Even Pulitzer Prize winning journalists make legal research mistakes

It's easy to do - in fact we've all done it.  Now you can take solace in the fact that Pulitzer Prize winning Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse made a legal research error too - and in print.  On Saturday she acknowledged making the following research error in a previous column about the new Arizona immigration bill:

Correction: In preparing my column on Tuesday, on Arizona’s new immigration law, I downloaded the text of S.B. 1070 from the State Legislature’s Web site. But it turned out not to be the version that Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law. The version she signed omitted the trespassing section I referred to. I regret the error. My belief that the law is morally and legally problematic is unchanged.

This can serve as a good teachable moment for law students to always double-check those research results.

Big hat tip to Chris Wren.

(jbl)