The Appellate Record : Texas Appellate Lawyer & Attorney Kendall Gray for Fifth Circuit & Supreme Court Appeals

We in Texas take our cheer leading seriously--seriously enough for some to make a federal case out of it apparently.

For that is what happened in Sanches v. Carrollton-Farmers Branch I.S.D. where complaints over not making the squad escalated to a federal civil rights lawsuit under Title IX and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.  

Hat tip to the ABA Blog and Above The Law for noticing the case first.

If some lawyers might think twice about seeking federal remedies over such facts, a cautious lawyer might think thrice about whether and how to appeal to the Fifth Circuit. 

After the break, a word about how you can make a weak claim worse through bad grammar or by failing to take some time to sleep on it before you cast darts at the lower court.

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 I've written here before about the qualities of a great introductory paragraph, how important it is to state your conclusions up front, get to the point and tell the reader the answer, and how a good introduction keeps your reader from feeling like they've been kidnapped. 

Here at the end of the Supreme Court term, when I'm trying to shake off my sloth and catch up on all the opinions that have come out, I must again wag my pedantic and prodigious finger. The Court does not always measure up. 

With a good introduction, I can tell what the case is about, what the issue is, how the issue comes out. 

With an inadequate introduction, I either get a garbled message or I am forced to read further to find out . . . whether I want to read further.

After the break we'll use some recent Supreme Court opinions as object lessons for what works, and what doesn't.

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This is the post where you find out what Justice Scalia has in common with the Mayor of River City, Iowa and how a good amicus brief can buttress an opinion. Read on.

Con Law professors everywhere work themselves into a lather every June, because that is when the Supreme Court seems to always let fly with its blockbuster opinions.

This term was no different. In the dock for the final day of the term was Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association.  Brown asked the question of whether California could prohibit the sale of certain video games to minors, specifically the really gnarly ones that middle school boys would call "wicked" or "awesome" or whatever the kids are saying these days. The law was aimed at:

'killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if those acts are depicted' in a manner that '[a] reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors,' that is 'patently offensive toprevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors,' and that 'causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.'

So can California do that? Or is that like trying to ban Lord of the Flies because Piggy gets whacked?

As it turns out, the Court said that violent video games and Lord of the Flies are constitutionally the same.

After the break a few words about how Justice Scalia did it--with a little help from his amici.

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