Death Should Be Hard to Watch

by Mark Coppin

On Monday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Blaze v. Rees. Just in case you haven’t been one of those uber geek law students who follows the SC like a 14 year old girl watching American Idol, the case is about lethal injection, and whether or not it is cruel and unusual punishment. In executions by lethal injection three drugs are administered to the condemned. The first is basically a pain killer, and it is supposed to drop the blood pressure, kill pain, and cause sleep. The second drug is a paralytic which, as its name suggests, causes paralysis in all the muscles except the heart. The third drug stops the heart. The potential problem arises when the first drug is administered incorrectly. Without the first drug, the second leaves the condemned paralyzed, awake, and completely capable of feeling the third drug rush in and stop the heart (which is apparently very painful).
The argument is about what standard should be applied to potential risks of future harm, who should supervise administration of the first drug, and the availability of alternative methods. It was all very interesting
The part that I found the MOST interesting was an exchange between Justice Stevens and Mr. Englert. Justice Stevens seemed to believe that the problem was not the first drug but the second (this is mentioned several times but this time caught my attention). If it weren’t for the second drug, there would be very little risk of an incorrect administration of the first drug going unnoticed. Without the paralytic it should be pretty easy to tell if the condemned has been effectively knocked out by the first drug because I am pretty sure you could test for feeling, and if the condemned isn’t paralyzed, then the reaction should be pretty apparent. Like fish on a stream bank apparent. Mr. Englert made the argument that the risk was justified because the second drug was necessary to maintain “the dignity of the process.” Not that the second drug was necessary to complete the execution, but only that, “You don’t want to have unpleasant appearance of death at the time.”
Which brings me to my point. The unpleasant appearance of death? Do juries think the person is going to “live on a farm” when the verdict is rendered? It’s not like death row is a tank in a dentist’s office and inmates gets to go back out to sea when they get flushed, kids. Who cares if the death has an unpleasant appearance? I’m not making an argument for or against the death penalty here, but I generally believe death = unpleasant. The idea that executions need to be “dignified” for the watcher is absurd.
Do you think the condemned really cares? Obviously they care if it is painful, but do they honestly care how uncomfortable the witnesses and the warden are? If it were up to me I’d want to go in the most messy and disgusting way possible. If you’re going to kill me you should have to get your hands and your psyche dirty. If you’re going to execute me, I want it to be painless for me, and Tarantino directing it on pay per view. Just saying.

Why move to Boise? We have night-school here!

by Jordan Taylor

Silly of me to think my law school schedule would in any way resemble my old 8-5 work schedule. Also silly of me – registering for Professional Responsibility after 7:08 PM this Monday. Obviously that was way too late to get into §2. Those 2L’s....registering for Spring classes within 5 minutes of opening is obviously much more important than attending Fall classes....
What irks me the most about Spring 2008?
The 6 hour gap between Con II and Evidence? There is only so much web to surf between classes. Staying at school until 8 PM on Fridays? Don’t they know its ski season ! 104’s continued hiatus? I’m beginning to wonder if that inane Westlaw training will be my only experience in that room.
It looks like the transition to night school is coming sooner than we think.

Please, let me enjoy my romance novels

by Lindsey Simon

Law school has ruined a lot of things for me, like enjoying Law & Order and my capacity to be interesting to anyone not in law school. But of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my ability to suspend belief enough to enjoy cheesy romance novels the most.
Family law has been particularly destructive. After we learned that in many states unwed fathers must file with the putative father registry before or soon after the birth of the child in order to assert their paternal rights against an uncooperative mother. I was shocked! What does this do to one of my favorite romance novel plot devices (the good ol’ we-had-a-one-night-stand-and-you-got-pregnant-but-never-told-me-so-now-I’m-going-to-force-you-to-marry-me-or-live-with-me-under-threat-of-a-custody-battle-but-eventually-we-will-fall-in-love story line)? Don’t the heroines/mothers know that it would be very difficult for the heroes/fathers to win such a custody battle because they hadn’t registered? Then again, maybe the hero would have a claim if it’s not really his fault that he didn’t register because he was in prison when the baby was born since he met the heroine and they conceived the child after he escaped from prison and kidnapped her as his hostage but of course she succumbed to his rugged sensuality… (Yes, this is a real plot from a book, and yes, I read it. Don’t judge me.)
But what if hero wasn’t in prison and just dropped the heroine off at the airport after their one-time weekend fling?
Even if he is a professional hockey player, should he be able to threaten the heroine with a custody battle six years later until she agrees to let him see their daughter? The heroine should have seen a lawyer. —even if she was still hopelessly attracted to him—because clearly the deadbeat hero should have registered or checked in with her once or twice during the past six years if he was genuinely concerned with any potential offspring from the passionate affair. (Another real book. And yes, I read it, too.)
Oh well. At least I can say that they provide useful hypothetical fact patterns for Family Law problems. But I guess I should just accept that law school will claim my love of silly romance novels, along with my soul.

