Everyday Scientist (NotScience)

BART Cop Verdict: A little background on the California laws at play

Yesterday, an LA jury found Johannes Mehserle  (white BART cop) guilty of involuntary manslaughter for killing Oscar Grant (black guy) at an Oakland BART station on New Year’s Day 2009. (Link to NYT article.) Some people are ticked that the jury didn’t reach a harsher verdict, and some are just wondering what “involuntary manslaughter” means anyway, so here’s a little background.

MURDER

California Penal Code § 187(a) defines murder as “the unlawful killing of a human being. . .with malice aforethought.” “Malice aforethought” is this legal term of art, which usually translates into premeditated and deliberated killing. Those terms are nuanced as well, but I won’t dwell.

Murder in California can be first or second degree. Again, I won’t dwell; suffice it to say that first degree is nastier and carries the risk of a heavier sentence as compared to murder in the second degree.

MANSLAUGHTER

Manslaughter is less harsh than murder. California Penal Code § 192 defines manslaughter as “the unlawful killing of a human being without malice.” (emphasis added.) The section further defines what counts as voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. It’s voluntary if the killing occurs “upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.” It’s involuntary if “in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony; or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection.”

CAUTION AS TO INTERPRETATION

We learn in law school that you never really know what these code sections mean until you learn how the courts interpret them. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

SOME POINTS ABOUT THE CONVICTION

Remember, you can’t convict if there’s a reasonable doubt as to any element of the crime. I’m guessing this is why murder was ruled out from the get go. (There’s a good chance I’m wrong about this, but I believe the jury were instructed on the charges of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, not murder. Not sure how to verify.)

Voluntary manslaughter is usually reserved for “crimes of passion.” The classic example is where hubby stumbles into his bedroom to find wifey in bed with his best friend, and without a moment’s reflection chucks a lamp at one of their heads and kills her/him.  So no premeditation and deliberation. But still intent. Hubby still had to desire or have reasonable knowledge that death of another would result from his actions.

Mehserle’s intent was ambiguous at best: no crime of passion. From the video footage (or so I hear) he seemed surprised, dismayed, confused (something like that) about shooting Grant. More dubious (because this came out days later) was that he mistook his gun for his taser. Whether that is worth reasonable doubt is a personal call.

Regardless of the other charges, involuntary manslaughter fits. In pulling a gun (instead of taser) and firing it into an apparently subdued Grant, Mehserle was void of “due caution and circumspection.” And it’s probable the jury would find that he was carrying out a lawful act (keeping the peace or whatever you’d call that) in an unlawful manner (diverging from proper protocol, to say the least).

CLOSING THOUGHTS

It’s not easy to convict a cop. This relatively lighter sentence will carry a very heavy message to policy officers and precincts across the state.

The Mojave Cross Case

Facts:

A big white cross was erected by private citizens on remote government desert land about 60 years ago. It was made as a war memorial. It had been fixed up and replaced again and again by private citizens over the decades. People would sometimes visit there and hold Easter services.

A private citizen who lived nearby was offended by it and sued to have it removed as a violation of the Establishment Clause (i.e., the government cannot establish religion). The lower court applied a “reasonable observer” test and concluded that a reasonable observer would identify the cross as a Christian symbol, and because it is on government land, as an endorsement of Christianity. (Note: the families of the fallen choose the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. If you look closely, you’ll find 5 Wiccan headstones there – the result of a settlement between the ACLU and the government on this very issue.) The lower court enjoined the government from displaying the cross, so the government covered it up.

Covering up the cross ticked people off, and Congress took action. Congress twice said no federal money could be used to remove the cross. They directed the Secretary of the Interior to spend $10K replicating the cross and installing it nearby. Then they flinched and created this “transfer statute” that allowed the government to transfer the land and cross to a private organization with the understanding that if the land were used for anything but a war memorial, then ownership would automatically revert back to the government.

