.
All but forgotten except for his famous liberty-or-death oration, Patrick Henry was the most important Founding Father after George Washington. First to protest taxation without representation, he was the first patriot to call Americans to arms against the British, first to call for a bill of rights, and the first to oppose the creation of a powerful federal government. As a prophet, Henry predicted that the Constitution gave the President power to lead the nation into undeclared wars and Congress unlimited taxing powers. The greatest American orator, lawyer, and humorist of his day, Henry was, in the eyes of many, the real father of this country, having sired eighteen children who gave him seventy-seven grandchildren. Henry’s descendants number for than 100,000 today. Discussing the life of this complex patriot and prophet is the award winning author Harlow Giles Unger, who has written a powerful new biography of Henry entitled Lion of Liberty: Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation. Book signing to follow with copies in the Museum Store.

Last Wednesday our Program Director, Julie Silverbrook, was a featured guest on the Tom Davis Show, a daily radio program on The Tide 92.3 FM in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The recording from Wednesday’s program can be found here.

The Virginia Gazette has an article about the Constitutional Conversations Kick-Off Event:

WILLIAMSBURG — National, state and local political and educational leaders will launch a non-partisan, public conversation on the Constitution in a free program at the Williamsburg Library Theatre at 7:30 p.m on Monday, Sept. 27.

The program is the kick-off for “Constitutional Conversations,” an eight-month long series of programs and discussions on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights intended for all ages.

Speaking during this program will be Rep. Rob Wittman (R-1st VA). Sen. John Miller (D-1st); Del. Brenda Pogge (R-96th); Williamsburg Mayor Clyde Haulman. and Colonial Williamsburg president Colin Campbell. The dean of the William and Mary School of Law, Davison Douglas, will moderate the program.

Read the full story here.

Early today our Program Director, Julie Silverbrook, was a featured guest on HearSay, a daily radio program hosted by Cathy Lewis on 89.5 WHRV-FM in Norfolk, Virginia.

On the program, Julie discussed the Constitutional Conversations program, the effect of civic education in shaping the political discourse in the United States, and the role of citizen lawyers in their communities.

The podcast from Thursday’s program can be found here (podcasts are posted 24-48 hours after the program airs).

The Williamsburg Yorktown Daily included the Constitutional Conversations Kick-Off Event in its blog entry about upcoming events in the community:

Here’s advance notice of the Kick-Off Event of something really special titled “Constitutional Conversations” on Monday, September 27 at 7:30 p.m. at the Williamsburg Library Theatre.

Congressman Rob Wittman (R-1st VA); Dean of the William and Mary School of Law, Davison Douglas; Delegate Brenda Pogge (R-96th VA); Sen. John Miller (D-1st VA); and City of Williamsburg Mayor Clyde Haulman set the stage for an eight-month conversation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. This non-partisan event is a celebration of civic education and active participation in democratic self-governance. Perhaps at no time in recent memory have the intricacies of Constitutional law played such a central role in the everyday happenings of American politics – both in the home and at the highest levels of government.

Beginning in October, the Williamsburg Regional Library and The Institute of Bill of Rights Law at the William and Mary School of Law are presenting a series of conversations about the Constitution and Bill of Rights led by law students and featuring instructional programs for each of the following groups: elementary school students, middle and high school students, and parents. You’re invited to join the effort to start a national conversation about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Eight sessions beginning October 7 and running throughout the year until May 5, 2011.

Read the full blog entry here.

Sanford Levinson, What Should Citizens (As Participants in a Republican Form of Government) Know About the Constitution?, 50 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1239 (2008-2009).

My own interpretation of “citizen lawyer,” however, takes a somewhat different form. Rather than talk about lawyers as good citizens, I want to address instead what knowledge of the legal—and, more particularly, the constitutional—systems we should legitimately expect (and encourage) from our nonlawyer compatriots in the American political community. In part, this reflects a long-term interest of mine in, and in defense of, the capacity of nonlawyer citizens to express themselves cogently on constitutional issues. To use the terminology that I develop in my book Constitutional Faith, I am very much attracted by a “protestant” view of the American constitutional order that rejects the declaration of authority by any given institution—including the Supreme Court–to possess the “last word” on what the Constitution means. My conception of the “Republican Form of Government” that lies at the heart of the Constitution’s self-conception requires an active citizenry that is constantly engaged in internal debate over not only the meaning of the Constitution with regard to those clauses that are indeed ambiguous, but also with regard to the adequacy of those parts of the Constitution that are all too clear in their meaning.

My central point is that students in civics courses should spend at least as much time learning, and arguing about, the questions posed by the hard-wired structures of American government as they do about censorship of student speech, abortion, or affirmative action. It is not that these latter topics are not fun to talk about, at least to people who like to argue, but what students must realize is that the Constitution is fatally indeterminate with regard to all of these latter issues. The actual decisions of courts will inevitably reflect the basic predispositions of the judges themselves, who are capable of finding legitimate constitutional arguments for both A and not-A. The hard-wired Constitution is different. Justice Robert Jackson may have legitimately proclaimed the Bill of Rights to be “majestic generalities,” but no rational person would apply this term to the clause that allocates voting power in the Senate or sets out the specific length of a president’s term of office. Changing those aspects of the Constitution would require far more than electing presidents who will nominate judges whose approach to constitutional interpretation are favorable to flexibility and change. It would ultimately require constitutional amendment, and that in turn requires something we most definitely do not have at present, which is a citizenry (or leaders) that is willing to ask tough questions about the adequacy of the Constitution.

As one hopes is obvious, I do not believe that one needs to be a lawyer to ask (or answer) such questions. But inasmuch as lawyers, for better and worse, play perhaps disproportionate roles as civic leaders, including their participation in such civic rituals as giving speeches on “Constitution Day,” it is essential that those institutions devoted to training American lawyers stop identifying the Constitution with only those very small, frequently litigated parts and instead take far more seriously the task of creating “citizen lawyers” fit to play their roles in civic life.

Read the full article.