Football is here! (Almost)

With professional and college football training camps upon us, the time has come to start the pre-season hype. (What does this have to do with news media and law? Nothing, but it's my blog. Besides, it's a slow news day.)

The University of Southern California kicks it off with a disputed claim that its team was national champion. No, we're not talking about 2003 and the debate over USC and LSU; this is the all-important issue of who won the title in 1939, when there were no fewer than 13 ratings services picking national champions. If you think the BCS is bad, imagine a system where there were three national champions in a single year.

In other football-related news, USC quarterback Matt Leinart has started a weblog. (Maybe BYU's quarterback could do the same thing. Would that be newlywed John Beck? Or incumbent Matt Berry? Or J.C. recruit Jason Beck? Or new scholarship recipient Jackson Brown? Or even Elder Ben Olson?)

The one thing I know for sure is that USC punter Tom Malone will not win the Heisman Trophy, even though a website has been created to trumpet his candidacy: Tom "The Bomb" Malone For Heisman.

Finally, the Deseret Morning News sponsored a "Night With [Utah Coach] Urban Meyer" at Rice-Eccles yesterday. I guess everybody loves a winner; after all, nobody's asked Gary Crowton to lead a pep rally lately.

Senator Bennett numbers the media

According to the office of U.S. Senator Bob Bennett, there are not only four Utah television stations and six daily newspapers but also 29 weekly and bi-weekly newspapers. See the Senator's "News Sources" page for a list and the links.

Insights on case of missing woman

In "What if Lori is never found?" Stephen Hunt of The Salt Lake Tribune deftly analyzes the legal issues involved in a potential murder prosecution where (a) no body is found and (b) a woman is pregnant. It's nice to see that some journalists take the time to understand the law, greatly increasing their credibility and utility to readers.

BYU eco-vandalism

"Activist admits setting fire," in today's Deseret Morning News, frustrated me because it failed to say in which city the suspect lived. I discovered the city by reading "Provo resident suspected in BYU's Ellsworth farm fire" on BYU's NewsNet. The writer of the latter story, however, seemed a little shaky on the difference between federal and state courts.

Wannabe historians

Journalists love to play amateur historians, and anniversaries usually present perfect opportunities. The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News, however, did not avail themselves of the opportunities afforded by the calendar yesterday. July 26 not only represents the symbolic beginning of the Cuban revolution under Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in 1953, but it also marks 14 years since the first President Bush signed the Americans With Disabilities Act into law, as detailed in The (St. George) Spectrum story, "St. George celebrates Disabilities Act."

'New' Trib drives writer away

Will Bagley, author of the "History Matters" column in The Salt Lake Tribune the last four years, announced he is parting ways with the Trib because (1) his boss wouldn't give him a raise, (2) his editors didn't think he was funny and (3) new owners and managers from MediaNews Group stifled him as if he were "a freethinker in a BYU Gospel Doctrine class."

Collaboration (and conflict)

Journalists and lawmakers got together at this week's National Conference of State Legislatures in Salt Lake City to discuss what they like and don't like about their relationship. The Deseret Morning News published the results today in "Lawmakers, media discuss do's, don'ts." Utah House Speaker Marty Stephens said Utah journalists' coverage has generally been pretty good -- with one exception. The story quoted Stephens:

"One of the major newspapers in town, however, has an (anti-Legislature) agenda. We've seen it for years," Stephens said. "And it is unfortunate."

Would that be an anti-legislature bias or just adherence to the idea that the job of a newspaper is to be a government watchdog?

Turning tables in Chicago

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley yesterday accused the Chicago Tribune and its parent company of "hid[ing] the news" that chunks of concrete have been falling off Wrigley Field, narrowly missing several fans. Wrigley is the home of the Chicago Cubs, which are owned by Tribune Company. A Tribune representative said that "[w]e report on the Chicago Tribune and Tribune Co. just as vigorously as we report on anything else[,]" but this story in today's Tribune buried the mayor's charges amid several other goings-on at City Hall.

