Legal Commentary

Beldar on Volokh on the Texas polygamy/child custody case

By Beldar

A few folks have asked me for my take on the Austin Court of Appeals' overturning this week of the state trial judge's interim child custody decision in the big Texas polygamy/child custody case. UCLA Law Prof. Eugene Volokh is one of the smartest law professors blogging today, and I agree with him probably 98% of the time. But in comments to this post of his (many of which he was kind enough to respond to in further comments), I disagree strongly with his conclusion that the appellate court was administering a "sharp rebuke." Perhaps you have to actively practice law regularly to have a clear sense when an appellate court is just saying "This side lost," and when it's saying, "Boy, howdy, this side needs a trip to the woodshed because it was way, way out of line, and let's include the trial judge in that whuppin' too." This was an example of the former in my judgment, whereas Prof. Volokh apparently reads it as an example of the latter.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on May 24, 2008 (boomark / email).