My quote for this story: "This is part of the reason that the DOJ has long sought to remain independent and non-partisan. Once it loses the benefit of the doubt, it is difficult to gain that trust back...” www.cnbc.com/2026/04/08/f...
List of symposium contributions also available at the link.
The W&M Bill of Rights Journal has published the contributions to the Constitutional Law Casebooks Symposium. Lots of interesting stuff here - and thanks again to the editors for letting me crash the symposium to talk about casebook costs. scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/
More blogging about law school casebooks with this guest post at CrimProf Blog: crimprof.blog/selecting-a-...
Thanks @aaronbruhl.bsky.social - you are the most reasonable human on the planet, so I very much appreciate the support.
Thanks @alahav.bsky.social!
Faithless Prosecution 58 Pages Posted: 7 Jan 2026 Last revised: 4 Feb 2026 Jeffrey Bellin Vanderbilt University - Vanderbilt Law School Date Written: January 02, 2026 Abstract In Fall 2025, Donald Trump publicly urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to initiate prosecutions of his political foes. This disturbing directive may signal the beginning of a new norm, rather than a temporary break in the old one. Trump’s interference with DOJ independence is inconsistent with the practices of Republican and Democratic administrations over the past fifty years. But the DOJ’s acquiescence models the “unitary executive,” a theory of constitutional law that has become popular with legal influencers, including Justices on the Supreme Court. Left unchecked, these developments are poised to add federal prosecutions to the toxic stew of American politics. And while Congress shows little interest in intervening, judges possess limited tools to do so. “Selective” and “vindictive” prosecution doctrines forbid a narrow set of prosecutions but these undertheorized doctrines, anchored in the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, only tangentially address the problem of a politicized DOJ. To counteract the politicization of federal prosecutions, this Article urges the Supreme Court to recognize a new doctrine anchored in a distinct constitutional provision. Article II, Section 3 states that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” This provision is rarely invoked and somewhat obscure, but it offers one clear and enforceable command: when a President intervenes in individual law enforcement decisions, the President must act in good faith. Overruling career prosecutors to initiate cases against political enemies is the opposite of taking care that the laws are faithfully executed. It is “faithless prosecution,” and should be voidable in the courts.
My latest article "Faithless Prosecution" is now available on SSRN. Comments welcome via email.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
me in front of roundtable announcement poster
Just wrapped up the 17th Criminal Justice Roundtable hosted by Chris Slobogin at Vanderbilt Law School w/ @rachelbarkow.bsky.social @richardre.bsky.social @erinmurphyslaw.bsky.social
@joeljohnson13.bsky.social @profrgold.bsky.social @meganstevenson.bsky.social and others not on Bsky
picture of about 10 scholars
The inaugural Evidence Roundtable at Vanderbilt Law School. We theorized "simplified evidence rules" for disputes that don't require the complexity of the federal rules with a group of wonderful scholars (pictured) and judges (not pictured). Stay tuned evidence world for future roundtables...
Putting the above-described standards together reveals a concrete evidentiary charging standard: a prosecutor should only charge a case when the prosecutor expects that the evidence introduced at trial will prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I
Perhaps of interest.... While legal ethics codes and the U.S. Constitution require a prosecutor to have "probable cause" to support a charge, there is broad agreement that prosecutors should apply a stricter charging standard, although exactly what is less clear. I offer my take in a 2020 article:
Not hearsay if offered to prove he didn’t
Or is it
A riff on one of my favorite problems in @bellinj.bsky.social’s excellent casebook
Not a lot of mystery here. DC prosecutors traditionally didn't charge these cases as felonies. This is why.
pic of Amazon listing for Evidence casebook with tag "#1 Best Seller"
if you teach Evidence, the casebook landscape is shifting...
Amazon’s "Best Sellers in Law" offers an interesting snapshot of the otherwise non-transparent law school casebook market. www.amazon.com/best-sellers...
Used copy of book selling for $249.
A legitimate - I think - retailer selling used copies of my $35 casebook for $250. (I guess they just assume the retail price is $300 since it is a law school casebook.)
Correct Answer: A law school casebook doesn't have to have a boring red or blue cover!
picture that shows best selling evidence casebooks on amazon
A slice of Amazon's best selling evidence books. What do you notice?
This is one of the many - how have they not answered that yet? - cases in Fourth Amendment doctrine. Might also offer guidance on analyzing exigent circumstances that are safety- not crime-focused.
Jeffrey Bellin, 'The Law of Evidence,' 2nd ed. (2025).
The library has *doubled* sales of @bellinj.bsky.social's 2nd edition of 'The Law of Evidence'! www.amazon.com/Law-Evidence...
Thanks to Paul Caron and TaxProf Blog for the shoutout to my symposium essay about law school casebooks.
[Daubert Hearing omitted]
It's live! Very proud of this piece I wrote with Jeffrey Bellin (@bellinj.bsky.social) for the Yale Law Journal. And thanks to Dave Pozen of Columbia Law School for writing such a provocative book for us to engage with!
www.yalelawjournal.org/review/race-...
The good news is there are high quality, low-cost alternatives in many fields (especially Evidence 😀). My take on the general question - "The High Cost of Law School Casebooks" - is available here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Picture of caption of Justice Alito's statement - full statement available at link.
👀 In separate statements today, Justices Gorsuch and Alito argue that the Confrontation Clause doctrine introduced by Justice Scalia in 2004 is flawed and needs to change. Alito suggests narrower protections for defendants and Gorsuch hints at broader ones. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...
