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November 7, 2006
Oral argument in James ACCA case
Thanks to How Appealing, I now see that today's Supreme Court oral argument transcript in James v. United States is now available online at this link. I will update this post if/when any parts jump out as extra significant, and readers should feel free to use the comments for this purpose.
UPDATE: Tony Mauro alerted me to this intriguing passage in the James transcript:
JUSTICE BREYER: Why doesn't anybody -- you know, it sounds to me if you're worried about whether there's a specific serious risk of harm, you could find out. Look at the convictions in Florida for attempted burglary, look at the convictions for burglary, and see if there are involved a number of cases in which people are harmed is roughly similar. We have all these law professors who like statistics. Now they like law in economics and everything. So why don't they go out there and count, and then we'd actually know, instead of sitting here and trying to figure out something I know nothing about. I've never been involved in the law of burglaries. I don't know how burglaries operate. I suspect some people are hurt, but rather than my suspicious why don't we find out what the facts are?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: We're not going to be able to do that in time to decide this case.
JUSTICE BREYER: But wouldn't it be, as a matter of approaching --
JUSTICE SCALIA: It would also keep the professors from other mischief.
As famously said by Travis Bickle, the Robert DeNiro character in the 1976 movie Taxi Driver, "You talkin' to me?".
November 7, 2006 at 02:58 PM | Permalink
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Comments
I believe the Burton transcript is out and
posted on the US Supreme Court site.
Posted by: Lisa Gibbs | Nov 7, 2006 3:02:43 PM