The lower court enjoined the transfer, concluding that it violated the original injunction. The appellate court said the lower court did not abuse its discretion here. The Supreme Court took up the case.

Opinions:

Kennedy, writing for the plurality (and joined in part by Robert and Alito), usually tows the church-state accommodationist line, and did so here. He spouted off a) that government doesn’t need to kill all religious symbols in the public realm and may acknowledge religion’s role in society, and b) that government can accommodate divergent religious values so long as it somehow does that constitutionally. In my view, the former claim is fair and settled law but beside the point; the latter is just nonsensical. He implied that a “reasonable observer” would see the transfer the land and cross to the private organization as NOT violating the Establishment Clause, but send it back to the lower court to figure it out for sure if the plaintiff still wanted to take issue with it.

Scalia, concurring (and joined by Thomas), thought the plaintiff lacked standing and would’ve dismissed the case on that ground. The plaintiff had standing in the lower court to sue the government for putting a cross on public land. But that wasn’t the issue in the Supreme Court. The issue was whether the government’s transfer of the cross and land to private hands violated the Establishment Clause. The plaintiff needed standing for that issue, not the first one. To have standing, the plaintiff needs to show actual or imminent harm, not just speculative harm. Scalia didn’t find (though he didn’t really search for) actual harm to the plaintiff due to the transfer, noting that nothing in the transfer statute required the private organization to keep the cross up, and it hadn’t had a sporting chance to do so anyway. Scalia tossed aside the plurality’s notion that the plaintiff had retained standing in order to keep the government from any alleged attempts to frustrate or evade the original injunction. I appreciate Scalia’s attempt at judicial restraint but find the plurality’s point, that dismissing the case for lack of standing, would have frustrated or evaded the original injunction. (The plurality’s point, however, does not controvert the much stronger point by Breyer, discussed below, that the lower court was within its discretion to enforce the injunction by proscribing the transfer.)

Alito, concurring, thought the land transfer “cured” any prospect of religious endorsement (applying the “reasonable observer” test) and would’ve automatically allowed Congress’s transfer statute to take effect. Rather zealous, in my opinion. He granted no deference to the lower court.

Roberts, concurring, thought it was silly for the government to have to tear down the cross (which Kagan said would’ve  respected the original injunction) before transferring it and the land to the private organization. I agree with him that that “empty ritual” would be silly, and mentioning it was rather trivial to the case at hand. His concurrence was useless, borderline embarrassing.

Stevens, dissenting (and joined by Ginsburg and Sotomayor), a moderate church-state separationist, argued that a big Latin cross is unmistakably sectarian and the government’s display of it unequivocally endorses Christianity, as was concluded by the lower court. He argued that the transfer did not “cure” the government’s endorsement of religion but rather furthered it. Why? Because it was the government’s affirmative act to keep that cross aloft, to blatantly push for its continued display. He also said it was wrong for the plurality to send the case back to the lower court for a potential do-over because the lower court had already settled the point that it was a religious symbol. Stevens was basically defending the substance of the lower court’s conclusions, which his colleagues were challenging.  I think that’s fair. When irrelevancies are thrust into the limelight, they become de facto relevant, and rebutting them becomes fair game.

Breyer, dissenting, argued that lower courts should be given broad deference in how they choose to enforce their injunctions. The lower court had already settled the issue that a “reasonable observer” would have seen government display of the cross as endorsement of religion, implying that it was wrong for his colleagues to substitute in their own opinions on that issue. He also deferred to the lower court in how they enforced the injunction by proscribing the land transfer. The appellate court concluded that the lower did not abuse its discretion, and that is where the case should have ended. The Court should not have taken this case. This, I think would have been the correct disposition of the case. But since his colleagues took the case and raised what should have been settled issues, It was fair game to counter them, as Stevens did.

Conclusion:

The plaintiff can keep going in the lower court to see if the land transfer independently establishes religion with a wink and a nod from the plurality that it doesn’t.