I recently discussed the Tribune's efforts to cover itself here.

Reporting on the reporters

I've never been a big fan of the type of story that appeared in today's Deseret Morning News, headlined "Disappearance draws national media." It smacks of an unsophisticated "Hey, look! We're somebody!" attitude.

This particular story had some other curious quirks. First, a representative of ABC's "Good Morning America" said she was in Utah "to help find Lori [Hacking]." I'm not sure what that means, and the TV program does not discuss its own role in "helping" the search in its story, "Husband Considered a 'Person of Interest.'" Second, the story quoted a representative of Fox News Channel who compared the Lori Hacking disappearance to the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart, who was later found. The article then states:

The Smart story came to such an unbelievable conclusion that some members of the media were now wondering if that could happen again, she said.

So what we have is a bunch of journalists roaming around Salt Lake City saying they want to help find a missing woman while interviewing each other about all kinds of wild conjecture and crazy comparisons. Tell me again just what the drafters of the Constitution were thinking with that "press clause" thing?

'Thurmond Rule' may doom Griffith

Democrats in the Senate are invoking a rule named after the late Senator Strom Thurmond to argue that none of President Bush's appointees (including BYU general counsel Tom Griffith, appointed to the D.C. Circuit) to the federal courts should be confirmed in this election year after either (a) July 1, (b) July 4, or (c) the date of the first major political party convention.

In "Griffith to miss Demos' deadline," the Deseret Morning News details that Utah Senator Orrin Hatch disputes that a Thurmond Rule exists. Interestingly, the story states that a confirmation hearing on Griffith had been scheduled for this week, but Hatch said it was canceled because the American Bar Association did not have its assessment of Griffith's nomination finished. "The Hill" also provided coverage of senators' discussion of the Thurmond Rule.

Utah Supreme Court: No guns at work

Yesterday the Utah Supreme Court affirmed a district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of America Online (AOL), which fired three employees from its Ogden call center for transferring firearms from one car to another in AOL's parking lot. The employees, who were off duty, were headed to a gun range for target practice.

The employees, represented by Mitch Vilos, author of "Utah Gun Law II: Pancho's Wisdom," argued that because they had a legal right to possess firearms, they could not be fired at AOL's will due to the public policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine.

The court, in an opinion written by Justice Ronald Nehring, agreed that the right to bear arms has an "impressive constitutional and statutory pedigree" under Utah law. However, the court said, the Utah Legislature "has purposefully declined to give the right to keep and bear arms absolute preeminence over the right to regulate one's own private property."

Coverage of the opinion appears in "Justices uphold AOL's gun rules" in The Salt Lake Tribune and "Justices uphold guns ruling" in the Deseret Morning News. Of the two very similar headlines, the News' is technically correct because the appellate court here exercised its jurisdiction to review the action of the district court rather than reviewing AOL's rules in the nude.

Simply remarkable commentary on Bybee

Lincoln Caplan, editor and president of Legal Affairs magazine, wrote an unbelievable op-ed piece, headlined "Lawyers' Standards in Free Fall," in today's Los Angeles Times. Among the piece's conclusions is that BYU Law School graduate and Ninth Circuit Judge Jay Bybee "is now unlikely to ascend to the Supreme Court" because he was connected with the infamous torture memo. Nothing against Judge Bybee, but I think he was unlikely to be nominated for the Supreme Court even before the furor over the memo. After all, the man is barely 50 years old and has been on the Ninth Circuit less than two years.

For a long time, it was the conservatives who decried falling standards, but I guess turnabout is fair play.