Pieces of My Mind

by Josh Studor

Moscow may be less free after Monday’s vote. Monday, Moscow City Council voted on an amendment to the city noise ordinance that would get rid of the need for a complaint before police can cite people for violations. The vote paves the way for a new form of pre-textual stop; a kind that targets an individual’s home.
Prior to this vote, officers had to receive a complaint and give the violator a warning. If a neighbor called in a second complaint within 48 hours, the officer could cite the noisy person. Police could not just show up and issue a citation.
Cops now can (assuming the ordinance passed).
Aside from the fact that noisy people might not be bothering anyone around them and the fact that nice neighbors just go ask the loud neighbor to tone it down; my problem is that officers can now have another way to use probable cause to look in our homes.
Picture this: 20 people are hanging out in an apartment drinking libations. Two of those 20 are underage. A cop drives by the apartment and hears some loud laughter and decides that his peace is disturbed. The cop goes up to the apartment door (complete with probable cause) and knocks.

Officer: “Hi there, do you know why I knocked on your door?”
Tenant: “No sir, did someone complain about some noise?”
Officer: “No, I just heard you all from the street. Is that alcohol?”
Tenant: “Yes.”
Officer: “Is there anyone here underage?”

Now comes a decision. Does tenant admit to there being underagers in the home and face a contributing charge OR does she lie and face a charge of providing false info or even obstructing? See the dilemma?
Lately, Moscow has been on a civil liberty violation rampage. Earlier this semester, they passed an ordinance making it illegal for more than four unrelated individuals to live together. Previously it was six. This sounds unconstitutional but no, the Supreme Court has ruled that ordinances like these are a valid use of police powers. So, those of you who are thinking of having your significant other move in with you and your three friends, think again. Or those poor college students who need to split a four-bedroom house five ways: forget it.
City Council elections are coming next month. I suggest you keep these new ordinances in mind when you mark your box. For the record, supporters of the noise bill include: John Weber, Bill Lambert and Mayor Nancy Chaney. At press time there was no word on how Aaron Ament or Linda Pall planned to vote.

A Minnesota judge has refused to allow Sen. Larry Craig (ID-R) to withdraw his guilty plea. Thank god! Why he thought he would be able to anyway is beyond me. The only reason he tried to withdraw is that the plea was made public. He was guilty as charged and needs to face the music.
Now, to all of you who are iffy about what he did being a crime, let me present the following: First, if he was soliciting sex with the man in the stall, he was not trying to get the guy to leave the airport, go to a hotel, mess around and go home. No, he was planning on sex right then and there. If that is unbelievable, look at Craigslist.com. It happens.
Plus, Craig knew what he was doing when he pled guilty. He had two months to consider his plea or consult with an attorney. He did a written plea out of the presence of a judge or a prosecutor. There was no undue pressure from the court or the state. If he didn’t think what he had done was a crime he wouldn’t have pleaded guilty. He’s a senator for Christ’s sake.
So, Mr. Craig, even though you refuse to, you should now resign in shame for being a hypocrite, a person who was conducting himself in a disorderly way, and, worse of all, for being a closeted homo in Idaho. Now it’s time to move to Miami, get a pool boy, and disappear into obscurity.