The  superstar constitutional scholar, Erwin Chemerinky, summed it up beautifully:

“[A]llowing such transfers as a way of avoiding constitutional guidelines renders the establishment clause meaningless. A city could put a large cross atop its city hall and simply transfer ownership of the roof of the building to private owners.” (LA Times.)

Thoughts on Kagan

Here are my opinions on Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Not good. She will swing the court further to the right on a number of important issues.

First, she appears conservative on church-state separation. I was hoping that her being Jewish would make her more sensitive to this subject, but no such luck. As Solicitor General, Kagan argued to keep the big white memorial cross that was erected on government land in the Mojave desert. She won. The decision was a 5-4 split with the “liberal” bloc dissenting. With Kagan instead of Stevens, it would have been 6-3. Sux.

For background on that case, the government put up this big white cross in the desert as a memorial for war veterans. The government rejected putting up memorials that were symbols used in other religions. Then when people sued, the government thought it could wiggle out of the issue by giving the land to a private organization. (Mind you the government kept a right of reversion in the estate.) The Constitution says government can’t establish religion, which means no favoring or endorsing one religion over the other. The conservative majority said it’s peachy for government to acknowledge religion in society and that the lower court should have a sporting chance to find that the government “cured” any potential establishment of religion when it handed over the property to the private organization. They completely ignored the facts that a) the cross is clearly a specific religious symbol, b) other (non-Christian) religious symbols were rejected, and c) by giving the land over in order to keep that cross aloft, the government was clearly favoring endorsement of a particular religion. It wasn’t curing the establishment. It was ensuring the establishment. The minority astutely pointed out as much. So we can probably expect more idiocy in this area if Kagan joins the Court.

Second, Kagan appears conservative on expansive Executive Powers. So far the liberal bloc have invalidated the prior administration’s efforts to a) exempt from judicial review those ‘enemy combatants’ held abroad, b) create a corrupt military commission for foreigners charged with war crimes, and c) relax protocols on interrogating suspected terrorists.

Kennedy was the swing vote. Now it seems, Kagan would be – but in the wrong direction. Obama retained Bush’s sweeping ‘state secrets’ doctrine, and Kagan was all over that. But more troublesome is that Kagan appears to support a) indefinite detentions of suspected terrorists and b) expanding ‘terrorism law’ where criminal law rightly belongs. All very conservative.

Third, she appears down on gay rights. Well, to be fair she has been outspoken against ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ but I don’t think that was so much pro gay rights as it was pro people serving in the military. Even so, I’m skeptical that that issue will ever get to the Supreme Court. It’s largely a matter for the Executive Branch. Aside from that issue, it doesn’t look good. Kagan flat-out opposes marriage equality, stating unequivocally that the Constitution does not entail a right for same-sex couples to marry. She didn’t even hedge when asked. She could have said the issue is undecided and that it would be inappropriate to offer opinions on the topic. She could have said that, as Solicitor General, she would be bound to follow Obama’s position on the topic, which is to be meekly tolerant of civil unions but to oppose gay marriage. Nope, she did nothing of the sort. Sad. The Court is going to face all sorts of gay right issues in the coming years: gay marriage, same-sex couple’s adoptions, green cards, inheritance rights, healthcare and financial proxies, and more. Not good.

Fourth, I think it’s safe to say she is meekly pro choice. She refers to the body of law protecting a woman’s right to choose as “settled law” and marginally supported the standard that a government cannot create “undue burden” obstructing that choice. I say “marginally” because she seemed fine with protecting the nonsensical anti “partial birth” abortion act. A bunch of other reproductive rights issues are sure to head to the courts: parental notification, waiting periods for minors, interstate abortion availability, government mandated cost-prohibitive procedure prior to abortion. If she’s cool with the “partial birth” abortion nonsense, I won’t be surprised when she rolls over for the rest.

So there you go. She’ll likely be confirmed. And for the worse, I say, though I suppose we could do worse. Sigh. It’d be nice if Obama would be a goddam Democrat for a change.

