Maryland Appellate Court Upholds Lower Court Ruling, Retrial, in Syed Case, Featured On "Serial" @serial

The Maryland Special Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling overturning Adnan Syed's conviction for murder and ordering a new trial. The first season of the popular podcast Serial featured Mr. Syed's trial, conviction, and appeals over the 1999 murder of his classmate and former girlfriend Hae Min Lee. The podcast focused a great deal of attention on the case.

The government could still decide to appeal the latest ruling.

On Serial's effect on law and popular culture, here's a selected bibliography.

Rabia Chaudry, Undisclosed: Five Legal Lessons From the Case of Adnan Syed. 48 Tex. Tech. L. Rev. 363

Julie Gafney, Teaching Serial at the Criminal Justice College.

Tony Jeff, Crowdsourcing Justice. 35 Miss. C. L. Rev. 365 (2016/2017).

Goodman on Nevertheless She Persisted: From Mrs. Bradwell To Annalise Keating: Gender Bias In the Courtroom

Christine Chambers Goodman, Pepperdine University School of Law, is publishing Nevertheless She Persisted: From Mrs. Bradwell to Annalise Keating, Gender Bias in the Courtroom in volume 24 of the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law (2017). Here is the abstract.

Part I of this Article gives some brief background on the nature of implicit gender biases, and discusses the evolution of gender bias against female attorneys, with particular attention to how the media influences those biases. Part II analyzes the specific manifestations of gender bias in the courtroom. Part III addresses concrete strategies that law schools, firms, the bench, and bar can implement to reduce its impact.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Frishman on Court-Audience Relationships in the Twenty-First Century

Olga Frishman, University of Haifa Faculty of Law, and Tel-Aviv University, Buchmann Faculty Faculty of Law, is publishing Court-Audience Relationships in the 21st Century in the Mississippi Law Journal. Here is the abstract.

Courts, especially supreme and constitutional courts, need social legitimacy to successfully fulfill their roles. This article argues that courts are not only aware of this need but also can, and do in practice, actively manage their relationships with their audiences in an attempt to increase this legitimacy. The article proposes a new framework for understanding these court-audience relationships. Using insights from organizational theory, the article proposes a broad definition of courts’ audiences. It also argues that court-audience relationships should be analyzed using the concepts of “intended image” and “organizational image.” Based on the proposed framework, the article identifies a wide variety of methods that courts use to manage these relationships and to convince their different audiences to support them. It focuses in particular on one type of methods courts use – methods that are external to their official roles (e.g., movies and books, museums, gift shops, websites, and advertisements). Many of these methods are similar to techniques used by public relations specialists to promote other organizations. These methods, the article argues, which until now have not been accorded much scholarly investigation, are pivotal for courts’ ability to gain the support of their audiences. The article also discusses the practical concerns that arise from courts’ use of these methods, situations in which using them may decrease courts’ legitimacy. Finally, the article addresses normative concerns that result from courts’ turn to public relations methods for managing their relationships with their audiences and the way this turn may influence their social role.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Conference Proceedings: Visualizing Law in the Digital Age

Proceedings for the recent Visualizing Law in the Digital Age Symposium are available here.

What's Satire Got To Do With It?

Lauren Feldman, American University, Anthony Leiserowitz, Yale University, and Edward W. Maibach, George Mason University Center for Climate Change Commication, have published The Impact of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report on Public Attentiveness to Science and the Environment. Here is the abstract.

Prior research on the political effects of late-night comedy programs has demonstrated that by piggy-backing political content on entertainment fare, such programs provide a, "gateway," to increased audience attention to news and public affairs, particularly among less politically engaged audiences. Given the heightened coverage of science and environmental topics on Comedy Central’s satirical news programs, "The Daily Show," and, "The Colbert Report," this paper considers whether a similar process could be at work relative to public attention to science and the environment. An analysis of nationally representative survey data finds that audience exposure to, "The Daily Show," and, "The Colbert Report," goes hand-in-hand with attention paid to science and environmental issues, specifically global warming. Moreover, the relationship between satirical news use and attentiveness is most pronounced among those with the least amount of formal education, who might otherwise lack the resources and motivation to pay attention to scientific and environmental issues. In this way, satirical news is an attention equalizer, reducing traditional gaps in attentiveness between those with low and high levels of education.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Pacificism In Popular Culture

Hannibal Travis, Florida International University College of Law, has published Postmodern Censorship of Pacifist Content on Television and the Internet, in volume 25 of the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy (2011). Here is the abstract.

This Essay, a contribution to a symposium on censorship and the media, explores the legal history of the censorship of antiwar speech. It devotes particular attention to postmodern techniques for chilling the production of pacifist content, or reducing the total output of it. Pacifist speech is defined broadly, as speech advocating peaceful alternatives to war or militarism, articulating doctrines or principles which urge forswearing war or violence in international disputes, or expressing reasons to oppose specific military episodes or entire wars.



A fundamental assumption of democratic governance is that the public keeps informed of important news and points of view by exposure in the press, whether print or electronic. Yet the public is often denied complete information by governments and private media conglomerates acting in close concert. While legal scholars frequently condemn direct censorship by the federal government, they too often neglect the extent to which private parties may be mobilized by the government to foment false beliefs and propagate misleading portraits of vital public policy issues.



This Essay explores postmodern censorship of pacifist expression. Postmodern censorship is distinguishable from its pre-modern or modern counterparts by its immaterial, seemingly nonviolent ways of watching and influencing apparently private activity, in contrast to a modern way of censoring speech by using violence as an ostentatious tyrant would. While still sculpting citizens’ beliefs and behaviors, postmodern power applies itself to private technologies and the enjoyment of what seems to be leisure time or tools such as television or radio. Postmodern regulation directs itself at privatized implementation of governmental objectives, including the lies and crimes of governments. It simulates real events in spectacles of illusion and artifice. In the postmodern era, everything is increasingly artificial, real events are excluded from the public spectacle, and the meaning of words and concepts is lost.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.