Law and Magic Blog

Alert! Canadian Zombie Laws Update! @CanLII

CanLII has updated its Grimoire of Zombie Laws on This Day of Hallowe'en. Here's the link.

The Constitution and Law and Zombies

Oh, too good to pass up. Although it's probably not a good idea to pass up zombies, or pass by zombies, if you see them on a road, or walking toward you, or anywhere in your vicinity. See Dawn of the Dead (1978), Night of the Zombies (1981), Humans Versus Zombies (2011), Pro Wrestlers Vs Zombies (2014)....you get the idea. Probably best to avoid zombies all together, though if you are a human rights lawyer, it might be a way to build your practice.

William Baude, University of Chicago Law School, has published Zombie Federalism. See the abstract below. 

The most natural question to ask about zombies and constitutional law is whether zombies are persons within the meaning of the Constitution. But that question turns out to be remarkably difficult. The word "person" appears repeatedly throughout the Constitution, but without any clues about whether it extends to zombies. 

What’s the best constitutional solution to this problem? Zombie Federalism. The Constitution does not resolve the question of zombie personhood, so we should understand it to leave that question to state law.

 

Download the paper (very short) from SSRN at the link.

Life and Law and Zombies

Joshua Warren is an attorney after my own heart. Well, I certainly hope he isn't literally after my heart. Mr. Warren is putting together a casebook on zombie law. According to Findlaw's Deanne Katz, "Warren claims he has over 300 federal court opinions that use the word 'zombie' which is more than enough for an imposing casebook to store on your bookshelf." Check out the project here.

I do believe that judges (and lawyers), frighteningly, use the word "zombie" and its derivatives that often. Maybe more often. Zombies can take on lives of their own, although they aren't supposed to. That's the point of zombification, isn't it? Ms. Katz makes reference to Adam Chodorow's Death and Taxes and Zombies, forthcoming in the Iowa Law Review.

Mr. Warren is offering a number of purchasables to fund his project; they look like fun. T-shirts, postcards and a photo of yourself as a zombie (you don't have to undergo the change--just the magic of digital transformation) can be yours: the transfer of negotiable instruments for swag.

Check out his blog, Zombie Law, here.

I note that Mr. Warren is also interested in locating instances of uses of the word "ninja" in court opinions. Abandoning the rule of law completely? Similarly, uses of the phrase "cocker spaniel." Going to the dogs, are we?

Life and law and zombies. Put me down for a copy of the Warren casebook.