We dress, you decide

by Travis Woodland and SODA

You know, sometimes it’s easy to say you like homos, and sometimes it’s not. I don’t mean “like” like – that’s always hard. Ask a homo. They’ll tell you.
The Sexual Orientation Diversity Alliance (SODA) recently asked its fellow law students to show a little support for their gay brethren by wearing denim on April 18. “Why denim?” you may have asked yourself. The simple answer is this: to trick you. No, really. If you wore jeans, you like gays (and lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendereds).
Obviously the last sentence was a lie. Denim does not make anyone a liker of anything but denim. The real purpose behind the “Day of Silence” (jeans day) was to get people to think. That might seem an anachronism in a law school, but it really isn’t. How many times since your first day in this building have you thought about how your actions and words affect other people, and not just those that SODA tries to represent? I certainly don’t very often.
It’s a small world here at UI-Law, and nobody wants to be left out. We all make assumptions about our fellow students: Mormons, Catholics, atheists, African Americans, Asians, gays, ex-military, men, women, drinkers, druggies, sobers, parents, bachelors(and ettes), socialites, quiet people – all of them. I’ll let you in on a poorly kept secret: Few of those assumptions are true.
Asking people to wear denim might seem like a strange segue into the whole “when you assume you make an ass out of you and me” argument, but it really isn’t. The clothes someone wears can lead to just as many assumptions about a person as any other aspect of their life. Jeans represent comfort, the fashion equivalent of feeling like you belong and aren’t going to be singled out based on someone’s assumptions about you. How comfortable would you be in your favorite pair of denim if it became the new ‘gay thing’ to wear? Besides, we couldn’t have asked you to dress up in suits; many students won’t even do that for the Idaho Supreme Court.
Nearly everyone in the law school donned their Silvertabs, Tuffskins, and Gap relaxed fits, with a few notable exceptions. To those who wrote their feelings about gay rights, even those whose feelings don’t embrace the ideals of SODA: thank you. The point of having discussions about human rights, gay or otherwise, isn’t to force a viewpoint on someone; it is to ask people to think about why they feel how they do. Much like faith, an opinion is only worth something if can withstand test and attack.
Unfortunately, some of our students chose not to wear denim. I don’t mean that they forgot and wore dress pants because they always do. Some people (you know who you are – and so do we), always wear jeans; just not on a day when wearing jeans might make people think they supported the homos. However, their fears were unfounded: there is no way any of us would have thought you supported gay rights. But, thanks for the brutal honesty.
Don’t worry, the gays don’t hate you. In fact, you may find yourself getting a little more gay attention in your life than you want because you just became one of SODA’s top priorities. This is one closet you can’t go back into.
By the way, if anyone wants to have a day to celebrate the rights of heterosexuals, SODA will be on board. Just let us know what to wear. I suggest a nice pair of tight wranglers.

High school-like atmosphere made law school stranger

by Ray Thompson

In the last issue of Inter Alia, the “Most Likely To…” reminded me of observations I’ve been making for awhile: That law school and high school have a lot more in common with each other than undergraduate education.
Here’s why:
• School pride dress-up days.
• Powder Puff football.
• Report cards/Standing cards.
• Assigned seating.
• School dances.
• On-site lockers (carrels).
• Drama, drama, drama.
• Yearbooks / Dogbooks.
• Limited class choices.
• Everyone takes themselves way too seriously.
• Mandatory class attendance.
• Talent shows.
Surprisingly for a profession which stresses confidentiality, the spread of gossip/rumors not only equals but exceeds gossip/rumor levels in junior high/high school, or any other setting I’ve ever experienced.
The entire curriculum is confined to one building, which gives rise to striking similarities in the respective social structures. For instance, when walking through the crowded halls, you are bound to run across many more people you know than you will have time to say hello to. Depending on the ever-shifting hierarchies of social alliances, you have several options for these encounters: 1. Engage in some quick small talk. 2. Say hello. 3. Smile and nod. 4. Just nod. 5. Avoid making eye-contact at just the right moment. 6. (Most commonly employed) Pretend the other person doesn’t exist. 7. Actively scowl at the other person.
In addition, my 1L year reminded me more of grade school than anything I’d experienced since. As in grade school, the class was divided into two sections which were given completely different instructors (although my grade school classes were all in the same room and my 1L classes were confined to two rooms).

