Book Review: The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by John Coates

By Professor Jeffery Atik

What a fun book this is! The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by John Coates mixes pop finance with pop science, sketching some surprising links between them. I will trust Coates to get the science right (he provides citations). His investigation of financial markets is largely anecdotal and so speculative, but all the same it yields tantalizing suggestions.

Coates is a former derivatives trader -- which gives him authority to describe the subjective experiences of winning and losing at a trading desk. He (somehow) becomes hooked on neuroscience research; he describes himself sneaking away from his Wall Street desk to mix with scientists at Rockefeller University. The book seeks to bring these two worlds together. Coates immerses himself in the activation of hormones: testosterone, cortisol and the like. It is these chemical agents that produce the profound effects on the humors of financial traders, and hence overall market behavior.

Coates attacks the mind/body dichotomy: a financial market trader reacts more like an athlete than an analyst in responding to the stimula communication through his screen. Coates employs emerging understandings of mind/body feedbacks to track the play of traders. The traders can react before they 'see', rely on 'gut feelings' and engage in mano-a-mano combats from which they emerge winners or losers. These are quintessentially physical experiences. The markets themselves may then be understood as projections of this human biology.

Do Ballot Initiatives Foster the Darker Side of Political Spending?

By Associate Clinical Professor Jessica Levinson

Californians will soon go to the polls to weigh in on no less than eleven ballot initiatives. These initiatives could change the law on everything from the death penalty to the labeling of food.

I have previously written here about the pitfalls of the initiative process. This mechanism of direct democracy, designed to guard against the power special interests held over our elected officials, is now similarly controlled by special interests. Money is the driving factor behind which proposals qualify for the ballot.

Large sums are spent not only to pay signature gatherers to get proposals placed on the ballot but also to support or oppose those measures once they qualify for the ballot. One need only to open the mailbox or certain websites, or turn on the television or radio, to see the enormous amounts of money being spent to attempt to sway voters on these eleven initiatives.

Last week I wrote about a large donation, $11 million to be exact, given by an Arizona non-profit corporation to two ballot measure committees in California.

Marriage Equality Populism

By Associate Professor Douglas NeJaime

On November 6, voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will decide whether to allow same-sex couples to marry. In 2010, Maine voters repealed the marriage equality law that lawmakers had passed and the governor had signed. This time Mainers will be the first in the country to affirmatively vote on same-sex marriage. In Maryland and Washington, voters are being asked whether to approve or reject the marriage equality laws state lawmakers passed earlier this year. In all three states, recent polls suggest that marriage equality may win.

Of course, this would mark a game-changing moment in the political battle for same-sex marriage. But it would also significantly impact the legal battle raging in the courts. Currently, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to weigh in on both the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Proposition 8, the state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Advocates at the leading LGBT legal organizations warned against the federal challenge to Proposition 8, worried about its uncertain fate at the Court. Throughout the litigation, they have worked - along with the City and County of San Francisco and prominent constitutional law professors - to frame the case as one about the unique situation in California. The Ninth Circuit agreed, finding that California, which allowed same-sex couples to marry before taking that right away and which provides a comprehensive domestic partnership system with the state-law rights and benefits of marriage for same-sex couples, did not have a legitimate interest in restricting marriage. Under the Ninth Circuit's holding, determinations regarding the constitutionality of other states' marriage bans require additional litigation. LGBT movement advocates, therefore, are hoping the Justices will pass on the invitation to review the Ninth Circuit's decision.

But in the event the Court takes the case, advocates have been doing everything they can to change the landscape of marriage equality before the Court decides. The more states that recognize same-sex couples' relationships as marriages and the more same-sex couples who get married, the more comfortable the Court - or at least Justice Kennedy, who holds the presumptively decisive vote - may be finding state marriage prohibitions unconstitutional. Advocates secured marriage equality in New York in 2011, and they are pursuing the cause in other states, through both litigation and legislation. If Maine, Maryland, and Washington begin to allow same-sex couples to marry, more states will move into the marriage equality column and many more same-sex couples will have legally recognized marriages. This may do much to move the Justices.

Supreme Court Weighs Immigration Consequences of Misdemeanor Conviction

By Associate Professor Kevin Lapp

Moncrieffe v. Holder, argued in mid-October before the United States Supreme Court, involves a non-citizen who pled guilty in Georgia state court to misdemeanor possession with intent to distribute 1.3 grams of marijuana (about half the weight of a penny) with no evidence that he received any money in exchange for drugs. Federal law likewise considers possession with intent to distribute such a small amount of marijuana without remuneration to be a misdemeanor offense. Knowing those two things, you'd probably puzzle at the notion that the government is seeking to classify Moncrieffe as an "aggravated felon" for purposes of deporting him. But in the Wonderland world of immigration law, that is just what is happening.

