High note

New Hampshire license plates instruct you to "Live Free or Die."

You aren't allowed to do both things at once, however: It's illegal in the Granite State to inhale bus fumes with the intent to induce euphoria.

No Comment Department: Safe Streets

From the BicycleLaw.com blog:

In the Netherlands, the law imposes a rebuttable presumption of liability on drivers -- if a motorist is involved in a crash with a cyclist, the law presumes that the motorist is liable for the crash, unless the motorist can rebut that presumption with evidence to the contrary. The reason for this shift is that the Dutch recognized that the cyclist will virtually always be the injured party in a collision with an automobile, and by putting the onus of fault on the driver, have provided motorists with a powerful legal incentive to pay more attention to the presence of cyclists.

Politics: The role of the Supreme Court

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's riveting opening at Kagan SCOTUS nomination hearing:

"The guillotine ... is the quickest way to sever a life that we know of, but no one would dare use it today. As long as it's not messy, we're OK with it." -- Dr. Jonathan Groner on the shooting to death of convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner by the state of Utah. Death by firing squad spotlights old execution method by Nicholas Riccardi (Los Angeles Times 2010-06-18).

Resource: Executions, Deterrence and Homicide - A Tale of Two Cities

Abstract: We compare homicide rates in two quite similar cities with vastly different execution risks. Singapore had an execution rate close to 1 per million per year until an explosive twentyfold increase in 1994-95 and 96 to a level that we show was probably the highest in the world. Then over the next 11 years, Singapore executions dropped by about 95%. Hong Kong, by contrast, has no executions all during the last generation and abolished capital punishment in 1993. Homicide levels and trends are remarkably similar in these two cities over the 35 years after 1973, with neither the surge in Singapore executions nor the more recent steep drop producing any differential impact. By comparing two closely matched places with huge contrasts in actual execution but no differences in homicide trends, we have generated a unique test of the exuberant claims of deterrence that have been produced over the past decade in the U.S. -- Boalt Working Papers in Public Law, University of California, Berkeley,

Download: Executions, Deterrence and Homicide - A Tale of Two Cities (pdf)

Heroes: Legendary Lawyer Doris Brin Walker Dies

Represented Angela Davis, Smith Act Defendants -- Marjorie Cohn's ZSpace Page (ZSpace 2009-08-16)

Blogs: Islamic Law in Today's World

A useful addition to the blogosphere: Islamic Law In Our Times - A Realistic
Assessment of Islamic Law in Today's World by Asst. Prof. Haider Ala Hamoudi of University of Pittsburgh School of Law. <http://muslimlawprof.org/>