Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Anupam Chander (who is both a blogger and Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law) and JD student Ryan Walters have designed a little web site they call the Supreme Court Survivor game. Their objective is “to highlight the importance of the 2004 presidential election to the preservation of civil liberties in this country.”

Anupam, a charming person whom I met at a conference not so long ago, wrote me a nice note asking me to publicize it, so here it is.

There's no doubt that the next President will shape the court for a long time: there are liberal, conservative and fence-sitting Justices who are likely to retire. But, cute as it is, I have to wonder whether this game is entirely in good taste, and if as a pure tactical matter it's the best tool to raise consciousness about this critical issue. It seems to me that there's some danger it might backfire given the Chief Justice's coincidental illness.

Meanwhile, if there's an easter egg in there, I can't find it.

Update: When you tire of that one, and still want a political online game, you can play Enjoy the Draft's Spring Break Fallujah: The Game. I am still stuck on the first level, myself.

Sharp-eyed Eric Muller notices something strange:

A Full and Appropriately Speedy Recovery

I wish Chief Justice Rehnquist a full and speedy recovery.

On the subject of “speedy,” though, I find it curious that the Court is already telling us that he'll be back at work next Monday, about 8 days after his tracheotomy. Not only is it hard to imagine how anyone could know how the Chief will actually be feeling by next Monday, but the ordinary recovery period for a case without special risk factors or complications is two weeks. And there are reasons to suspect that the Chief's is not an entirely ordinary case. Plus he's 80 years old.

Odd, that.

4-4 on 11-02-04?

Not if this Chief can help it. Then-Justice Rehnquist, it may be recalled, was the author of an opinion, Laird, Secretary of Defense v. Tatum, 409 U.S. 824, 837 (1972) (Rehnquist, J., mem.), explaining his non-recusal despite his personal involvement in some of the matters at issue, on the grounds that Justices should be less willing to recuse themselves on the grounds of conflict of interest if the case is really important — precisely the sort of cases where others might ordinarily think recusal was most called for….

At least his doctors may be pleased that their patient has a powerful incentive to get better quickly.