Kagan Demographics

Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to fill Justice Stevens’ seat on the Supreme Court. I’ll chart some demographics, then later (time permitting) spout some opinions.

Here are some categories to which we would add Kagan’s name if she is confirmed:

Female Justices

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993-  )
Sandra Day O’Connor (1981-2006)

Jewish Justices

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993-  )
Stephen Breyer (1994-  )
Abe Fortas (1965-69)
Arthur J. Goldberg (1962-65)
Felix Frankfurter (1939-62)
Louis Brandeis (1916-39)
Benjamin Cardozo (1932-38)

Justices with no prior judicial service

William Rehnquist (1972-2005)
Lewis Powell (1972-87)
William Douglas (1939-75)
Byron White (1962-93)
Abe Fortas (1965-69)
Arthur Goldberg (1962-65)
Felix Frankfurter (1939-62)
Robert Jackson (1941-54)
Louis Brandeis (1916-39)

Here is what the composition of the Court would be:

By religion

6 Catholic (Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito)
3 Jewish (Ginsberg, Breyer, and Kagan).

By race

8 white persons
1 black person
1 Latino person

By sex

7 men
3 women

Age when appointed

Ginsburg – 60
Sotomayor – 56
Breyer – 56
Alito – 56
Kennedy – 51
Roberts – 50
Scalia – 50
Kagan – 50
Thomas – 43

Age as of May 2010

Ginsburg – 77
Scalia – 74
Kennedy – 73
Breyer – 71
Thomas – 61
Alito – 60
Roberts – 55
Sotomayor – 55
Kagan – 50

Appointing presidents (red for Republican, blue for Democrat)

Scalia (Reagan)
Kennedy (Reagan)
Thomas (Bush, Sr.)
Breyer (Clinton)
Ginsburg (Clinton)
Alito (Bush, Jr.)
Roberts (Bush, Jr.)
Sotomayor (Obama)
Kagan (Obama)

By Law School

Roberts         Harvard
Scalia              Harvard
Breyer            Harvard
Kennedy        Harvard
Kagan              Harvard
Thomas          Yale
Alito                 Yale
Sotomayor    Yale
Ginsburg         Columbia

Arizona: Wannabe Police State

Arizona just signed into law SB1070. It says cops can arrest anyone in Arizona that they reasonably suspect is an undocumented immigrant and who cannot produce documentation suggesting otherwise. Here’s my take.

The bill is unconstitutional. First, the federal government controls immigration law. States cannot encroach. That is what the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause (Article VI) is all about. Second, the bill will subject people to unreasonable search and seizure. (Read: violates the 4th Amendment.) Seriously, how can cops reasonably suspect that someone is undocumented? I guess they could hear people saying so, but when’s that gonna happen? Really, they’ll see some brown dude and flag him down cause he looks brown, or maybe cause he doesn’t speak English, or maybe cause he’s hanging out on the street with a bunch of other brown dudes.  Can you say racial profiling? So lame. So third, because of the inevitable racial profiling, the bill violates equal protection. (Read: violates the 14th amendment.) That should suffice to shoot down the bill. I’m guessing the bill won’t even get to become effective. The courts are sure to stay it while the case metes out.

The bill is a political stunt by the GOP. The bill was signed into law by the current Arizona governor, Jan Brewer (R), this uneducated, haggardly, old bigot who wanted to stick it to her predecessor, Janet Napolitano (D), who is the current Secretary of Homeland Security.  Brewer likes to pretend that Napolitano didn’t and doesn’t do anything in response to Arizona’s mondo undocumented immigrant population. Just ain’t so. Napolitano was out there with the rest of the paranoids who voiced support for (inappropriately) using the National Guard as border patrol and for erecting the (ineffective) border fence. They both like to pretend that the presence of undocumented workers is a problem although I would hope that Napolitano, at least, would see their presence nevertheless as a net benefit. Also, Brewer, no doubt prompted by her fellow Repubs, signed SB1070 in anticipation of President Obama’s prospective push for immigration law reform. Nothing rallies the Repub base and sets the political tone and discussion like an act of ineffective, unconstitutional bigotry.

