iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Joshua Lake

More like I-ACK @mumbly-joe.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

I remain baffled at modern 4th Amendment jurisprudence. It's beyond question that the founders were principally concerned with the Crown's use of General Warrants. Yet, every time a new technology provides the means for police to amass and trawl a general database, that loophole gets blessed.

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Gabriel Malor @gabrielmalor.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

6th Cir. holds that CJA-appointed attorney "committed inexcusable transgressions" by using Westlaw's CoCounsel AI tool to write two briefs without checking them. Briefs contained genuine citations that had fictitious quotations. Sanctions in pic. www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf...

Based on the above, we conclude that the following measures are appropriate: 1. Howe shall not be compensated under the Criminal Justice Act for his time spent on this appeal. See 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(a), (d)(1); 6th Cir. CJA Plan VI. 2. The Clerk of the Court shall forward a copy of this opinion to the Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to consider disciplinary proceedings under Sixth Circuit Local Rule 46. 3. The Clerk of the Court shall serve a copy of this opinion on (i) the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, (ii) the Clerk of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, and (iii) the Disciplinary Clerk for the Kentucky Bar Association.

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Cameron Blevins @cblevins.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

This is so, so well-articulated.

People call this friction "grunt work." Schwartz uses exactly that phrase, and he's right that LLMs can remove it. What he doesn't say, because he already has decades of hard-won intuition and doesn't need the grunt work anymore, is that for someone who doesn't yet have that intuition, the grunt work is the work. The boring parts and the important parts are tangled together in a way that you can't separate in advance. You don't know which afternoon of debugging was the one that taught you something fundamental about your data until three years later, when you're working on a completely different problem and the insight surfaces. Serendipity doesn't come from efficiency. It comes from spending time in the space where the problem lives, getting your hands dirty, making mistakes that nobody asked you to make and learning things nobody assigned you to learn.

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Eric Brignac (He/Him) @ericbrignac.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

If new evidence comes to light proving that you are actually innocent of the crime for which you are serving a sentence, the government should vacate your conviction and release you.

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Joshua Lake @joshualake.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

In one sense, this is unsurprising. The largest legal research platforms push AI heavily and integrate it with their search functions in many ways. But without clear guidance or consensus on how to use AI, this is the wild west with wide variety and lack of transparency in how it’s used.

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Joshua Lake @joshualake.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

I’ll be curious to see how attorneys (and courts) handle this going forward.

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A Tea Walks Home Alone at Night @teaberryblue.net · 20/03/2026

The USPS IS NOT LOSING MONEY. THE USPS IS SPENDING TAX DOLLARS ALLOCATED TO IT BY THE BUDGET. THE USPS SHOULD NOT BE REQUIRED TO ZERO OUT ITS BALANCE SHEET IT IS NOT A BUSINESS IT DOES NOT HAVE SHAREHOLDERS. IF THE USPS IS OUTSPENDING ITS BUDGET IT SHOULD BE ALLOCATED MORE BUDGET.

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Eve Brensike Primus @primuseve.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Happy Gideon Day! Thank you to all of the public defenders in the trenches who fight every day to bend the arc of the law a little more toward justice.

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Joshua Lake @joshualake.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

There is a sharp difference between what the law says and many people’s lived experience. I’ve given several Know Your Rights presentations lately, and I lead with that—I can tell you the law, but it’s much harder to decide how to respond to law enforcement in the moment.

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Dane Owens @owendanes.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Pretty crazy how important the blockade of a trade route is right now

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Joshua Lake @joshualake.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Never be this lawyer. And if you're ever facing a show-cause hearing, don't claim you misled the court "to liven up" your prose.

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Joshua Lake @joshualake.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

This live-tweeting of a show-cause hearing is painful to read. This, about the DOJ lawyer in question, is nightmare fuel.

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Emily Galvin-Almanza @galvinalmanza.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

This report does a fantastic job of documenting a ridiculous crisis - there are only two ways out, arrest fewer people or hire more public defenders. Jdxs are going to have to do one or the other and continuing to drag their feet is only going to make the situation worse.

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Josh Block @joshablock.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Judge Dennis has taken inactive status.

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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Kurt Vonnegut stop being so applicable to all time periods of American life, you can’t do that Kurt Vonnegut, your insights are too evergreen Kurt Vonnegut

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
'Blessed are the merciful' in a courtroom?
'Blessed are the peacemakers' in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

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Keri Blakinger @keribla.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Left, my story about how the right wing ex-Honduran president was given special treatment after he was pardoned for drug trafficking - and had his ICE detainer dropped. Right, a story about a man who spent 43 yrs in prison for a wrongful conviction & was deported once his convicted was overturned

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Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

/3 I prepare clients by telling them “if I ever say to you ‘do you have the question in mind,’ I am telling you to shut the absolute fuck up instanter’” They laugh and then I give them a look that I mean it and then it has a big impact when I say it.

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Cait (spooky edition 🦇) @caitesq.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

This is very funny but also that’s exactly what the lawyer should be saying to the client

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Joshua Lake @joshualake.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

The United States has charged a CBP supervisor with harboring an illegal alien because he was in a romantic relationship with a woman who overstayed her visa. In the complaint, the US says he knew she was consulting an attorney about resolving her immigration status www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr...

justice.gov

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Matthew Guariglia @mguariglia.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

This has a lot of implications well beyond this case. Many people put these devices in/outside their homes to see who is at the door or watch their pets becuase they think it’s livestream only and not recorded. If companies like Google and Ring have magic backend data, we need to know about it.

nbcnews.com

Investigators wrangled video from Nancy Guthrie’s Google Nest camera out of ‘backend systems’

It’s not yet clear how the FBI collected the video. Experts said in some cases it’s possible to collect data from the complex infrastructure that has enabled cloud-based cameras.

