Tessera

Michael Smith

@msmith750.bsky.social

Associate professor of law at University of Oklahoma College of Law. Researching constitutional law, criminal law, and legal oddities. https://law.ou.edu/node/716

2219 Posts9383 Follower 2049 Folgt

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 29m ago

Tired: AI is bad at predicting Supreme Court case outcomes because it's led astray by coverage emphasizing partisan splits. Wired: Virtually all academic Supreme Court case prediction discourse is a waste of time, and moving beyond it would make everyone more productive.

SSRN@ssrn.bsky.social · 7h ago

This paper tests #GPT-5, Gemini 2.5 Pro, Claude Sonnet 4.5 & Grok 4 on every SCOTUS argued case from OT 2025. Accuracy looked good until you realise most of it just reflected the Court's usual ideological alignment, not actual legal analysis. spkl.io/633247zQpk #AI #LegalTech

Predicting the Court: Evaluating Large Language Models as Forecasters of Supreme Court Decisions

Mr. Joshua @pantspants.bsky.social · yesterday

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · yesterday

LinkedIn is wild because there's a few posts about how great a time people had at SEALS or CrimFest and then there's an AI post so outrageous that it burns my eyes out of my skull.

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · yesterday

My latest essay, "Common Sense and Candor in Rahimi and Beyond," is finally posted! It will be part of the symposium issue of the Cardozo Law Review for their 2026 symposium: "Umpires or Pinch Hitters? Twenty Years of the Roberts Court and American Democracy." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Common Sense and Candor in Rahimi and Beyond
48 Cardozo Law Review (forthcoming 2027)

20 Pages Posted:
Michael L. Smith
College of Law

Date Written: August 04, 2026

Abstract
In United States v. Rahimi, the Court purported to interpret and apply the Second Amendment through a focus on historical tradition. Yet, at the crux of its analysis, the Court appeared to acknowledge that common sense played a role alongside digging through dusty old gun laws and determining whether they resemble modern restrictions. I dig into what this reference to common sense might mean. I suggest that the Court’s reference to common sense acknowledges that there is still a place for consideration of consequences and practicality in constitutional interpretation, even in those corners of doctrine that purport to respect text, history, and tradition above all else. References like this may serve as rare moments of candor and acknowledgments of the role judgment plays in interpretation. While the Court shouldn’t shy away from such honesty, the prospect of frequent, explicit references to common sense remains unlikely.

Keywords: common sense, United States v. Rahimi, Second Amendment, constitutional interpretation, constitutional law, candor, transparency, prediction

Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 2d ago

public libraries ftw

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 2d ago

While I've now added a quote to this moment from "In the Loop" to this piece, I've used ellipses to cut out choice language. A model of restraint. (Also, this exchange is a load-bearing piece of dialogue for me. I'm reminded of it multiple times each week.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HFp...

You're A Legend

YouTube video by aznhustla88

youtube.com

Michael Smith@msmith750.bsky.social · 3d ago

Just nixed an extended "Andor" reference from this last symposium essay, in case you thought I was becoming entirely undisciplined in my work.

beetle moses @beetlemoses.bsky.social · last wk.

Three panel comic. Panel 1: two friends are playing cards. There is a birdcage hanging behind them, just peaking out of frame. Friend 1 asks, “does your bird talk?” To which friend 2 replies, “Please… don’t.” Panel 2: friend 2 continues, head in hand, “he’s on this alpha male influencer thing right now.” Behind him, the bird - posed and wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket - is leaning forward on a tiny easy chair in his enclosure. Panel 3: with his hands clasped, easing back into his chair, the bird says, “stops eating seeds. Focus on your net worth.”

