In an opinion rife with logical and legal error, the Illinois Supreme Court has upheld that state's revenge-porn statute in the face of First Amendment challenges. The opinion is here: [pdf-embedder url="https://blog.bennettandbennett.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/123910.pdf"] What's wrong with that? Just about everything. First,the Illinois Court explicitly claims, at *10-*12, not to identify a new category of speech that falls outside of First Amendment protection. It then holds that the statute

Dear Mr. Bennett, I'm writing to follow up on a voice mail I left late yesterday. I'm a writer with the ABA Journal, the American Bar Association's member magazine, and I'm writing an article on First Amendment challenges to revenge porn laws. This of course includes your current case for Jordan Jones before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. I understand from media reports that you may

SECTION 1. Chapter 21, Penal Code, is amended by adding Section 21.19 to read as follows: Sec. 21.19. UNLAWFUL ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION OF SEXUALLY EXPLICIT VISUAL MATERIAL. (a) In this section, "intimate parts," "sexual conduct," and "visual material" have the meanings assigned by Section 21.16. (b) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly transmits by electronic means visual material that: (1) depicts: (A) any person engaging

My friends, you have some habits in using Microsoft Word that are making your life more difficult. More importantly, they are making it difficult for me to collaborate with you, and are therefore making my life more difficult. First, stop using tabs. Stop hitting the spacebar more than twice (more than once, really) at a time. Stop hitting enter more than once at a time. Instead, start

I was a fan of Kim Ogg's candidacy for the Harris County DA. It was time to break the Republican party's chokehold on that office, and Ogg was a good person to do it. Unfortunately, the promise was greater than the product. The Harris County District Attorney's Office has been my principle adversary for almost a quarter century, but I don't want it poorly run. Demoralized prosecutors

This week the Fort Worth Court of Appeals decided Ex parte Barton, No. 02-17-00188-CR, holding unconstitutional section 42.07(a)(7) of the Texas Penal Code. This is an issue that I have pending in Houston's First and Fourteenth Courts of Appeals, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (Ex parte Sanders), and, with the University of Texas's Supreme Court Clinic, in the United States Supreme Court (Ogle v. Texas). After

Here's the Southern District of Florida's Nonprosecution Agreement with Jeffrey Epstein: [pdf-embedder url="https://blog.bennettandbennett.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Epstein-NPA-OCR.pdf" title="Epstein NPA OCR"] Being off Twitter for the moment, I might not have known of Epstein's arrest on charges out of the Southern District of New York but for Scott Greenfield's blog post. Scott's take was that the fact that the NPA violated the CVRA should not be sufficient to undo the agreement, as

A reader was kind enough to remind me, six months ago, that I hadn't written about 2018's Word of the Year yet. To remind you: every year (since 2017) I've chosen a Word of the Year instead of making a resolution. I got the idea from my hypnosis teacher, Mike Mandel. 2017's WOTY was attention. And 2019's WOTY, which I haven't announced here yet (though I'd broadcast

https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1117130911210930178 I'm sure the Representative is a very nice lady who loves dogs and wants the best for America. But "restoring moral clarity to Congress" is, frankly, frightening. Take it as a given that congresscritters are immoral, that they legislate immorally and that that's bad. But there's a lot of ground between "immorality" and "moral clarity." And consensus on moral clarity is quite narrow. Take care of

The keystone of American freedom is something that is hinted at in our Constitution: Congress shall make no law … …shall not be infringed. No Soldier shall … It's more directly referred to in the Declaration of Independence: whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying