Rogue Wave is what you might call the paradigmatic 2007 indie band: their hooks are pretty, their lyrics are incomprehensible, and their singles appear regularly on both elitist music blogs and network television soundtracks. Accordingly, the question facing Rogue Wave is the one facing all the other Pitchfork wunderkind of similar vintage: Are they a small band that, for the moment, is big, or a big band that, for the moment, is small? Last…

Part of DCist’s continuing coverage of Deluge ’06. When you headed out in your car yesterday, you probably felt a bit like Noah boarding the ark. You checked your two headlights, two windshield wipers, two pairs of shoes, and, if you were Rush Limbaugh, two Viagra. As the rain takes a breather, let’s learn about two D.C. cases involving flood victims that, together, will be necessary for anyone considering suing the city when the…

Last week, Stare DCisis explored what happens when the Supreme Court stops being polite, and starts getting real with states acting unconstitutionally. Virginia, in particular, was the perpetual thorn in the side of the early Supreme Court. Though Chief Justice John Marshall was a former Virginia legislator, the state’s supreme court had some real authority problems taking orders from Marshall once he moved across the river. It may seem patently obvious that the Supreme Court…

This spring, like every spring, is sponsored by Crate & Barrel, Williams Sonoma and, depending on your friends, Tiffany’s. It’s wedding season around the country, and Federal Marriage Amendment season on the Hill. Our lawmakers have decided that this issue merits a great deal of their time, and our own, so in this spirit Stare DCisis revisits one of the most important constitutional decisions about marriage that was ever handed down by the Supreme Court….

There are few more unpleasant words in the English language than the word “discharge.” In two otherwise harmless syllables, it inspires shudders and involuntary wretching. The D.C. Circuit had occasion to investigate the meaning of this word in a decision handed down today about a bank robbery that occurred in the District. First, a word about the D.C. Circuit. This revered court of appeals has developed a reputation for making some of the most…

Interested parties and supposedly disinterested pundits have taken to predicting what will become of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s most important swing decisions after her retirement. In the 2003-04 term, notably, O’Connor provided the fifth vote to uphold affirmative action programs at public universities – on certain conditions. As we saw in Bolling v. Sharpe, the District of Columbia is an important supporting actor in the development of discrimination law in this country. Twenty years…

The Metro, like D.C. itself, belongs to both everyone and no one. So when someone sues the Metro, just as when someone petitions for D.C. Vote, the courts have to consider just how much of a state D.C. really is. States, and agencies that qualify as “arms of the state,” are entitled to sovereign immunity from suit under the Eleventh Amendment. The theory underlying sovereign immnunity is that no one should be able to bankrupt…

The summer of 2005 will go down in history as the summer D.C. became a baseball town, again. But it’s important to remember that, even without a long-standing hometown team, the District has always been home to baseball’s most important fans: the justices of the Supreme Court. No matter the batting order, the nine Justices of the Court have consistenttly ruled in favor of professional baseball, as a business, often at the expense of…

Tom Cruise may think psychiatry is bunk, but luckily for today’s mentally ill defendants, one D.C. court is responsible for reminding us of its place in the law. Judge David Bazelon (at right), one of the greats of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, single-handedly reshaped the insanity defense. The old rule, a British import, simply did not fit with the state of medicine in 1954. Though Bazelon’s new rule placed great faith in science,…

The Pat McGee Band headlined the Z104 music festival in Old Town Alexandria on Saturday, capping off a day of performances by Adam Day, the Bicycle Thieves (soon to play Unbuckled), and Low Millions. A Virginia native now settled in Bristol, Rhode Island, Pat McGee has been traveling all over the country to support the small label rerelease of Save Me. The band, which has been touring up and down the East Coast for 10…