The case of the missing truck

Utah Supreme Court Justice Jill Parrish began the recent opinion in Mahana v. Onyx Acceptance Corp. with this rather fascinating paragraph:

This appeal arises from a dispute over the rightful ownership of a 1994 Mazda pickup truck. Shortly after purchasing and financing the truck in California, the purchasers disappeared and defaulted on their loan payments. The truck surfaced in Arizona, where it was sold several times. It then made its way to Utah, where nineteen-year-old Chris Mahana purchased it from Rick Warner Toyota. Three years later, after learning that the truck was in Utah, the entity that had financed the original California purchase, Onyx Acceptance Corporation ("Onyx"), hired GLS Recovery Services, Inc. ("GLS") to repossess it. GLS removed the truck, along with personal items of Mahana's located inside, from the parking lot of a Home Depot store where Mahana was working.

Bottom line: the Supreme Court affirmed the district court judgment in favor of Mahana and Rick Warner, who received approximately $11,000 in compensatory damages for loss of use of the truck and $25,000 in punitive damages.

Judicial discipline

Does the Utah Constitution require that notice of disciplinary action taken against state court judges be made public? That's the implication in "Utah to change rules on judicial discipline" in today's Salt Lake Tribune. The story refers to a footnote in the Utah Supreme Court's opinion in In re Inquiry Concerning Judge Joseph W. Anderson. The footnote states:

Although the Judicial Conduct Commission has made extensive use of what it refers to as informal, or private, reprimands, we find no basis in the constitution for such a sanction. In fact, doing so has generally prevented both the public, and sometimes this court, from gaining any meaningful awareness of the extent and nature of judicial misconduct, if any, occurring within the judiciary. Should the Judicial Conduct Commission feel that no public sanction is warranted, dismissal of the complaint with a warning, or on conditions of no further misbehavior, may serve the same laudable purpose of correcting troubling but relatively minor misbehavior without offending the language of the constitution.

I say let the sunshine in. Opening up the process and results of judicial discipline would be a good thing for the people of Utah.

Trib covering Ninth Circuit

"Statements questioned: Writings for Bush's choice for 9th Circuit show his bias, some say," appeared in today's Salt Lake Tribune. The story reviews the opposition to Ninth Circuit nominee William G. Myers, whose critics contend his representation of ranchers spilled over into anti-environmentalism.

Chicago Tribune narrowly avoids disaster

Today's Chicago Tribune is the newspaper that almost wasn't, as revealed in "Computer problems delay today's Tribune." I haven't seen it yet, but I'm guessing it won't be long before the Tribune's chief competitor, the Sun-Times, is all over this story.

Interestingly, the Tribune writer who covered his own paper's $1 million mishap was remarkably candid:

The high-profile foul-up was the latest in a series of misadventures that have plagued Tribune Co.

Early in the summer, the media company unsettled investors by disclosing that revenue and earnings would fall short of management's earlier projections.

More recently, two Tribune Co. papers, Long Island, N.Y-based Newsday and the New York edition of the Spanish-language daily Hoy, admitted that they had overstated circulation. Such overcounts cause a paper's advertisers to overpay, and Tribune Co.'s second-quarter earnings were blighted by a $35 million charge to cover settlements with unhappy advertisers.

Covering themselves as aggressively as they cover everyone else is key to journalists' credibility. Perhaps the Tribune is used to covering its ownership, given that Tribune Company owns not just news media organizations but also the Chicago Cubs.

Goldsmith, finally

"Sentencing rules face high scrutiny in wake of ruling," in today's Salt Lake Tribune, provides perspective on Blakely implications. I was wondering when a Utah journalist would get around to interviewing BYU law professor Michael Goldsmith, a former member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Trib reviews justices

"New justices start track record with tough decisions," in today's Salt Lake Tribune, accuses the five justices of the Utah Supreme Court of agreeing too much. The article notes that 94 percent of cases involving all five justices since Justice Jill Parrish and Justice Ronald Nehring joined the court a year ago have resulted in unanimous decisions.