My advice for people in Arizona: For now, make sure your papers look real. If you’re Latino, or if you don’t speak English, or if you speak without some rich-country accent, good luck! If you’re white and speak English — preferably with an American or fancypants Brit-type accent– lucky you!

experts tell us the most effective ways to give to Haiti

After the Haitian earthquake, many of us want to help. Here’s what some experts in charity suggest.

Good Intentions Are Not Enough is a blog that sees itself as a watchdog group, being critical of ineffective charities. They suggest giving to local NGOs that already have a foothold in the area. The burst of funds will help the local workers aid people in need (e.g. rent helicopters and buy supplies). Already having an understanding of the area in need means that the aid workers should be more effective.

Aid Watch and GiveWell, other watchdog groups, also have blog postings about Haiti. GiveWell suggests some groups (that they have deemed effective) who are already working in Haiti:

• Partners in Health has its flagship clinic in Haiti. According to GiveWell  PIH “provides comprehensive health care to individuals in the developing world (mostly rural Haiti and Africa) by creating and managing hospitals, health centers, and a network of community health workers.”
• Population Services International has worked in Haiti for decades, distributing materials, particularly condoms and bednets, to save lives and improve health throughout the developing world.
• The Stop TB Partnership provides tuberculosis drugs in Haiti.

Good luck navigating all the charities. Or ignoring the whole thing.

My favorite is Partners in Health.

Update: Oxfam America and Doctors Without Borders are other good ones!

Tort Reform Foolishness. . .Still Going

It looks like Oklahoma will be the next state to arbitrarily cap noneconomic damages in medical malpractice suits.  This is a foolish way to reform tort law. Here’s why:

• Malpractice suits account for less than 2% of our healthcare spending. They are a relatively tiny problem. (Congressional Budget Office.)

• Because it is so tiny, it is unlikely to cut healthcare costs in any significant way.  (Wash Indep.)

• It violates the separation of powers.  It’s for the court to decide the appropriate level and kind of damages. Legislatures have no business encroaching on the courts’ turf by setting arbitrary caps. Indeed, courts in a number of states (Illinois, Arizona, Maryland, Georgia, to name a few) have shot down or are expected to shoot down their own non-econ damages caps.
  

• It violates equal protection, discriminating with no rational basis against parties with severe injuries versus people with moderate or simply economic injuries. (Wisconsin jurisprudence already holds this reasoning.

• The law already has mechanisms to ward off filing of frivolous lawsuits. A judge can summarily dismiss a suit that fails to state an action upon which relief might be granted. A judge can sanction a lawyer/party for bringing a non-meritorious claim. It is a public misconception that frivolous suits are getting filed all the time; it’s public foolishness to think that these suits would actually prevail in court.

• Noneconomic damages are quality-of-life damages, rather than money-loss damages. Put another way, economic damages are for medical bills, lost wages, and sometimes attorneys fees. Noneconomic damages compensate the admittedly tough to measure loss of quality of life, but which is critical to fairly compensate the victim, especially where the victim isn’t getting much in terms of economic damages. Consider a child who has asthma, but who was initially misdiagnosed and suffered brain damage during a severe asthma attack. The medical bills and lost wages are minimal here, but this kid’s life is screwed by fault of the wrong diagnosis. Oklahoma’s limitation of a $400K cap on noneconomic damages virtually insures that the child will not be fairly compensated.

• This will deter numerous meritorious lawsuits from being filed because lawyers won’t take a case if they won’t get paid enough for it.

There are better ways to keep doctors in your state, and your insurance premiums down, but if we want to pick on tort law, then how about we fix it by capping medical malpractice insurers’ profits, which are significantly higher than the profits of nearly all the Fortune 500 companies. Or maybe we could reduce the medical errors that give rise to all the suits in the first place?

rules for cycling

Here are my cycling rules:

When on a bike, follow traffic rules. That means stop at stop signs, yield to those who have right-of-way, signal turns with your arms, and stay as far to the right as practical and safe.

