How Much Credit Should Lockdowns Get for Reducing COVID-19 Transmission?

Why Does Trump Want To Stop People From Voting by Mail?

Ohio Judge Deems the State's COVID-19 Lockdown 'Arbitrary, Unreasonable, and Oppressive'

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.20.2020 3:45 PM Ohio's COVID-19 lockdown is illegal, a state judge ruled today, because it exceeds the powers...

The New York Times Recoils at the Predictable Consequences of the Mandatory COVID-19 Precautions It Supports

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.20.2020 1:15 PM "Of the 125 people arrested over offenses that law enforcement officials described as related to the...

A Pandemic Does Not Suspend the Rule of Law

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.20.2020 12:01 AM The recent court decisions overturning COVID-19 lockdowns in Wisconsin and Oregon focused on...

A Pandemic Does Not Suspend the Rule of Law

The recent court decisions overturning COVID-19 lockdowns in Wisconsin and Oregon focused on abstruse issues of statutory interpretation. But both...

Nancy Pelosi Uses COVID-19 As an Excuse to Call Donald Trump a Big Fat Load

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.19.2020 5:00 PM "I pray for the president all of the time," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) declared in...

Do the Divergent Results of COVID-19 Antibody Studies Reflect Real Differences?

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.18.2020 4:00 PM How deadly is COVID-19? It has become increasingly clear that the answer varies from place to place....

Two Billionaires Demonstrate the Limits of Money in Elections

Policy Jacob Sullum | From the June 2020 issue Two and a half weeks after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) slammed Michael Bloomberg for trying...

10 Ways a Roadside Police Stop Can Go Wrong

Police Jacob Sullum | From the June 2020 issue "These days," Charles Glover's lawyers noted in a Supreme Court brief last year, "traffic safety...

Americans Are Isolating Themselves Less, but That Doesn't Mean They Are Abandoning COVID-19 Precautions

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.15.2020 5:30 PM "Social distancing" in the United States has dropped "significantly" since late March, USA Today...

The Breonna Taylor Shooting Shows How Reckless Drug War Tactics Lead to Senseless Deaths

Drug War Jacob Sullum | 5.15.2020 4:45 PM The shooting of Breonna Taylor, which happened on March 13 but is only now getting national attention,...

Wisconsin Supreme Court Says the State's COVID-19 Lockdown Violated the Rule of Law and the Separation of Powers

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.14.2020 3:15 PM After the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned that state's COVID-19 lockdown yesterday, Gov. Tony...

No, Jared Kushner Did Not Suggest That Trump Might Unilaterally Delay the Presidential Election

Will SCOTUS Revoke Its License for Police Abuse?

Supreme Court Justices Are Considering 13 Petitions Involving the Pernicious Doctrine of Qualified Immunity

Lockdown Lawsuits Ask How Long a Public Health Emergency Can Last

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.12.2020 5:40 PM The longer COVID-19 lockdowns last, Texas Supreme Court Justice James Blacklock suggested last week,...

Does Questioning Official COVID-19 Statistics Make This Doctor a 'Denialist'?

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.11.2020 4:55 PM Are COVID-19 deaths undercounted? Yes, especially if people with other illnesses die at home and are...

We Don't Need a Psychiatric Diagnosis To Assess the President's Obvious Faults

The most extreme lockdowns plainly don’t pass constitutional sniff test

When he rejected a legal challenge to Michigan’s COVID-19 lockdown last week, Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray quoted at length from...

Andrew Cuomo's Morally Grotesque Rationale for Maintaining COVID-19 Lockdowns

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.7.2020 2:35 PM New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo continues to show that he cannot be trusted to properly weigh the costs...

Supreme Court Justices in Texas and Pennsylvania Emphasize That COVID-19 Lockdowns Require Judicial Scrutiny

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.6.2020 2:45 PM Despite some victories in cases involving religious freedom and abortion rights, broader legal...

When Are COVID-19 Control Measures 'Arbitrary' and 'Unreasonable'?

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.6.2020 12:01 AM When he rejected a legal challenge to Michigan's COVID-19 lockdown last week, Court of Claims Judge...