Blakely analyzed

Dahlia Lithwick of Slate has a very insightful journalistic analysis of the Supreme Court decision in Blakely v. Washington and its fallout in "No-Good Lazy Justices." She agrees with (and states much more eloquently) the point I made in my post on Wednesday, "Let the judges fulfill their constitutional role." Lithwick's jurisprudence essay prominently features Judge Paul Cassell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.

MediaNews orders changes at Trib

In order to get the Salt Lake Tribune in line with its other newspapers, MediaNews Group has dictated that the Trib change its Web page design. This cryptic explanation, "Trib site launches on new system," states only that MediaNews mandated the change and that "[c]hanging the site back is not an option, so don't bother suggesting it." I don't think the Trib sufficiently explained the change.

Surprisingly, Bybee is Bush's kind of judge

Professor Marjorie Cohn of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego holds up Jay Bybee as an example of her point in yesterday's editorial "Bush's Judges: Right-Wing Ideologues," posted on truthout.

Excellent analysis

For an insightful story analyzing the effect on academic freedom of the University of Utah's new policy accommodating students' religious beliefs, read Dennis Romboy's "U. policy raises concerns" in today's Deseret Morning News. This is the kind of work one would expect from the best large-circulation newspaper reporter in Utah.

Pathetic

Holly Mullen followed the rather pathetic Salt Lake Tribune party line in her column, "An uneven application of ethics," today on golfer Todd Miller's decision not to play in last Sunday's Utah State Amateur finale. She's way out in left field with this line about the Utah Golf Association, which is not a government entity: "A conflict of church and state in the making? No worries." Sounds like somebody needs a refresher on both constitutional law and ethics.

Triumph of the right not to speak

Christina Axson-Flynn and the University of Utah reached a settlement, as reported in this Associated Press story.

Let the judges fulfill their constitutional role

Covering ground the Watchdog traveled yesterday (here and here) The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News have updates this morning on the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing regarding Blakely. The Trib says "Hatch exploring a 'fix' for sentencing turmoil." This is a terrible story because it does not say what that "fix" will involve. The News, however, in its "Sentencing angst deepens," cryptically describes Hatch's plan:

Hatch said conservatives and liberals are working on a temporary fix to get around the problem by technically raising the top of all normal sentencing ranges to the maximum allowable by law. It would likely sunset in a year or two and allow exploration of other potential solutions.

There is something that apparently the senators and the news media are ignoring: Article III of the Constitution vests the judicial power of the United States in the Supreme Court and inferior courts established by Congress. The judicial power extends to all cases in law and equity arising under the laws of the United States. Thus, despite the differing interpretations of district judges on Blakely's effect on the federal sentencing guidelines, federal judges should be trusted to carry out their constitutionally appointed role.

Sen. Hatch weighs in on Blakely

In his statement at this morning's Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, Senator Orrin Hatch took a few not-so-veiled shots at judges, (such as Judge Cassell?), who "might view Blakely as an opportunity to selfishly garner judicial power ..."

Senator Hatch also took note of the intra-district split within the District of Utah, which I chronicled here.

Corrections

This story, "40 Years Later, Civil Rights Makes Page One," in today's New York Times, contains the following (fictitious) newspaper correction:

It has come to the editor's attention that The Herald neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission.

In that vein, perhaps Utah newspapers should consider making corrections for things they have omitted. How about The Salt Lake Tribune and believers? Or the Deseret Morning News and non-believers? Or the (Provo) Daily Herald and anything that goes on outside Utah Valley?

Judge Cassell the law professor

Befitting a law professor, Judge Paul Cassell has produced a thorough and scholarly analysis of district court approaches to Blakely. In prepared testimony for this morning's hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Cassell stated that the district courts have not been thrown into utter chaos by Blakely, but he did hint that some guidance from Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court should be forthcoming.

Three district judges, three approaches to Blakely

Underscoring the nationwide furor that has erupted since the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely v. Washington on June 24, the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah now has three interpretations of what the case means, given by three different judges.