When breaking rule #1, yield to those people who are following the rules (e.g. if you’re riding on the sidewalk, yield to pedestrians). There are many times that it’s OK to bend the rules: roll through a stop sign if there are no cars approaching,

Do not expect cars to yield to you if you are biking on a cross walk. You do not have right-of-way in a crosswalk if you’re on your bike. So either hop off your bike and walk, or wait till there aren’t cars around.

Wait your turn! Don’t overtake another cyclist who is following the rules and waiting at a stop sign. When you blast through past the law-abiding cyclist, they end up waiting longer (for the confusion among the cars to fade away).

When driving, treat cyclist like other cars, with the rights and the responsibilities that come with that. (Go when it’s your turn at a 4-way stop!) But when driving, remember that cyclists can be killed, and give them the space and respect they deserve.

UPDATE: Lights at night! At minimum, a flashing light in the front and back. If you’re invisible, that’s dangerous to other cyclists (and, of course, yourself).

Any others?

UPDATE: Flyer from SF: biking_give_get_sf

problems with healthcare

I think the following issues should be address with whatever healthcare bill gets passed.

• Transparency: How come I don’t know how much a doctor visit or a specific procedure costs? What other industry doesn’t post prices of their products or services? Why do some customers pay vastly different prices than others getting identical treatment? I should be able to easily find out prices of visits or procedures before I make an appointment, and then pay a straightforward fee (without haggling for the lower price that a big insurance company pays).
• Necessity of Insurance to Pay for all Healthcare: What other insurance is required in order to pay for expected expenses? None. Auto, liablity, homeowner’s insurance are designed to protect individuals against huge, unexpected costs by spreading the burden among many people. This is rational. Paying an insurance company to pay a healthcare provider for annual check-ups and periodic minor illnesses doesn’t make any sense. That’s just paying a middle-man.
• Tax Subsidy for Employer Insurance: Originally designed to get around pay caps during WWII, employer-paid health insurance has become standard in this country. Mostly because the benefit enjoys a giant tax subsidy. This subsidy is not rationally designed, but has encouraged the unhealthy growth of insurance plans that make it more difficult for the uninsured to afford even minimal healthcare. Moreover, it is a tax subsidy to those with the best jobs in America.
• The Uninsured: Being uninsured in America is dangerous. There needs to be a minimum insurance required by law (a la auto insurance) and a cheap policy option for the poor offered by the Federal government or a nonprofit organization.
• The Uninsurable (i.e. Preexisting Conditions): Given the necessity of health insurance, it is not acceptable to deny claims or applications simply to maintain higher profits. The public option may solve this problem, as well.
• Costs: All the above problems contribute to the skyrocking costs of healthcare in America. The high standard of healthcare that we Americans desire is going to be expensive without doubt; nevertheless, there are ways to reduce unnecessary costs.
• Profits: Being a capitalist, I do not condemn profits. However, the profits by the insurance companies are the result of a system that requires health insurance and grants insurance companies freedom to deny claims and charge any rates it wants. That is not a fair combination.

Solving these problems may take many years and many changes to current law. I suggest you read more here.

Alexia Kelley: WTF, Obama?

Obama appointed Alexia Kelley to head the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services. Source. This sucks.  She heads the Catholics Alliance for the Common Good, a needling organization that has resigned itself to the legality of abortion in order to dedicate itself to destroying all access to it.

If this is the “common ground,” then the pro-choice voice is lost.  When  Obama and Clinton waxed on about making abortion safe, legal, and rare, I suppose we should’ve taken a close look at the “rare” part. I figured that was about sex ed and contraceptives, maybe even adoptions counseling and increases in resources for struggling moms. I did not think it would mean cutting off access to abortions. Might as well go to the back alleys at this rate.

