Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.
New cert petition: You might think it's outrageous that a Dallas detective lied to get a bar owner indicted for fake crimes at the behest of the detective's part-time employer, a neighboring business that wanted the bar gone. But what's really outrageous is that in the Fifth Circuit, the denial of the detective's plea for state-law immunity (from the bar owner's civil suit) is immediately appealable. As J. Oldham argues (in a troubled concurrence), the availability of such collateral-order review in federal appellate courts leaves federal jurisdiction at the mercy of states. Which makes no sense. Click here to learn more.
Over at the Brennan Center's State Court Report, Anthony Sanders reports on a recent state supreme court opinion from North Dakota concerning big words like "liberty" and "happiness" that are in the state constitution. How should courts interpret those words? Anthony says do what the constitution says: Go Big (but within reason).
