law on Vice

Good News! You Can’t Be Automatically Deported for Sharing Three Joints

Well, here’s bit of good news from the Supreme Court, a group not generally considered friendly to criminal defendants or recreational drug users: you cannot, it turns out, be automatically deported for the kindhearted but nonetheless illegal act of bringing a few joints to a party. Full story

How the Sequester’s Sticking It to Poor People: Criminal Edition

The across the board cuts in federal discretionary spending, known to all as sequestration, has forced the judiciary to trim funding for a rarely considered but integral aspect of the criminal justice system: federal public defenders. The April 1 cuts are already having perverse Full story

Is DOMA About to Be DOA?

It seems clear that five justices expressed enough dismay at the federal government’s intrusion into an essential state function that come decision time, DOMA will be DOA. In the long-term jurisprudence of gay marriage, however, the Prop 8 decision might prove more crucial. Locat… Full story

The Holy War on Irish Wombs

Thousands of scared Irish women without options fly to England every year to get an abortion, largely thanks to the Irish Catholic Church’s war on reproductive rights. But things are changing. For women across the country, shame and intimidation are no longer enough to stop them… Full story

What Copyright Means for Memes

Since it was posted on April 5, 2011, a video called "Nyan Cat" has earned more than 89 million views, and set into motion one chapter in a long and sticky saga about the visual jokes, references, and ideas that fly around the internet--and the laws designed to stop them dead in Full story

We Told Some Italian Men That They Don't Have Any Balls

A law was recently passed in Italy's highest court that outlaws citizens from accusing Italian men of having no balls. If you're caught flouting the new law, you can be taken to court and punished with a fine and, presumably, an overbearing sense of injustice that you'll take to Full story

The Author of SOPA Is a Copyright Violator

Is Lamar Smith going to send himself to jail? Full story

Myles Jackman: Freedom Fister

Defending the citizens of England's God-given right to jerk off to videos of men fisting each other's anuses, pissing in each other's mouths, and punching each other powerfully in the balls. Full story

Victims Of Pain And Blind Justice

Fighting California’s Three Strike Law

In 1997, William Anderson stole a dollar in loose change from a parked car. He was arrested and sentenced under California's voter-approved "three strikes and you're out" law. Full story

The Hold-up

A Story by Gary Fairfull

Set in east London, this story is for the most part true. Some of the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Full story