Judge Paul Cassell's opinions in United States v. Croxford have attracted nationwide attention and already have spawned whisperings that Judge Cassell should be elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Judge Cassell believes the federal sentencing guidelines are unconstitutional in their entirety in light of Blakely, but he nevertheless considers the guidelines as persuasive authority in imposing sentences. Judge Cassell is testifying this morning before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Judge Ted Stewart continues to apply the federal sentencing guidelines, minus the upward departure provisions, as explained in United States v. Montgomery.

Meanwhile, as detailed in today's Salt Lake Tribune, Judge Dee Benson does not believe the sentencing guidelines are unconstitutional in light of Blakely.

Media sheep

Television golf analyst and former PGA pro Johnny Miller hit the nail on the head in today's Salt Lake Tribune when he said of us journalists: "We're all a bunch of sheep." Miller referred to the fact that the 106-year-old Utah State Amateur golf tournament's practice of holding its finale on Sunday had not previously been challenged.

The Deseret Morning News coverage of Johnny Miller's comments can be found at "Johnny takes aim at UGA."

Is there an echo in here?

I'm guessing that Kurt Kragthorpe of The Salt Lake Tribune and Mike Sorensen of the Deseret Morning News did not engage in collusion, but their columns today on BYU golfer Todd Miller's withdrawal from the Utah State Amateur because he didn't want to play on Sunday are remarkably similar. Kragthorpe's column is "Miller should have spoken up sooner" and Sorensen's is "Timing was bad on Miller's stand."

This is evidence of what I have suspected for some time: Despite their claims of editorial rivalry, the Trib and News are, in many ways, the same newspaper. If anyone is still under the delusion that the Newspaper Preservation Act, which sanctioned the joint operating agreement between the Trib and News, actually preserves rather than destroys editorial diversity, read the columns of Kragthorpe and Sorensen. Perhaps if the two newspapers weren't granted an exemption from federal antitrust laws, true competition and editorial diversity could thrive.

No sympathy here

I have no sympathy for the Utah State Amateur officials who are criticizing BYU golfer Todd Miller for forfeiting today's final round in match play in order to observe the Sabbath. The Salt Lake Tribune ("Miller withdraws; Rustand gets title") and Deseret Morning News ("A Sabbath stand") both covered the story. The News made the error of misspelling the name of the church that is its owner. The name should be The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Trib sin of omission

I think The Salt Lake Tribune erred in this story, "Email promises more havoc at BYU," in not disclosing whether the Trib passed the message it received about threatened vandalism on to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Full disclosure is always the best approach.

Judge Cassell

A very timely (and somewhat interesting) profile on Judge Paul G. Cassell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah appeared in today's Deseret Morning News. My earlier post on Judge Cassell's recent foray into the national news appeared here.

Reader advocate on Iraq, blogs

Salt Lake Tribune reader advocate Connie Coyne wrote today:

I am sure there is no newspaper in the country that is "telling the truth about what's going on in Iraq."

No, she's not agreeing with the reader "who complained that The Salt Lake Tribune is 'prejudiced for President Bush and is not telling the truth about what's going on in Iraq.'" Rather, Coyne says, journalists in Iraq have restricted access due to safety concerns and thus cannot tell the real story.

I'm not sure Coyne's premise is correct. Relatively speaking, the Iraq conflict has been subjected to more and better news coverage than any other armed conflict in history. Witness, among other examples of fine journalism, the acclaimed book, Generation Kill, by embedded journalist Evan Wright. I didn't particularly care for Coyne's story about blind people and elephants, either.

Coyne then goes on to define weblogs in a rather quaint way:

These Weblogs are the ruminations of Internet-savvy folks of all kinds who periodically sit at their keyboards and unload (it seems) everything that passes through their minds. A "blog" is the site in cyberspace where the "blogger" writes. Much of what appears on these blogs is opinion and some of them never reveal sources for what they purport is truth. They link to other Internet sites that agree with their points of view.