columbo screenshots @columboscreens.bsky.social · 2d ago

Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 4d ago

Excited that my latest article Remedial Essentialism is going to appear in the University of Chicago Law Review at the end of 2026 (I think - or maybe it's 2027....)! @uchilrev.bsky.social papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Federal post-conviction review is not a single remedial system. It is a collection of distinct statutory and procedural mechanisms—including habeas corpus, motions under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2254 and 2255, compassionate-release motions, sentence-modification proceedings, Rule 35 motions, and relief under the First Step Act—each with its own text, history, purposes, and limits. Yet federal courts increasingly treat these discrete mechanisms as though they are variations on one narrow and fixed idea of post-conviction review. This Article identifies and analyzes that phenomenon, which it calls remedial essentialism.
Remedial essentialism occurs when courts invoke a fixed and assumed essence of post-conviction review—typically a restrictive one—to shape the interpretation of statutes that Congress enacted. Rather than beginning with the particular remedial mechanism before them, courts borrow limitations from one scheme to constrict another. They import detailed restrictions governing successive habeas petitions into § 2255 motions; treat § 2255 as a ceiling on the relief available under the First Step Act or compassionate release; and select narrow post-conviction baselines from which to infer that other remedial mechanisms must likewise be limited. These moves produce a one-way ratchet: Courts import restrictive features across schemes while declining to extend more generous features.
The Article makes three contributions. First, it documents a pervasive but underappreciated pattern of statutory convergence among post-conviction remedies, which are crucial mechanisms for correcting illegal convictions and sentences. Second, it expands the literature on remedial convergence. Existing accounts have largely focused on constitutional or common-law remedies and have attributed convergence either to judicial hostility toward particular remedies or to courts’ freedom to develop common law when neither explanation adequately accounts for convergence among distinct statutory remedies…

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 3d ago

Just nixed an extended "Andor" reference from this last symposium essay, in case you thought I was becoming entirely undisciplined in my work.

Mara Revkin @mararevkin.bsky.social · 3d ago

Posting an updated draft as law-review submission season gets underway: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Civil War Origins of Fiscal Policing: Evidence from the District of Columbia

The rise of “fiscal policing” in the United States—the use of fines, fees, and forfeitures to extract revenue from civilian populations—is widely described in p

papers.ssrn.com

Mara Revkin@mararevkin.bsky.social · 3w ago

New paper with Gage Gramlick: "The Civil War Origins of Fiscal Policing." Original data from the DC Metropolitan Police show rapid growth of fine revenue during the Civil War, consistent w/ theories of wartime state-building & bureaucratic autonomy. Feedback welcome! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Jerry Edwards @jerryedwards.bsky.social · 3d ago

🧵 I just posted a revised version of this article with a new title, "The Reconstructed First Amendment." My thesis remains that antislavery Republicans shifted 1A substantive theory towards a dissenters' rights focus without abandoning majoritarian enforcement. 1/5 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Reconstructed First Amendment

<div> The nineteenth-century history of expressive freedom is a puzzle that scholars are still trying to solve. There are two leading interpretations. Legal-tr

papers.ssrn.com

Jerry Edwards@jerryedwards.bsky.social · 3w ago

🧵Now on SSRN: The Birth of the Minority Rights First Amendment examines the antislavery conception of free speech. Scholars who analyzed the 19c legal & popular traditions of free speech came to seemingly contradictory conclusions. I resolve the contradictions. 1/13 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Rachel Rothschild @profrrothschild.bsky.social · 3d ago

New Essay draft on SSRN - The Future of Environmental Law Amid the Destruction of Science, forthcoming in Volume 51 of the Harvard Environmental Law Review: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Future of Environmental Law Amid the Destruction of Science

Essay in the Harvard Environmental Law Review's Symposium Issue on the Future of Environmental Law One Year into Trump; responding to Richard Revesz's <i>Invert

papers.ssrn.com

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 3d ago

this owns www.inverse.com/input/cultur...

The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s 'high five' photos

Nearly 14 years later, the tale of this iconic couple can finally be told.

inverse.com

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 3d ago

As another PSA, The University of Pennsylvania Law Review is requiring AI disclosures too. They don't have a Google form and are asking authors to include a note in their cover letters. Anyway, RIP to my submissions as I found this out too late, but did I really have a chance?

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 3d ago

NYU Law Review has a nice AI disclosure requirement that lets you include an optional explanation of your philosophy regarding AI use in drafting legal scholarship at the end of the document. Always happy to share my thoughts.