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Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Just hopped off a phone call with my grandmother. And she said something that I’m going to carry with me today: “God doesn’t care about how much people talk about you, but He does care about how often you talk for people who can’t.”

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Dara Lind @daralind.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

I can’t stress this enough. The state of 4th Amendment law is that the cops can’t force you to type in a passcode but they can force you to swipe your finger or present your face. Never stop using passcodes/passwords to unlock your devices. And consider additional code to unlock Signal.

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Joe Fore @joefore.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Pro tip for the #legalwriting students out there who are starting to think about their 1L oral arguments: when the judge asks a question, try to immediately and directly respond to that question. But see:

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Corene Kendrick @corene.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

I am begging y’all to turn off Face ID and fingerprint approval on your devices. If you’re a US citizen, cops & ICE & CBP can’t make you tell them your password but they can hold your phone in front of your face or stick it on your thumb to unlock it. theintercept.com/2026/01/30/w...

theintercept.com

Washington Post Raid Is a Frightening Reminder: Turn Off Your Phone’s Biometrics Now

The search warrant to raid a Washington Post reporter’s home shows how authorities can open your phone without your consent.

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James Brandt @jamesbrandt.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

I will simply never recover from reading this sentence: "Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people."

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Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Things worth really hammering to any family and acquaintances whose reflexive attitude is “but we gotta enforce the law”: (1) Lots of the folks being targeted came here legally; the administration has retroactively declared them “illegal” despite having done nothing wrong

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Liliana Segura @lilianasegura.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

This makes perfect sense to me and I've often wondered how, say, lawyers who use AI to write briefs expect to effectively argue their positions in court.

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Jenn @jennburrill.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

Federal CJA defense attys haven’t gotten paid since July, now some are facing eviction as they continue to defend poor people for free Prosecutors want judges to force attorneys to work unpaid, but defense lawyers say thats unconstitutional and “deeply insulting” Reports @latimes.com @nacdl.org

latimes.com

Federal defense lawyers 'face financial ruin' after months without pay, memo says

Last month, federal prosecutors told the court that judges could appoint defense attorneys to work without pay. In a memo this week, defense attorneys said months of nonpayment have "already taken a d...

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Reposted by Joshua Lake

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Fourth Circuit publishes an opinion to make a point that otherwise would go unseen. www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

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Public Defenseless Podcast @pdefenselesspod.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Washington. New Mexico. San Francisco. Los Angeles. Maine. Oregon. Massachusetts. Just a few of the places where the legal system is breaking because public/private defenders have stopped taking new cases because of their unethical workloads. A national crisis that few are paying attention to.

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Joshua Lake @joshualake.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of joining Judge Gray Miller and Alaina King Benford on this panel entitled "The Art of Persuasion & Advocacy." Thank you to the UH Law Center Student Bar Association and The Advocates at UHLC for hosting a wonderful event.

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Mike Scarcella @mikescarcella.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

'Costumes optional' for this Friday hearing in Manhattan before US District Judge Arun Subramanian

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Mathieu Carpentier @mathieucarpentier.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

The US are in such a state of moral depravity that a death-row prisoner has to beg to be shot by a fire squad instead of being suffocated with nitrogen gas. And his request is denied.

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Joshua Lake @joshualake.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Next Monday, I’ll have the privilege of joining a distinguished panel on The Art of Persuasion & Advocacy at @uhlaw.bsky.social. It will be an honor to sit alongside Judge Gray Miller and Alaina King Benford—I’m looking forward to learning from their insights and sharing a few of my own.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

If you think that professors exist as repositories of knowledge that students ask for answers, you’re missing the entire point of a college education. We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.

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Brad Heath @bradheath.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Grand jury matters are secret by law. It is surpassingly unusual for the press to learn about a case being presented to a grand jury in real time.

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Joshua Lake @joshualake.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

"This case arises from perhaps the most infamous rap battle in the genre’s history. ... The penultimate song of this feud, 'Not Like Us' by Kendrick Lamar, dealt the metaphorical killing blow."

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Sara Kropf @sarakropf.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Insane things happening in the DC US Attorney's Office. For those unfamiliar, the office handles both federal cases and nearly all of DC local criminal cases -- like a DA. USAO got local jury to indict on fed charge and then tried to return local indictment in fed court. Judge: Um, no. /1

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Civil Rights Corps @civrightscorps.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

📣 WE'RE HIRING: Investigative Fellows 🗓️ Start date: Summer 2026 🗓️ Application deadline: Rolling with priority for applications submitted before October 29, 2025 🔗 Learn more about the position: civilrightscorps.org/investigativ...

We're hiring: Investigative Fellows - Summer 2026

Investigative Fellows work collaboratively with case teams in support of complex civil rights litigation in federal and state courts. Their work varies and pulls on the skills of an investigator and paralegal, and will often involve working closely with and supporting local organizers and their campaigns. They are a crucial part of our impact litigation and advocacy challenging mass human caging and other injustices within the criminal legal system. This is an entry-level two-year position at CRC.

Deadline: Rolling with priority for applications submitted before October 29, 2025

Learn more on our website: civilrightscorps.org/join-our-team

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Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens @csmfht.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Sometimes it's nice to remember that even Marcus Aurelius was like "you don't have to comment on everything bro"

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Lawrence Hurley @lawrencehurley.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

"This is a case about Katz and dogs" -- opening line of a pending SCOTUS cert. petition about an allegedly unconstitutional search involving a police dog. www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24...

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