Monday, August 23, 2021

Now in print!


Check out the published version of my law review article, Deal Jumpers, hot off the press at the U. Illinois L. Rev., here.  Defense lawyers in other states are often shocked to learn that Wisconsin judges can take a defendant's plea, jump the plea deal, and sandbag the defendant with a harsher sentence than the parties agreed upon.  And the defendant has no recourse whatsoever.  Absolutely amazing.  We don't call Wisconsin the "hell mouth" for nothin'.  

As always, you can find my other law review articles here, and my books here.

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

A heap of sand, law review publishing, and the high cost of legal education [updated]

There’s a paradox called Sorites Paradox which takes numerous, related forms.  Here’s one.  You’ve got a heap of sand.  If you take away one grain, do you still have a heap?  Of course.  Therefore, given that Heap – 1 grain = Heap, “[i]t follows, absurdly, that even a single grain makes a heap. Thus soritical reasoning appears to show both that no number of grains make a heap and that any number of grains make a heap.”

It really isn’t much of a paradox.  The problem, of course, is in the vagueness of language—specifically, the word heap.  We all know that if you keep removing grains of sand, one by one, eventually you will no longer have a heap.  People may not agree on the exact point at which that occurs, but we would all agree, for example, that a mere two remaining grains of sand, sitting sadly side by side, is no longer a heap.