And what’s worse is that this all emerges from Obama’s pledge to grow the Executive’s faith-based agencies.  It’s separation, not accomodation, of church from state, Mr President. How does a faith-based agency not establish religion? Double-speak. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Obama is compounding two lousy elements in this move: A faith-based agency with a kniving anti-choice zealot. This is not a good way to go. My suggestion here for Obama? Abort!

New Hampshire Approves Marriage Equality

New Hampshire is the 6th state to approve a marriage equality measure. Source.

Sotomayor – Supreme Court Nominee

Sotomayor is Obama’s nominee to replace Souter on the High Court. You can find some info about her here. I’m intrigued by the nomination, but I can’t say I’m jazzed about it…just yet. Yes, she is female and hispanic and relatively young (54). That’s  politically good, albeit obvious,  for Obama.

But she seems rather lackluster. She doesn’t strike me as an intellectual or a judicial superstar, i.e., her reasoning and authored opinions do not appear to have set heavily relied on precedent.  Her approach to constitutional interpretation and jurisprudence is not clear to me.  And I have to say, on such a divided court, I’d like to know more about her personal views that could bias her one way or other. She’s a dark horse when it comes to nearly every hot button issue: abortion, death with dignity, death penalty, establishment of religion (she’d be the 6th Catholic on the Court, just FYI), gun rights, gay rights.

But she writes clearly and thoughtfully, and that is extremely important. She has a pretty good resume. And she brings a fresh perspective.

It was H.W. Bush who appointed Souter to the Court, and much to Bush’s chagrin, Souter turned out to be a nearly polar opposite of his appointer. I just hope Sotomayor doesn’t turn out to be Obama’s Souter.

2010 Science Funding Looks Good

2010 is lookin’ good for government funding of science endeavors. Check it out.

Add Maine to the List

Maine now the 5th state to recognize marriage equality.   Source. Hopefully, as Maine goes, so goes the nation. Meanwhile,  New Hampshire looks like it’s not far off. Source.  New York seems to be marching full speed ahead. Source.  And New Jersey is…thinking about it. Source.

I should also mention that The District of Columbia now recognizes same sex marriages entered into in other jurisdictions. Source.

So for those keeping score (and I’ll throw in electoral vote numbers for grins here), marriage equality is the law in Connecticut (7), Iowa (7), Massachusetts (12), Vermont (3), and Maine (4).  NH (4), NY (31), and NJ (15) are closing in. CA (55) is uncertain at this point. DC (3) is a marriage equality zone in form if not substance. RI (4) might be, too. Source.

It’s great to see this blowback in light of all the equality bans that came out in 04 and 01. I can’t say I understand why the tide is turning, but there’s gotta be something to the fact that it’s sweeping through New England.

Wow, Iowa!

Iowa is now the third state after Massachusetts and Connecticut to recognize same sex marriage. Source. The Iowa Supreme Court found that the state’s statutory ban on same sex marriage violated the Iowa Constitution’s equal protection provisions. If I had to guess which states would be front runners in recognizing same sex marriage, I never would’ve chosen Iowa! And it looks like the marriages will be safe for some time. To overturn the Court’s decision, the Iowa legislature has to vote two sessions in a row to overturn the decision, then it goes to the voters. That’s going to take quite a bit of time.

Meanwhile, Vermont isn’t so lucky. Both houses of the Vermont legislature passed the state’s proposal to recognize gay marriage, but it’s just 5 votes shy of being able to override a veto, and I was surprised to learn that Vermont’s governor is a republican — Jim Douglas. Governor Douglas has vowed to veto the bill. Ah well.

Then there’s New Hampshire and Maine. Both have gay marriage bills floating through their legislatures with some success. We’ll just have to wait and see what comes of it.

I suppose I can take some comfort in these states’ efforts in light of California’s setback.

Vermont is so close, too!

UPDATE 4/7/09: Holy smokes! Vermont just passes its marriage equality bill! They garnered enough votes to override the Governor’s veto.  Source. Congrats, Vermont! Number 4.