The issue in Moncrieffe v. Holder is whether Moncrieffe's state misdemeanor drug possession offense constitutes a "drug trafficking aggravated felony" under federal law. Longstanding precedent, and recent Supreme Court case law, says that courts should apply what is called the categorical approach to answer the question. That approach involves determining the minimum conduct that is necessarily established by the state conviction, and prohibits looking into anything behind the conviction, such as underlying facts or possible alternative offenses that could have been charged. If the minimum conduct of the state crime is necessarily equivalent to a felony under federal narcotics law, then even a state misdemeanor conviction becomes an "aggravated felony" for immigration purposes. If it is not necessarily a federal felony (because the state crime captures conduct that could be either a federal felony or misdemeanor), then the categorical approach says that it is not an aggravated felony.

Moncrieffe's state misdemeanor marijuana offense does not require proof of any minimum amount of marijuana, nor does it require proof of remuneration. As such, it criminalizes the social sharing of small amounts of marijuana as well as the distribution of larger amounts. Because the state crime encompasses conduct that would clearly be a federal misdemeanor, Moncrieffe argued that the categorical approach means that it is not necessarily equivalent to a federal felony and should not be considered an aggravated felony. The upshot is that he remains deportable, but has an opportunity to seek relief from deportation.

Disability and Voting

By Associate Dean Michael Waterstone

My primary research area, disability law, typically doesn't garner a lot of headlines or attention in presidential elections. There was a National Forum on Disability Issues in September of 2012 where both candidates were invited, but neither showed up (President Obama was represented by Ted Kennedy, Jr. and Governor Romney was represented by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)). In a way this is understandable -- disability is a less contentious civil rights issue than some other areas. It may just be a perception that there is less to fight about (and a good fight is what really draws media attention).

But there are certainly many important issues relevant to people with disabilities that are at stake in this election. A major one is health care. The provision of the Affordable Care Act that stops insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions can help people with disabilities move in and out of the labor force without losing their health insurance. This approach, I have argued elsewhere, is part of the explanation of the higher rate of veterans with disabilities, who have access to the VA for some healthcare services. Governor Romney seemed to suggest that his healthcare proposals would also cover people with preexisting conditions, but most analyses I have seen refute this, at least to the extent that it would help people with long term disabilities be more fluid in and out of jobs. Another issue of importance to the disability community is the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. President Obama signed the treaty and has urged ratification; as far as I could find, Governor Romney has taken no public position on the issue.

But in this blog post, I'd like to focus on an issue that comes before both of these -- voting for people with disabilities. Given the recent focus on the administration of elections (mostly, as my former colleague Rick Hasen has profiled, based on hazy and unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud), this is timely.

In evaluating Prop. 34, Prof. Levenson assesses effectiveness of death penalty

Professor Laurie Levenson assessed the effectiveness of the death penalty in a recent story about Californai's Prop. 34, which would eliminate the death penalty in the state.

"There is no showing the death penalty does anything good. It's not a deterrent, all it does is suck in money and you would hope the public would say, 'we can we do better with that money,'" she siad.

She continued: "I think it is an emotional response. Emotionally, some people say I think killers have to die, and emotionally some people say I don't want to be killing in the name of the state. Often times that is what the debate comes down to.

Read the complete story.

Attraverso: Supreme Court to hear major gray-market case

By Professor Jeffery Atik

On Monday, Oct. 29, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in *Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.*, a case that promises to resolve (finally) whether the first-sale doctrine applies to copyrighted works produced and sold abroad and then imported into the United States. It is no small surprise that this is an open question, as the current U.S. copyright act has been in place since 1976. And the copyright first-sale doctrine is older than that.

Compare the situation in Europe, where the European Court of Justice has long ago established that exhaustion (corresponding to the first-sale doctrine) occurs with full effect throughout the European territory, notwithstanding the national character of most European IP rights. A copyright holder which sells a book in France may not use its German copyright to block the importation or resale of that book in Germany.

But not so with respect to IP protected goods first sold outside of Europe: these goods may be blocked by the IP right holder when introduced to the European market. Thus, it is said that the Europeans practice regional exhaustion (first-sales within European cut off IP rights), but not international exhaustion (IP right holder retain rights with respect to goods first sold outside Europe).