Although this blog strives to maintain a certain level of professionalism, it must be noted that a law blog like this one can hardly exist without mentioning one of comedy’s greatest inventions: Bob Loblaw Law Blog.

In the third and final season of the mildly successful FOX comedy, Arrested Development, Bob Loblaw is introduced. While Loblaw is a lawyer who takes himself seriously, viewers can’t help but chuckle at his non-self-aware quirkiness.

In Loblaw’s commercial,

• He repeatedly closes a large, leather book, supposedly a legal dictionary.
• He only accepts cash for identity theft cases.
• “Why should you go to jail for a crime someone else…noticed?” he asks.
• The cheesy stock-music in the background is supposedly meant to suggest that the know-it-all lawyer is an inept person.

Watch the Bob Loblaw Commercial.

It’s the day after Christmas, and as I’m writing this post for our legal blog, I can’t help but realize that what Loblaw said to his friends, is the same thing I said to mine: “I thought that maybe I would stay in and work on my law blog.”

Here’s to a great 2012 for AttorneysOnYourSide.com!

The cases that the United States Supreme Court hears are often controversial, ranging from gun-control laws to abortion, immigration to economic regulation, environmental protection to campaign finance.

It even decides between the different schemes of government that are within America. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, wrote that because “controversies relating to the boundary between the two jurisdictions” of the state and federal government will naturally arise, there must be, “under the general government” a “tribunal which is ultimately to decide” between the two (Federalist 39).

The Supreme Court of Pakistan is facing a similar task. Instead of deciding between the powers of the state and the powers of the federal government, the Pakistani Supreme Court must mediate between the civilian government, headed by President Asif Ali Zardari, and the powerful military government.

The military government alleges that an ally of Zardari inked a secret memo, seeking U.S. help to curb the Army’s powers.

According to Newsweek Pakistan, “The scandal threatens to embroil Zardari and fan tensions between his weak government and the military‚ the chief arbiter of power in Pakistan‚ forcing aides to deny that controversy and illness could see him driven from office.”

While America’s judicial system is controversial and political, let’s be thankful that it has not, at least since the Civil War, attempted to prevent full scale war. Wrote Madison, “Some such tribunal is clearly essential to prevent an appeal to the sword and a dissolution of the compact” (Federalist 39).

Burlington, NC, October 24, 2011 – The Vernon Law Firm is pleased to announce the  inclusion of Wiley P. Wooten in the 2012 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® in the practice of Family Law.

Since its inception in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Because Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 41,000 leading attorneys cast almost 3.9 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas, and because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys inpractice.”

Upon hearing the news of his selection to The Best Lawyers in America® Wiley P. Wooten, Esq., Shareholder and Director, commented, “At Vernon Law, we are committed to delivering excellent legal representation to every client we serve.  I am proud and honored to be listed in this well respected publication.”

Vernon Law, founded in 1933, has been assisting clients with their legal needs in Alamance County and throughout the Burlington-Greensboro area in North Carolina for over 74 years.  The attorneys at Vernon Law are licensed to practice in North Carolina and in federal courts, and together they represent over 220 years of combined legal experience.

Vernon Law attorneys have been leaders in the legal profession and in the Burlington-Greensboro North Carolina community, holding office as President of the North Carolina Bar, President of the Alamance County Bar, and Clerk of Court of Alamance County, as well as many other positions of civic and business leadership.

Facts: Congress passed the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, making the possession of a firearm within 1,000 feet of a public or private school a federal crime. Twelfth-grader Alfonso Lopez, Jr. was found holding a .38 caliber handgun into a San Antonio high school and was charged with breaking a Texas law that prohibited the possession of firearms on school property. The state charges were dropped when federal agents brought him to a federal district court because of his violation of the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. When the court found Lopez guilty, it sentenced him to six months in prison and two years probation. Lopez appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court, and the court reversed the lower court’s decision. United States then appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

Decision: 5 – 4 Lopez wins. Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the Opinion of the Court.

Doctrine: Under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, Congress possesses the power to regulate “the channels of interstate commerce,” completely “intrastate activities” that affect “the instrumentalities of interstate commerce,” and “those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce.” However, Congress does not have the authority to regulate such intrastate activity to the extent that it destroys the “distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local.”

Reasoning: The Court ruled that Congress, under its interstate commerce power, possesses the power to regulate three categories. “First,” the Court stated, “Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.” In Gibbons v. Ogden, the Supreme Court ruled that interstate commerce is “intercourse between … parts of nations and is regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that intercourse.” In that decision, the Court ruled that Congress possesses the plenary power to regulate interstate commerce but not the “exclusively internal commerce of a State.” The Court determined that Lopez’s activity did not fit into this category.

In addition, Congress may “regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities.” The previous Courts realized that “enterprises that had once been local or at most regional in nature had become national in scope.” However, the Court again ruled that the possession of a firearm on the premises of a high school did not fit into this category.

Lastly, the Court wrote that congress may regulate “those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.” In United States v. E. C. Knight Co., the Supreme Court ruled that Congress possesses the power to regulate intrastate commerce when it is necessary for the effective regulation of interstate commerce. In Wickard v. Filburn, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress possess the power to regulate completely local activity “if it exerts a substantial effect on interstate commerce” whether directly or indirectly. The Court stated that “where economic activity substantially affects interstate commerce, legislation regulating that activity will be sustained.”

The government argued that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 is constitutional “because possession of a firearm in a local school zone does indeed substantially affect interstate commerce” because it prevents violent crimes. Violent crimes, the government argued, are a substantial cost on the economy. “Through the mechanism of insurance, those costs are spread throughout the population,” the government contended. Secondly, the government stated that “violent crime reduces the willingness of individuals to travel to areas within the country that are perceived to be unsafe,” and therefore substantially affects interstate commerce.

The “implications” of the government’s argument, wrote the Court, take Congress’ power down a dangerous road. “If we were to accept the Government’s arguments,” the Court declared, “Congress could regulate not only all violent crime, but all activities that might lead to violent crime, regardless of how tenuously they relate to interstate commerce.” In short, the Court would be “hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is without power to regulate” if it accepted the government’s reasoning.

Although the previous Courts had “expanded” Congress’ power under the interstate commerce clause, the Court in 1990 “decline[d] here to proceed any further” and ruled that “this power is subject to outer limits.” The Court in Jones & Laughlin Steel ruled that Congress’ power “may not be extended so as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace them, in view of our complex society, would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government.”

Therefore, the Court affirmed the decision of the Fifth Circuit Court.