From Albert Alschuler's Law Without Values:

No area of federal constitutional law more clearly requires judges to address issues of political theory than that of jurisdiction over the person. The principal question in this area is: When, under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, may one state require a resident of another state to defend a civil lawsuit in its courts? The Supreme Court has considered what 'contacts' between the nonresident defendant and the 'forum state' are sufficient-- driving on the state's highways, shipping goods from outside the state for sale inside it, or perhaps being handed a summons by a process server while far above the state on an airliner headed toward Cleveland.

For Justice Holmes, the issue personal jurisdiction was simple: 'The foundation of jurisdiction is physical power. . . .' If a nonresident were present in a state so that the state could seize her and bring her into court, the state would have jurisdiction over her. Without this physical power the state would lack jurisdiction. The question of personal jurisdiction was not a question of justice. It was a question of brute force.

Especially in the context of the American federal system, Holmes's view of personal jurisdiction was quirky. Like his views of state action, sovereign immunity, and the right-privilege distinction, this position has few adherents today. Under the federal Constitution, the decisions of a state court with jurisdiction are entitled to full faith and credit in the courts of other states. Both in theory and in practice, Supreme Court rulings on jurisdiction determine a state's power rather than the other way around. ... Before Holmes's service on the Supreme Court, the law of personal jurisdiction in England and America had focused on normative questions, not simply on issues of power.

A few weeks ago, I posted about the idea that people might get comfortable voting for Hillary because they assumed Bill would effectively be running things. My impression is that some commenters thought I (or the people who suggested the idea, I couldn't quite tell) was being sexist. (I don't think I was, by the way - it is not my fault Hillary Clinton happens to be married to one of the most powerful people on the planet, and I don't think the explanations of what Bill Clinton is meant to do during her presidency other than loom are particularly convincing).

Having said that, at least I didn't say what one of the (favorable!) television commentators incongruously said after watching Segolene Royale, the socialist candidate for French President (a woman) go relentlessly on the offensive in a draining, two hour debate: "I felt she was a seductress, using her feminine wiles on the nation".

Thankfully, one of the women on the panel proclaimed herself "stupified" at that pronouncement, observing that there was very little about Royale's angry, barely contained performance that anyone would confusion with seduction. But talk about a faux pas!

* the other point here is that I would never suggest that Segolene Royale would be overshadowed by her partner, the socialist party leader Francois Hollande (as one might expect, were I actually a sexist). The Royale/Hollande relationship is what I think the H. Clinton supporters would like her potential presidency to be like, but Hollande is no Bill, and socialist party secretary is not "former President of the United States".

Bernard Harcourt, University of Chicago Law Professor and all-roung criminology maven, is guest-blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy. As it happens, the second volume of the Carceral Notebooks is now online, also featuring Harcourt (as well as former Crescat Guest Blogger and longtime Mentor of Crescat Jim Leitzel).

Over at Concurring Opinions, Steve Vladeck debates the merits of using current events as fact patterns for law school exams. While he admits that there is substantial merit to doing so, he notes two downsides-- that real life can often be less clear-cut than a massaged and manufactured situation, and that students might have thought about and prepared discussions of real-life events before the exam starts.

Both of these objections strike me as non-starters. There's nothing wrong, especially on a law school exam, with a question whose answer could go either way. This may be influenced by my bias in the Con. Law class I've T.A.ed, because we ask students not only to discuss existing doctrine but to critique or discard it (which makes clear-cut answers even harder to come by). I had thought this was rather the norm for many law school exams, where the goal is to spot and work through issues, even if one doesn't necessarily come out with the same andwer as the Professor would.

Even more, having answers that students might have prepared before hand does not strike me as an unqualifiedly bad thing. The trick is to make sure that one is open-minded enough about the possible topics for an exam that a student who wishes to do this has to prepare more than just one or two questions. This means not just picking the thing that's at the top of the headlines. But if everything from U.S. Attorneys dismissals to Medellin v. Texas is to some extent fair fame for the question, then a student who wants to prepare will have to prepare answers to most of the major legal issues going on. And that, as Akhil Amar has put it, is not cheating-- it is learning.

Now, to mirror Steve's point, I do think there are downsides to using current events as the basis for exam-writing, but I don't think either of these two downsides are very big downsides at all.