Seventh Circuit agrees with Judge Cassell

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held today that application of the United States Sentencing Commission's Guidelines Manual violated a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. The Seventh Circuit stated:

We have expedited our decision in an effort to provide some guidance to the district judges (and our court's own staff), who are faced with an avalanche of motions for resentencing in the light of Blakely v. Washington, 2004 WL 1402697 (U.S. June 24, 2004), which has cast a long shadow over the federal sentencing guidelines.

In so doing, the Seventh Circuit apparently sided with Utah-based U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell, who attracted national attention earlier this week with this opinion. Notably, the Seventh Circuit opinion included an invitation: "If our decision is wrong, may the Supreme Court speedily reverse it."

The Eleventh Circuit held earlier on Friday that Blakely does not apply retroactively on collateral review.

D.C. Circuit opinion on Yucca Mt. nuclear waste

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a 100-page opinion today vacating regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (head by former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission insofar as they require the government to ensure safe levels of radiation for only 10,000 years (the National Academy of Sciences suggested that the government could assess compliance for up to 1 million years).

The D.C. Circuit rejected other challenges brought by the plaintiffs, including the State of Nevada and the National Resources Defense Council. Among the rejected challenges is an argument that Congress violated the Constitution when it chose Yucca Mountain as the site to which the nation's nuclear waste would be deposited.

Early coverage of the D.C. Circuit's opinion may be found in The New York Times, which wrote "Court Deals Blow to Effort to Bury Nuclear Waste in Nevada."

More information on Yucca Mountain may be found at the Office of Civil Radioactive Waste Management. Yucca Mountain is about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Maps are available.

TV news on the fly

For those who think being a television newscaster is easy, consider what happened Wednesday night at KUTV (Ch. 2). As reported by The Salt Lake Tribune in "KUTV newscast airs the old-fashioned way," the broadcaster lost power to the computer that controls its soundboard and had to do a bare bones 10 p.m. news broadcast. According to the Trib, it was: "No graphics, no video, no teleprompter. Just a mic, a camera, a light and an anchorman."

Is it coincidence that this story gets published the same day the movie "Anchorman" hits theatres nationwide? I don't think so. Has anyone ever seen Mark Koelbel and Will Ferrell in the same room?

A trend?

For the second time in as many weeks, a former BYU student has entered a guilty plea to a crime that results in being banned from campus and deported from the country. Today's Deseret Morning News has the latest story at "Ex-Y. student will be deported."

Church and marriage

As I expected, Salt Lake City's two daily newspapers have coverage today of the Church of Jesus Christ's statement favoring a constitutional marriage amendment. The Salt Lake Tribune has "LDS backs amendment against gay marriages." The Deseret Morning News has "LDS Church supports gay-marriage bans."

Meanwhile, in today's essay "Like It or Not ... The marriage amendment is the democratic way," Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch argues for the amendment and manages to take a few pokes at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry along the way.

Book of Mormon coverage

As I predicted yesterday, news of the upcoming publication of the Book of Mormon by Doubleday received coverage in today's newspapers. The Salt Lake Tribune's story is "New Book of Mormon a quicker read." An interesting twist noted in this story is that Doubleday also published last year's Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. The "Church Response" to that book did not mince words in condemning its inaccuracies.

Meanwhile the Deseret Morning News has "Big New York firm to publish LDS text."

Church of Jesus Christ favors marriage amendment

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made a major (but not surprising) announcement today that I predict will generate a round of news stories tomorrow by Utah journalists. The announcement is a "statement of principle in anticipation of the expected debate over same-gender marriage" but "is not an endorsement of any specific amendment."

The statement reads as follows: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints favors a constitutional amendment preserving marriage as the lawful union of a man and a woman."

