Approximately 1,000 scholars, students, practitioners, policy-makers and judges descended on the historic Mayflower Renaissance Hotel in our nation's capital this weekend for the 2009 ACS National Convention. Videos of panels and featured remarks are being collected here.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) kicked off the Convention with remarks on the value of experience for our judiciary.
The Convention's theme, "Keeping Faith with the Constitution," shares its name with a new ACS book by Profs. Goodwin Liu, Pamela Karlan and Chris Schroeder. In a panel on the book, Liu and Karlan were joined by highly esteemed experts in constitutional interpretation for discussion of the "constitutional fidelity," which they put forth in the book.
Featured remarks by Elizabeth Warren included a robust defense of her proposal to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency -- an idea recently embraced by the Obama administration.
quite limited, at least in terms of the numbers of innocent prisoners affected. Most of our clients seeking DNA testing are able to get it through state court orders or the consent of prosecutors. The federal-court option that we sought in Osborne has been necessary only when a state has no procedure making DNA testing available, or when a defendant is for some reason excluded from applying for testing under state law (for example, some states limit their DNA testing laws to death row inmates, so that someone "only" serving life in prison cannot get testing). It is very likely that Osborne will close the federal courthouse doors to at least some innocent prisoners who cannot get testing under state law - some of whom may spend their lives in prison, or even be executed, as a result.
Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, seized the opportunity of speaking at the 2009 ACS National Convention to make a major speech boosting her idea for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which the Obama administration recently endorsed. Warren, who the Wall Street Journal recently 
Public conversation about constitutional interpretation happens most noisily on the occasion of Supreme Court vacancies, but it has come to take on a predictably depressing character. As if to rival the "Less filling!" - "Tastes great!" debate, partisans of the right and left take to shouting, "Judicial Activism!" and "Living Constitution!" at one another. Unfortunately, this shorthand rarely frames any meaningful popular discussion.