Confessions of a global warming denier

by Brandon Law

Yesterday when I heard on the local country radio station that Tim McGraw and Faith Hill were slated to participate in Al Gore’s Live Earth concert series this summer to enhance awareness about the theory of global warming, I began to realize just how mainstream the belief in the theory has become. Not only has it become mainstream given the fact that it is supported by all the front-runners of both parties for the next Presidential election cycle, but the hype has reached absurd levels as evidenced by one news Web site that ran a headline entitled, “Global warming concerns are keeping children awake at night.” Now, I’m just as environmentally friendly as the next guy, but I have my doubts about the theory of global warming. I ride my bike or walk to class every day, eat a relatively vegan organic diet, recycle my consumer waste, etc., but still find the self-proclaimed inventor-of-the-internet’s latest product more politically expedient than scientifically sound. Not only is the theory still relatively new on the scientific landscape, but I still find it contradictory to conventional—dare I say—scientific wisdom of just 30 years ago as I recently discovered by a trip to our campus library. I was prompted to further investigation by Dennis Miller’s display of a story during a recent appearance on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show,” from the April 28, 1975 issue of Newsweek magazine entitled, “Cooling World.” I was curious to see whether the story that predicted an impending ice age was just an anomaly or a widely supported theory among the contemporary scientific community. In the 1970s the prevailing view amongst the scientific community was that a global ice age was imminent. The National Academy of Sciences in 1975 issued a report stating that there was, “a finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the earth within the next 100 years.” I found three books in our campus library, that I believe represent a fair cross-section of the scientific thought regarding climate change in the 1970s: The Cooling (1976), Ice or Fire (1978), and Forecasts, Famines, and Freezes (1976). The authors made many statements in these books predicting an impending ice age evidenced mainly by a sustained trend of declining temperatures and a growth or extension of the polar ice caps. Two ideas bandied about in the books to remedy the growth of the ice caps and impending worldwide death and destruction by ice were to spread black carbon on the ice in order to attract the sun’s rays to heat and melt it, and to dam the Bering Strait in order to prevent the mixing of warm and cool ocean water. Contrary to news commentators eager to spin the “heat waves” of last summer as new evidence proving the theory of global warming, the contemporary scientific community is not united on views regarding the theory of global warming. Nigel Calder, in an article in the UK edition of The Sunday Times Online, scoffed at the recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and pointed out that the Earth’s temperature hasn’t changed since 1999 and asserted that solar activity, rather than greenhouse gases has been responsible for fluctuations in global temperatures in the past and is most likely responsible for the current mild temperature changes. He alluded to the findings of Ohio State University’s Dr. David Bromwich by also pointing out that, “[w]hile sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8 percent in the Southern Ocean.” In a recent article published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Patrick J. Michaels poked fun at Al Gore’s “Greenland suddenly melts” doomsday scenario and emphasized that Al Gore’s projection of sea level rising by 12 feet is at odds with the IPCC’s estimates of a rise of about 17 inches. After Hurricane Katrina, which was supposedly caused by global warming, I recall “experts” on the news predicting that the next hurricane season would make Hurricane Katrina pale in comparison, due to severity. However, the next hurricane season (last year) was more of a whimper than a bang. Though Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman recently equated deniers of the theory of global warming with Holocaust deniers, I’ll take my chances. Hi, my name is Brandon Law, and I’m a global warming denier.

Socratic Method nothing like law school

by Ray Thompson

One of the hallowed hallmarks of law school is the Socratic Method. For those of you who read Plato’s Socratic Dialogues before beginning our legal education, you may have been surprised, as I was, to learn that Plato’s vision of Socratic teaching bear almost no resemblance to the method employed by law professors.
If you haven’t ever read the Socratic Dialogues, they tend to consist of Socrates asking a pupil a series of yes/no questions. No matter how the pupil answers, Socrates applies the content of that answer to the next question, leading the pupil down a supposedly irrefutable chain of logic, concluding with whatever position Plato happens to believe is true.
One of the flaws of the Dialogues is that the pupil almost invariably agrees with everything Socrates says. It usually goes a little something like this:
SOCRATES: So you believe that ethical standards are relative – determined by the edicts of whomever wields the most power. But let me ask you this… Is it not true that the Gods demand obedience to their commands?
PUPIL: I cannot deny it.
SOCRATES: And is it not true that slaves are morally bound to obey the will of their masters?
PUPIL: You speak truly.
SOCRATES: And is it not self-evident that to preserve society we must respect the natural order of the world?
PUPIL: I must admit that your point is unquestionable.
SOCRATES: So therefore, the will of the stronger is in conflict with the fibre of reality.
PUPIL: Yes, you are correct.
SOCRATES: And it is thus inevitable that one must abandon a relativistic view of ethics, due to its logical contradictions.
PUPIL: I humbly submit to your superior reasoning. The truth of your words speak for themselves.
In law school, the so-called Socratic Method consists of a series of questions designed to humiliate and expose any student who has not completed the assigned reading, and to instill the combative principles of our adversarial legal system.
In this, the Method more closely resembles popular culture’s “The McLaughlin Group” than anything to do with Socrates. Here’s an example of the Method in law school:
PROF: Item One!! Mr. Benson, what is the most important aspect of today’s case?
BENSON: Well I’m not sure, maybe it’s…
PROF: Did you even bother to read the case, Mr. Benson?
BENSON: I think the most important aspect of the case might be…
PROF: Wrong!! Ms. Jenkins, do you know the answer?
JENKINS: Actions in perpetuity are not subject to prima ipso loquitor replevin judgments when…
PROF: Wrong!!
JENKINS: Well, what is the correct answer?
PROF: Who do you think you are? Do you really belong in law school? You don’t deserve to hear my knowledge! That right must be earned! Maybe you should spend more time studying or just drop out. Issue!! Why didn’t the plaintiff bring a suit under Judge Posner’s theory of reducing all aspects of life to units of monetary calculus? Mathews!!
MATHEWS: Well I think…
PROF: Wrong!! You people make me sick! Class is dismissed until you learn to get serious.
Based on my observations, I submit that the term “Socratic Method” no longer be used to describe this style of education. Instead it should be the “McLaughlic Method.”