Book of Mormon to be published by Doubleday

I haven't seen this yet in the Utah news media, but I predict we will see the stories soon: Doubleday has announced plans to publish the first trade edition of the Book of Mormon. The hardcover will be available in November 2004 for a cost of $24.95. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that the text will remain the same as in Church-published editions, but footnotes, cross-references and the index have been removed. See the new front cover.

Media frenzy

The crush of journalists that has descended on eastern Utah's Range Creek archaeological sites is chronicled in "They all dig it" (free registration required), which appears in today's Standard-Examiner. In this case, journalists have some responsibity for the damage already done to this previously preserved site.

Newspaper supports polygamy (for adults)

The Spectrum of St. George published an editorial, "Religion offers no excuse for breaking the law," that endorses polygamy among consenting adults but not among adults and teenagers -- especially when the adult male involved is a police officer sworn to enforce the law. The Deseret Morning News yesterday reprinted an AP story about the brief filed in the Utah Supreme Court by polygamous former police officer Rodney Holm, who argues that polygamy is a constitutional right.

In other polygamy-related news, The Salt Lake Tribune reported yesterday that "Utah's 'polygamy czar' stepping down from post."

Torture memo explained

Boalt Hall law professor (and former newspaper reporter) John C. Yoo, an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel that produced the much-discussed August 2002 memo on the law governing torture, provides "A Crucial Look at Torture Law" in the Los Angeles Times today. His central thesis is that there's a difference between law, which is the province of lawyers, and policy, which he suggests should be left to the politicians.

What does this say about law professors?

In "Slim Legal Grounds for Torture Memos," (free registration required) The Washington Post concludes that the August 2002 memo drafted under the watch of BYU law graduate Jay S. Bybee, then head of the Office of Legal Counsel, advanced a position that would be accepted by only 6 or 7 of 1,000 given law professors and the Federalist Society.

Daily dose of Jay Bybee news

The New York Times has an editorial today, "A Vote for Control," urging the House of Representatives to follow the Senate's lead in adopting an amendment in a Pentagon budget bill to "require the president to abide by the Geneva Conventions." The following passage appears in the editorial:

Mr. Bush has declared himself free, at times of his choosing, from the Geneva Conventions — following advice from Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose staff produced the infamous memo on how to get around laws against torture. The White House's repudiation of that memo last week was not credible. If the president thought the man who signed it, Jay Bybee, was so out of line in his legal judgments, why did Mr. Bush then appoint him to a lifetime seat as a federal appeals judge?

Fourth of July weekend

Later today, I will leave for a weekend trip that will involve, among other activities, a little waterskiing on northern California's Lake Berryessa. I hope you enjoy the Fourth of July weekend wherever you may be and arrive at Tuesday safely. I will take a hiatus from regular blogging until July 6, 2004.

Linking (or not) ancient remains to modern-day tribes

In "Indian remains spark a debate," The Salt Lake Tribune has started to build the case that mummified bodies that once lay in Utah's relatively obscure (until newspapers such as The New York Times started writing about it this week) Range Creek area may not be able to be linked to modern-day tribes. The Trib bases this observation in part on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's February decision in Bonnichsen v. United States, also known as the "Kennewick Man" case.

Not every day

Given that "Provo-Orem [is] safest metro area in the U.S.," a stabbing would seem a relatively rare occurrence. What's more, I can't remember a stabbing that involved BYU students, but according to today's Deseret Morning News, "Ex-Y. student admits knifing." According to the story, not only does the 18-year-old face deportation to Georgia (that's Georgia, not Georgia), but he also has been banned from campus.

Utah on national stage

It's not often that the state of Utah is featured in not just one but two stories prominently displayed on The New York Times' online National news page. The stories are headlined "In Utah, Two Faiths and One Prayer" and "In Utah, Ancient Ruins Are Revealed After Long Wait."

Reporting on the reporters

The Deseret Morning News has taken on the role of media watchdog in today's story, "Marine's Utah cousin irate: N.Y. Times admits quote incomplete."