And the Winner is . . .
Alas, there is no clear winner of my contest to explain which athletes get the benefit of the doubt. The comments made considerable good sense. Employers care about: the marquee value of the athlete; the seriousness of the offense; how clearly guilty the athlete is; to what extent the particular athlete or the sport in general is trying to cultivate a positive image; and a host of other factors. In short, it depends.
posted by Michael C. Dorf @ 12:28 PM
3 Comments:
At 1:41 PM,
Benjam said…
wow. that stinks. i never post unless i think i can win something.
i've been fascinated by the bills now pending in congress aimed at freeing the border agents incarcerated for shooting a man attempting to cross the border illegally. the man who was shot turned out (allegedly) to be a drug smuggler. the key point to the bills in congress is that they aim to free the incarcerated agents (being held in federal prison) by defunding their imprisonment. the bill specifically forbids the federal government from spending any money to keep them in custody.
on the one hand, this seems to be (almost) a violation of separation of powers as an encroachment on the judicial and executive powers. this is a de facto congressional pardon. moreover, it also seems like a "reverse" bill of attainder, to the extent that the individuals are named in the bill.
my own view is that congressional supremecy is much less dangerous than an imperial presidency and is consistent with the framers' intent. at the same time, i wonder if the supreme court would ever place limits on what the congress can do via the purse-strings. does anyone have a perspective on this?
At 10:40 PM,
Michael C. Dorf said…
reverse bills of attainder are constitutionally okay. consider the practice of "special bills" that permitted deportable aliens to remain in the country (as described in INS v Chadha). that's not to say that special bills are a good idea. consider the Terri Schiavo law.
At 1:23 AM,
Benjam said…
i'm mostly just wondering if there is a limit to what congress can defund. in other words, there is an explicit textual prohibition on reducing the salaries of article III judges. does that mean congress can defund everything else? could they defund the president's transportation, so that he couldnt effectively travel outside the country? could they defund the secret service? could they defund the supreme court's publishing budget, so that no opinion could ever be published?
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