Not washing your hands, a lot like ‘Platoon’

by Neil Burns

Let me begin by conceding that I am a bit of a germ-a-phobe. Anyone who has ever spent more than a few minutes with me has undoubtedly heard me utter the words “gross,” and “ew,” numerous times, and usually in the same sentence. Unlike many unfortunate individuals who suffer from an ADA recognized disability, I know exactly where mine originated. In the early ‘90s there was a Saturday Night Live skit where they invented glasses that allowed people to see small amounts of fecal matter in a way much like night vision goggles enable people to see at night. I vividly remember my fear as Phil Hartman walked around a McDonald’s with his fecal matter glasses, seeing everyone and everything covered in fluorescent green goo. As the skit ended, I turned off the TV and laid back. As I slowly went out of consciousness my sister leaned in close and heard me softly whisper: “the horror, the horror.” When I awoke I had a new fear joining my list: spiders, clowns, dolls looking at me, and touching the bottom of a lake (any lake will do, they’re all creepy). Having relived my fears with a tragic courageousness in admitting all this, I don’t think I’m being too much of a David Putty in requesting that the male members of the law school wash their hands after using the bathroom. Although it may be a bit chauvinistic, I’m purposely excluding the female faction of our school from being included in this article, as I have never been in a girl’s bathroom, don’t know what all goes on in there (although it must be pretty damn cool as no guy has ever seen a girl enter by herself), and am leaving them out most importantly due to my sacrosanct and simple belief my mother and older sister taught me years ago, “girls don’t go number 2,” and even if they did, I have to believe they’d definitely wash their hands. I’m not sure how many times I’ve been in the bathroom here in school and witnessed what is to me anyway, an extremely traumatic experience. Standing at one of the urinals watching out of the corner of my eye in perfect terror as everything moves in extreme slow motion, and one of the stall doors open. Someone slowly walks out - straight passed the sink and out the door. The theme music from Platoon begins to play at top volume in the bathroom, as I lift my head, close my eyes, and raise my hands in the air to a God who has forsaken me. Just like Sgt. Elias Grodin after his Comrade Barns (Tom Beringer) shot him, left him for dead, and then is shot in the back as the helicopter leaves poor Willem Dafoe to die an unjust death in an unjust war. So there I stand hopeless and helpless as I shed a tear knowing I’m going to have to open the same door that that inconsiderate disgusting bastard just walked out of. Not to mention the never leaving fear all day long whenever I touch something different, and am forced to wonder: what if that dude touched this ____ (insert here any object: chair, door, book, lolly pop etc.) I know some of you are saying it’s too farfetched to believe that a law student in this day in age would be so cruel, inhumane and tragically negligent as to use the bathroom for number 1 or number 2, and not wash their hands. My answer to that is: No, it’s not. It’s a horrible offense not unlike the Mai Lai massacre that occurs in the bathrooms here and throughout the world every day. So in light of this sad and tragic tale I humbly ask the men of the University of Idaho College of Law: Please wash your hands when you use the bathroom.