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Sue McMahon

@suemcmahon.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.1K following 109 posts

Law prof at UC Irvine, writing about criminal law, mental disability, law reform, and legal writing. Fan of desert sunsets and national parks.

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Reposted by Sue McMahon
Kim @kimoco.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
bastards
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Alvaro M. Bedoya @bedoyausa.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
2/ If you worked in a company where you anticipated a 10% chance that your product would kill ten people, let alone all people, the correct response would be horror, ceasing all operations, and likely contacting the police or other criminal authorities.
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David Kaye @davidakaye.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
it’s useful to remember every so often that the george w bush admin, led by its immoral lawyers, broke such a fundamental rule of law, torturing those in its custody, that after 25 years justice for the victims of 9/11 remains out of reach.
photo of front page story in the Times reporting that judge rejects KSM confession on torture grounds.
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
This is one deeply reported, beautifully written (or edited) story, and you should find time this Sunday morning to read every word of it. 1/2 Gift link www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/u...
nytimes.com
How a Top Law Firm Went From Standing Up to Trump to Bending the Knee (Gift Article)
Paul Weiss was a progressive stalwart for decades and led the legal resistance against President Trump in his first term. Then it surrendered without a fight. This is the inside story of its transform...
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David Nir @davidnir.com · 30/06/2026
SCOTUS reform won't just simply happen if Dems take Congress & the White House. A case has to be made for it—to a skeptical public, to reluctant politicians, to a hostile media. The blowback from the right will be intense and terrify a lot of weak-willed pols. The case has to be made starting *now*
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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
I left the Church years ago. I can’t go back. I do not demand that the Church change for me. But when the Holy Father says stuff like this I feel so connected to the depths of my faith, to the part of the Church that I did not and cannot leave, and I am so happy to feel that way
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Jeanne Fromer @jeannefromer.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
“We propose that state supreme courts amend their rules of professional conduct to impose a uniform ‘hold open’ date for offers until Oct. 1 of students’ 2L year for 2L summer positions.” @marklemley.bsky.social & I have an op-ed in Bloomberg on early recruiting news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...
news.bloomberglaw.com
State Supreme Courts Can Resolve Early Legal Recruiting Mess
Opinion: Imposing a uniform "hold open" date for job offers to law students would likely put much-needed brakes on accelerated recruiting.
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Caz 💖💜💙 @wabbits.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
When I started in public libraries TWO DECADES AGO we were already lending: Jigsaws Video games Kids’ toy packs Dressing up costumes Laptops ….why will nobody TALK TO LIBRARIANS or even do the most cursory of searches before sharing their Extremely Hot Takes 🫠
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ghost malone ergo propter bones @proptermalone.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
i think boarding school teenage masculinity is a part of masculinity but not of manhood. we have to get away from the concept of the opposite of "man" being "woman." the opposite of "man" is "boy"
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The Legal Accountability Project @thelap.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
👇👇👇
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Marin K. Levy @marinklevy.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I love people at the airport who stack the security bins of other travelers. Just nice, decent people helping out people they’ve never even met. ❤️
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AOP @adamoprice.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
They help you out, your mom and dad They really want to, and they do! They fill you with the fun they had And add some extra vibes for you!
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
This whole clip is infuriating, but the statement “it would be like poetry without rhyming, it’s too easy” seems designed to make English majors everywhere spontaneously combust.
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Too Big to Fail @toobigtofail.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Johnson may be too Protestant to know this, but the Just War Doctrine in Catholicism is codified in Canon Law. Trump's assault on Iran satisfies literally none of the conditions of it.
The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. the gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: - the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; - all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; - there must be serious prospects of success; - the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. the power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
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Alicia Bannon @aliciabannon.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Interested in a state supreme court clerkship? @statecourtreport.org has a database featuring clerkship opportunities from 25 states and more than 80 justices. We hope it's a good starting point for applicants! statecourtreport.org/state-judici...
statecourtreport.org
State Judicial Clerkship Resource
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
SoCal spring blooms on our morning hike.
Yellow mustard blooms on a hillside.
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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
We pack a handful of folks into a tin can loaded with explosives. The computers are running Windows and the toilet is malfunctioning. We hurl them at a distant rock. Everything about where they are is deadly. And it is sublimely beautiful, one of the greatest things we’ve done as a species. #Artemis
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Dr. Skylar Grayson @skylargrayson.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
NASA just dropped this image of Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch looking back at us. The first woman to ever see our planet in its entirety. I’m not crying you’re crying 🥹🔭🧪 📸: NASA
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
During oral args today, Justice Sotomayor mentioned the post-Thind denaturalization campaign when noting the risk of retroactive application of the birthright citizenship EO. Our amicus brief tells that story. @korematsuctr.bsky.social @aaldef.bsky.social @ccrcj.bsky.social
supremecourt.gov
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
#nokings in Newport Beach.
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spoth56.bsky.social @spoth56.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
Newport Beach, CA
Newport Beach no kings protest
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Paloma perfectly captures my morning mood.
Cat with laser eyes.
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Sean Marotta @smmarotta.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
One thing that AI evangelists seem to assume, particularly legal AI evangelists assume, is that the thinking and analysis is quick, and the writing is just tedious busywork that slows us down. But the writing IS the thinking and analysis. You work out the thinking and analysis by writing it down.
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
