WJI's Daily Reads for Jan. 17, 2022

The Guardian: U.S. Supreme Court to hear case about Nazi-looted Pissarro painting.

APG Wisconsin: More criticism of District Attorney John Chisholm on bail issue.

Slate: When Supreme Court justices don't follow the court's own rules.

The big lesson here isn’t about verbal errors at argument or Gorsuch’s lack of concern for his colleagues. The reason his noncompliance with the court’s formal mask rule is news is because it is yet another example of the justices having rules but refusing to apply them to themselves. That’s the real issue with regard to masks, just as it is to judicial ethics, and that’s the reason why this debacle is damaging the court’s public standing. Several smart lawyers have written to ask me why Chief Justice John Roberts cannot simply order his colleagues to follow the same mask requirements imposed on everyone else. The short answer is that he cannot order his colleagues to do anything that falls within the realm of ethical behavior.

Politico: Cannabis legalization hasn't stopped the black market in Oregon.

Oregon’s weed is some of the cheapest in the nation, and Oregonians predominantly purchase weed from licensed dispensaries. Economist Beau Whitney estimates that 80-85 percent of the state’s demand is met by the legal market. But most of the illicit weed grown in southern Oregon is leaving the state, heading to places where legal weed is still not available for purchase such as New York or Pennsylvania — or where the legal price is still very high, like Chicago and Los Angeles. In Illinois, which legalized medical marijuana in 2013, only about a third of the demand for cannabis is satisfied by legal dispensaries, according to Whitney. Differences in tax rate and regulations plays the major role in differences from state to state, Whitney explains. Unlicensed growers aren’t paying any fees or taxes, and they can afford to keep their prices at least 20 percent lower than legal weed — the benchmark Whitney says is the difference in consumers purchasing legal versus illegal products.
“It all comes down to economics,” said Whitney. “If you reduce the price, then there’s no, or little, or less, incentive [for consumers] to participate in [the] illicit market because you’re getting the price that you want … that’s the tipping point.”
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Vice: Crowdfunding court cases.

A new tech startup plans to become “the stock market of litigation financing” by allowing everyday Americans to bet on civil lawsuits through the purchase (and trade) of associated crypto tokens. In doing so, the company hopes to provide funding to individuals who would otherwise not be able to pursue claims.

“Ryval’s goal is to make access to justice more affordable,” said Kyle Roche, a trial lawyer and one of the startup’s founders. “What I want to do is make the federal court system more accessible for all.”

. . . .

However, on its website, Ryval focuses all of its attention on the potential return for investors. “Buy and sell tokens that represent shares in a litigation and access a multi-billion dollar investment class previously unavailable to the public,” the company states.