When Are COVID-19 Control Measures 'Arbitrary' and 'Unreasonable'?

When he rejected a legal challenge to Michigan's COVID-19 lockdown last week, Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray quoted at length from Jacobson...

Weed Warriors Who Mistook Tea for Marijuana Will Pay Their Victims $150,000

8 Possible Reasons for the Huge International Differences in COVID-19 Deaths

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.4.2020 2:30 PM If you're trying to figure out why some places have been hit especially hard by the COVID-19 pandemic...

It took a pandemic, but you can finally view Supreme Court hearings live

The case that the Supreme Court hears on Monday, a trademark dispute involving the travel service Booking.com, is probably of little interest to the...

Seemingly Small Differences in the Accuracy of COVID-19 Antibody Tests Can Make a Big Practical Difference

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 5.1.2020 4:40 PM We are counting on COVID-19 antibody tests to estimate the prevalence and lethality of the novel...

A Formerly Secret Memo Explains the DEA's Long Delay in Approving New Producers of Marijuana for Research

Medical Marijuana Jacob Sullum | 4.30.2020 4:00 PM Since the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was founded in 1973, it has allowed only one...

What 'Excess Deaths' Do and Don't Tell Us About COVID-19

A Virus Makes the Supreme Court More Transparent

Unprecedented Live Audio Streaming of Oral Arguments Could Signal More Openness

Deeming a Lawsuit Moot, SCOTUS Passes Up a Chance to Correct Judicial Disrespect for the Second Amendment

When It Comes to Covering Trump, The New York Times Has Abandoned Any Distinction Between Reporting and Opinion

Miami-Dade Antibody Tests Suggest Local COVID-19 Infections Exceed Confirmed Cases by a Factor of 16

It's Not Fake News: Trump Did Actually Suggest That Injecting Bleach Could Be a Cure for COVID-19

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 4.24.2020 1:45 PM This morning Kayleigh McEnany, the new White House press secretary, slammed news outlets for...

Will our leaders really look at science to figure out when lockdowns end?

When she announced the startling results of a new COVID-19 study on Monday, Los Angeles County’s top public-health official, Barbara Ferrer,...

What Explains the Difference Between Estimated COVID-19 Fatality Rates in New York and California?

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 4.23.2020 5:50 PM One of the points raised by critics of two recent California studies that estimated a surprisingly...

The Attorney General Defends Civil Liberties Against Overreaching COVID-19 Control Measures

Shouldn't COVID-19's Lethality Inform the Response to It?

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 4.22.2020 12:01 AM When she announced the startling results of a new COVID-19 study on Monday, Los Angeles County's...

Evidence That the Virus Is Much Less Deadly Than People Feared Weakens the Case for Maintaining Lockdowns

What Do 'Missing Deaths' Imply About the Impact of COVID-19?

L.A. County Antibody Tests Suggest the Fatality Rate for COVID-19 Is Much Lower Than People Feared

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 4.20.2020 6:10 PM Preliminary results from antibody tests in Los Angeles County indicate that the true number of...

Despite COVID-19 Lockdowns, Licensed Marijuana Sales Continue in the Vast Majority of States With Legal Pot

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 4.20.2020 2:30 PM Measured by marijuana sales, 4/20 came early this year as cannabis consumers scrambled to stock up,...

Antibody Tests in Colorado Highlight the Huge Gap Between Confirmed COVID-19 Cases and Total Infections

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 4.17.2020 3:20 PM The latest results of mass antibody testing in San Miguel County, Colorado, suggest that 1 to 3...

Even in a Pandemic, 'Constitutional Rights Still Exist'

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 4.15.2020 12:01 AM The celebration of Easter last weekend was conspicuously constrained by government policies aimed...

A Federal Judge Defends Religious Freedom by Blocking a Misguided Ban on Drive-In Easter Services

The celebration of Easter this week was conspicuously constrained by government policies aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19, which affected...

Trump Can Encourage States to Lift Their COVID-19 Lockdowns, but He Can't Decree That Outcome

Coronavirus Jacob Sullum | 4.14.2020 4:40 PM Donald Trump has a history of asserting powers he does not actually have, including the power to...