On Riots, Lawyers, and Police

REMARKS OF GEORGE W. LIEBMANN, PRESIDENT OF THE LIBRARY COMPANY OF THE BALTIMORE BAR, ON THE OCCASION OF THE CELEBRATION OF ITS 175TH ANNIVERSARY, JUNE 24, 2015. This is a delayed celebration. By your presence here, you affirm that lawyers and judges also have rights of peaceable assembly. I would hope that never again will […]

The Feds, the States, and the Controlled Substances Act

The Feds, the States and the Controlled Substances Act How exactly is Colorado undermining federal law? Nothing requires a state to make marijuana illegal. Wall Street Journal January 12, 2015   To the Editor: Maryland, under Gov. Albert Ritchie, steadfastly refused to prohibit alcohol sales throughout Prohibition, and Al Smith’s New York repealed its prohibition […]

The King of Pop Issues

O’Malley’s latest ‘pop’ issue – baltimoresun.com Maryland’s governor has proposed that undocumented child immigrants should be placed in foster care By George W. Liebmann 1:31 p.m. EDT, August 6, 2014 O’Malley takes on another ‘pop’ issue [Commentary] Gov. Martin O’Malley, a presidential hopeful, has taken on yet another “pop issue,” proposing that we provide foster […]

Intellectual Complacency and Arrogance

17 Green Bag 2nd 12 (Autumn 2013) INTELLECTUAL COMPLACENCY AND INTOLERANCE To the Bag: I am certain, or at least hopeful, that I am not the only one of your readers to be astounded by the propositions put forward in your Summer issue by Suzanna Sherry and her academic admirers. The danger of judicial review […]

Foreclosures: The Chickens Come Home to Roost

The O’Malley administration’s response to the real estate crash in 2008 was a characteristic one: kicking the can down the road. Lenders were blamed; foreclosure attorneys were blamed; everything was done to obscure the fact that many if not most of inner-city loans should not have been made in the first place, were frequently made […]

Justice Delayed in Maryland

Justice Delayed in Maryland By James B. Astrachan, George W. Liebmann, and Henry R. Lord The upcoming retirement next month of Chief Judge Robert M. Bell of the Maryland Court of Appeals is a critical event, the first transition in the leadership of Maryland’s courts in nearly 20 years. A matter of central importance for […]

Role of the Attorney General

Captain of the Black Sox   One of the more curious and notable decisions rendered by the Maryland Court of Appeals in recent years is its short opinion in Ports v. Cowan, 426 Md.435 (2012) holding that Maryland, notwithstanding that it had an as yet unrepealed statute and public policy declaring marriage to be between […]

Switzerland in America

  George Liebmann: Switzerland in America Gazette Newspapers, November 2, 2012 The ballot referendums are important since two cure-alls of the 1970s, campaign finance “reform” and strict reapportionment, have delivered the legislature to reliable partisans and ‘bundlers” of campaign contributions. Referendums have served the Swiss well. The casino bill and congressional redistricting reflect the culture […]

The Supreme Court and Health Care

    Saturday, 07 July 2012 From Today’s Wall Street Journal Regarding John Yoo’s “Chief Justice Roberts and His Apologists” (op-ed, June 30): Mr. Yoo’s characterization of Chief Justice John Roberts as another Charles Evans Hughes is a compliment. Hughes never sought to bar “expansion of the welfare state.” He designed systems of state insurance and public […]

The Brandeis Brief, Revisited

___________________________________   by George W. Liebmann     To the Bag: David Bernstein’s essay on the Brandeis brief (Autumn 2011)   does not describe “winner’s history;” (page 15); Brandeis’ concerns   with Supreme Court treatment of constitutional cases involving   state governments remain largely unaddressed today.   Moreover, it is simply not true that “ […]