I am beyond proud to be a part of the team that drafted this amicus for the Korematsu Ctr & other nonprofits/race & law ctrs in the birthright citizenship case. In it, we tell the stories of the concrete harms when the government has stripped citizenship in the past and the retroactive risks now.
supremecourt.gov
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Ryan Boyd @ryanboyd.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
@jrabrams.bsky.social changed my law teaching for the better with this book. Highly recommend.
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Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
1/ A few thoughts about @williambaude.bsky.social’s comment in yesterday’s NYT chat that, “It’s amazing how many of our problems today could be solved by a Congress that was willing and able to legislate in response to national problems.” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | At the Supreme Court, Scenes From a Judicial Backlash
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Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Look, I know this weaponization of male academic interest is the oldest story in the book, but it’s just so, so pernicious. It’s awful to the women directly involved, but it’s also awful to *all* women in the academy, who have to live in its shadow all the time.
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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
The fact that many Democratic Senators are profoundly trapped in an unreal matrix of DC-media assumptions is a disaster on an epic scale. But it’s also an opportunity. You have to wait years to primary most Senators, but you can fight to change those assumptions now. Let me explain…
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jade, whose voice is the Deluge @goblinmode.com · 27/10/2025
much of this stems from a gross misunderstanding of writing as “the act of sitting down to write”. writing is the 10,000 other things that you do before you sit down. it is light cast through a window hitting the far wall, it is the memory of that time you saw that one bird, it is the act of living
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
Here’s where it gets personal for me. When I was 9, I started experiencing suicidal ideation … disinterested in living, and at least some of the time contemplating death and how it might happen … It’s easy to imagine how I would have used programs like these chatbots.
startribune.com
Perry: How can AI be used ethically when it’s been linked to suicide?
"It’s not on us, on you and me, to use AI ethically or responsibly. It’s on the companies to build safe, reliable, ethical products," David M. Perry writes.
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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
I'd like to commend the lawyers who wrote this complaint on behalf of the professors and employees of the University of California against the Trump administration. It's a sober legal document with strong claims, but also, this is a fight for public opinion, and this reads like the writers know it.
documentcloud.org
AAUP-UC-Trump Lawsuit -- Uploaded by Jaweed Kaleem of the Los Angeles Times
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
The fate of the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship still hangs in the balance. Let’s get educated.
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Lilly Irani @gleemie.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
UC workers, alums, community members, please send Governor Newsom and your state legislators encouraging them to sue the federal government like Harvard did and release the feds' demand letter so Californians know what is at stake. It takes 2 minutes: actionnetwork.org/letters/uc-s...
actionnetwork.org
UC Stand Up, Demand No Concessions
Yesterday, Judge Allison Burroughs ruled that the federal administration’s freezing of $2.2 billion dollars at Harvard University was unconstitutional. The court decisions shows a way the UC can fight...
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
I’m thrilled to be part of this webinar series on competence to stand trial, co-hosted by @nacdl.org and @statecourts.bsky.social. Our first session on Wednesday (11a PST) lays out the current state of play across the U.S. Join us! ncsc-org.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
ncsc-org.zoom.us
Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Competency and Restoration Reimagined from Practice to Possibility: Level Setting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining th...
Competency and Restoration Reimagined from Practice to Possibility This three-part webinar series will provide insight and recommendations on how to make improvements in competency to stand trial sys...
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
My fearless colleague David Kaye, speaking truth to power.
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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
Friendly reminder that things don’t go back to normal if he kicks the bucket. They could even get worse! And even when they lose an election there’s years, decades, generations of repair and remaking to be done.
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
So very proud to have my name on this excellent letter. Huge thanks to my UC colleagues who took the laboring oar in putting it together.
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Niko Bowie @nikobowie.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
“We have committed our professional lives to learning and free inquiry, working together with students to advance truth for the collective benefit of society. Unlike our distant governing boards, we will not give up so easily — no matter what kind of deals are signed in our name.”
bostonglobe.com
Harvard faculty won’t cave to Trump demands - The Boston Globe
Unlike our distant governing boards, we will not give up easily — no matter what kind of deals are signed in our name.
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
“You think I showed up with ChatGPT? . . .Dickinson? Obsessed. David Foster Wallace built a temple of footnotes in my name. I am not some sleek, futuristic glyph. I am the battered, coffee-stained backbone of writerly panic—the gasping pause where a thought should have ended but simply could not.”
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David Pressman @ambpressman.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Democracies collapse not just through force, but through the naïve self-confidence of elites. What should alarm us isn’t that strongmen follow similar playbooks, but that our elites do too. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | I Watched It Happen in Hungary. Now It’s Happening Here.
The real danger of a strongman isn’t his tactics; it’s how others, especially those with power, justify their acquiescence.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
A reminder that our profession is not just big firms, and that countless lawyers are stepping up in this critical moment. GIFT LINK www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/u...
nytimes.com
Big Law Firms Bowed to Trump. A Corps of ‘Little Guys’ Jumped in to Fight Him.
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David Ziff @djsziff.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Video of me teaching legal research and writing in the fall.
media.tenor.com
a woman wearing a mask stands on a red carpet in front of a street
Alt: woman filming workout video as military coup happens in the background.
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Sue McMahon @suemcmahon.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Finally got a terrible first draft done. Time to tear it apart.
media.tenor.com
a man in a suit and goggles is holding a hammer and breaking a wall .
Alt: a man in a suit and goggles is holding a sledgehammer and breaking a wall .
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28 Days Lehner 🪦 @danlehner.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
“magical realist Zohran Mamdani” would be like if everyone on his team was human except for his ghost campaign manager and you could see a bodega cat levitating in one of his ads
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