HOT OFF THE PRESS: A few days ago, my colleague Peter Kirsanow and I filed this amicus curiae brief requesting the Supreme Court to take the case of Metcalf v. United States. It argues that part of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 is unconstitutional. I am pretty confident that under any fair reading of the Constitution, we are right: Congress’s authority to prohibit slavery under the 13th Amendment does not give it the authority to criminalize bias crimes untethered to the goal of eliminating slavery and preventing its return.  Of course, being right doesn’t always get you Supreme Court review.

If you want to know how it feels to advocate on behalf of someone found by a jury to have committed a heinous crime, the answer is that it feels okay: When fighting the good fight, advocates of limited government do not always get to choose their allies.  There’s a principle involved here.