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 3d ago

I don't think you should necessarily go to hell for listening to your phone on full volume in a public place. BUT you should be forced to sit for a long time (days, maybe years?) in a crowded, pre-Heaven waiting room where almost everyone else is listening to stupid shit on their phones.

beetle moses @beetlemoses.bsky.social · 2y ago

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 4d ago

Big Guy

Big ass wolf spider captured under a clear plastic cup

Close up photo of the spider. It's pissed.

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 4d ago

How it feels to submit a coauthored piece to the law reviews

King of the Hill frame. Hank is typing on the computer with a concerned expression, as Dale hovers closely behind him, looking over Hank's shoulder. Two beers are on the desk nearby.

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 4d ago

Found this video of a deer having a tough time by our back door in San Antonio a while ago.

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 4d ago

As the submission season opens, a list of journals on my "Cool List" based on what they've risked publishing: Quinnipiac (Originalism in the Year Three Thousand - papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....) Toledo (Resisting Generative AI with Fake Scholarship (forthcoming) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....)

Originalism in the Year Three Thousand

<span>While procrastinating from grading at the end of the Spring 2024 semester, a series of mishaps led to my inadvertent teleportation to the year three thous

papers.ssrn.com

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 4d ago

Maybe I should finally start adding footnotes to that article I planned to submit this summer

Beau Baumann 🍎@beaubaumann.bsky.social · 5d ago

If you’re going on the law school academic hiring market this year, please let me know if I can be of any services in terms of advice or what not! Happy to help people!

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 5d ago

Incredible, horrible idea for folks planning a wedding: www.wsj.com/finance/leop...

By
Berber Jin
,
Peter Rudegeair
,
Gregory Zuckerman
and
Anissa Gardizy
July 31, 2026 12:41 pm ET

When the week began, Leopold Aschenbrenner was preparing for his wedding. The plan was for a multiday celebration in Carmel, a seaside town in Northern California, with the ceremony at a Tuscan-style villa and the send-off at a spa in the forest. There would also be a pre-wedding colloquium to discuss ideas in panels and breakout sessions. The couple’s only request: no gifts.

Dreamboat Branny 🦢@bransonreese.bsky.social · 5d ago

swanboy.com/comic/my-din...

Swan Boy in a Dischord Records shirt calls Noel a dog and asks how his date went. Rona makes a blink and you'll miss it cameo. This is NOT the first panel of today's Swan Boy. What on earth am I cooking here???

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 5d ago

Just got through the first round of edits on this piece. Kudos to the students at Toledo for an excellent job of putting up with my nonsense.

Michael Smith@msmith750.bsky.social · 4mo ago

My article, "Resisting Generative AI with Fake Scholarship" is forthcoming in the University of Toledo Law Review! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... (The updated draft incorporates some recent fake scholarship developments, plus color-coded citations to identify information that isn't made up).

Resisting Generative AI With Fake Scholarship
58 University of Toledo Law Review (forthcoming 2027)

32 Pages Posted: 9 Mar 2026 Last revised: 13 Apr 2026
Michael L. Smith
University of Oklahoma - College of Law

Date Written: March 07, 2026

Abstract
Generative AI companies and enthusiasts claim that it's only a matter of time before lawyers, judges, law students, and law professors embrace this new technology and cede most, if not all, of their work over to skillful machines. Legal scholarship is one such domain that AI will purportedly dominate. This Article takes issue with such a dystopian prospect and proposes that authors and law journals resist by writing and publishing fake scholarship. Doing so may corrupt the body of scholarship upon which language models train, leading to increasingly inaccurate outputs that render generative AI useless for legal scholarship and other forms of legal writing. After describing and defending this proposal against likely objections, I provide an example of fake scholarship as a template for those interested in joining the cause.

Keywords: generative AI, artificial intelligence, legal writing, legal scholarship, language models, credibility, fun, fake scholarship

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 5d ago

It isn't even August yet? I got all the time in the world!

David A. Simon @davidasimon.bsky.social · 5d ago

Law review submissions season. Some observations 1. Be respectful of editors and authors. Communicate promptly. Accept/reject authors respectfully and as soon as is practicable.

Michael Smith @msmith750.bsky.social · 5d ago

Hoping to start on my last symposium piece today. Can't wait to resolve not to commit to so many symposia in the upcoming year and then break this promise to myself by September or October.