Hammon v. Indiana and Davis. v. Washington came down today-- a fact that I didn't blog while yoked to the billable-hour requirements of Jones Day, and now amply mooted by the folks over at SCOTUSBlog. I can't make my mind up about the case quite yet. The originalist cast of Crawford and its progeny definitely seems to me like a step in the right direction. But I can't decide if Scalia is taking the confrontation-clause principle altogether too far.

When the decisions first came down this morning, I proclaimed that Scalia seemed eminently right, and that footnote 5 (that police-officers-on-patrol are the modern equivalent of old England's justices-of-the-peace) seemed to me to dispose of Justice Thomas's objection. Now, I am not so sure. As Friend-of-Crescat Steve Sachs argued to me today, there are multiple elements to the American backlash against the Raleigh trial. One is the hearsay rule. One is the confrontation rule. One is the compulsory-process rule. Only two out of these three rules were constitutionalized. So it strikes me as possible that the confrontation clause requirements only apply once the testimony is give, as Wigmore would say, "infra-judicially". The question remaining before the house is whether police officers (which is to say, the modern equivalent of old English justices-of-the-peace) ought to count as sufficiently "judicial" that the confrontation-clause safeguards apply to them too. Steve thinks not, and I am still unsure.

Speaking of originalism and criminal procedure, I defend the originalist pedigree of Hudson v. Michigan over in the comments at Orin Kerr's blog. Akhil Amar, from whom I took criminal procedure, does so at Slate.

Saturday night, eager to escape from the madding crowds of Adam's Morgan, co-blogger Amy and I drove down to Crystal City for dinner at Oyamel (on the advice of Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide). The results were deeply satisfying.

Oyamel basically pitches itself as a moderately trendy authentically mexican restaurant (rather than the tex-mex concoctions that D.C. is so notorious for). The dishes are small, so order several (and find somebody willing to share). The barbecued pork taco was revelatory, followed closely by the seared scallop with pepita sauce (I have never been able to get a scallop to brown that beautifully while still remaining near raw on the inside). The plate of assorted salsas (especially the smokey ones) also made us deeply happy. In descending order after that, I rated the tilapia taco and then the rabbit; the tilapia was good to enough to have been the star of our meal if it hadn't been outshone by the other things.

The major black spot were the "papas al mole". I keep telling myself that if I had just thought about it more carefully I should have been able to guess what we were in for; microwaved french fries with mole sauce and white cheese on top. The mole sauce was in fact very good (although a little too chocolatey and insufficiently nutty for my own tastes) but the soggy fries underneath were really disgusting. I understand, I understand, the whole thing is supposed to be a clever take on the chili cheese fry, but really; what is worth doing is worth doing well.

We were too stuffed for dessert so meditatively sipped some mexican hot chocolate and watched the cars go by, thinking that all was well with the world.

Somebody asked me today whether David Currie does anything these days besides writing the Constitution in Congress books and the like. The answer is yes-- you can now download from the University of Chicago website an MP3 of David Currie reading the Constitution aloud. I would by lying if I didn't admit this is the coolest thing I've seen on the internet all day.