The Week Ahead
The Justices are scheduled to hold their first private conference of 2008 on Friday, orders from which could be released as soon as the following Monday, Jan. 7. Click here to view our list of petitions to watch at the conference.
December 2007 Archive
Showing 1–50 of 89 items published in December 2007, most recent first.
Petitions to Watch | Conference of 1.11.08
The latest edition of “Petitions to Watch” features cases up for consideration at the Justices’ private conference of January 11, 2008. As always, the list reflects the petitions on the Court’s ‘paid’ docket that Tom has deemed to have a reasonable chance of being granted.
Academic Round-Up
I would like to wish all of our readers a happy new year, and specially thank those of you who have contributed with questions or comments on our “ask the author” and academic roundup series.
Academic Round-Up
Jody Freeman (Harvard Law School) and Adrian Vermeule (Harvard Law School) have posted “Massachusetts v. EPA: From Politics to Expertise” on SSRN, see here.
Exxon seeks delay of Indonesia case
Exxon Mobil Corp. and three affiliated companies, including a natural gas subsidiary in Indonesia, on Thursday asked Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., to order a delay in current District Court proceedings in a case that is also pending on the Supreme Court’s docket.
Argued case on commodities dismissed
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the case Klein & Co. Futures v. New York City Board of Trade (06-1265), which was being deliberated after an argument on Oct. 29.
Granted case dismissed
By agreement of the parties, the case of Ali v. Achim, et al. (06-1346) has been dismissed by the Supreme Court. Granted review on Sept. 25, the case involved the question whether a criminal conviction must be an “aggravated felony” to qualify as the kind of crime that bars a convicted alien from remaining in the U.S.
Tom Goldstein’s iPhone
With so many people picking up iPhones over the holidays, we wanted to interrupt our regular posts to show you what Tom keeps on his iPhone… Happy Holidays! [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW8XaGg_05w]
SG recommends grant in ADEA case
The federal government has recommended the Court grant certiorari (see here) in No. 06-1505, Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Lab, et al., limited to the question asking whether, under the Court’s 2005 decision in Smith v. City of Jackson, an employee alleging disparate impact under the ADEA has the burden of persuasion in establishing “reasonable factors other than age.”
Academic Round-Up
As many of my prior academic round-ups have intimated, some of the most interesting work on the Supreme Court is being done by political scientists.
February arguments, day by day
The Supreme Court on Friday released the argument calendar for its February sitting, beginning Tuesday, Feb. 19 — a session in which it will hear only seven cases. (The calendar can be downloaded here.)
Broad court inquiry on CIA tapes doubtful
UPDATE Saturday a.m. The transcript of Friday’s hearing can be found here. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., reacted skeptically Friday to a request to make a sweeping inquiry into whether government agencies have mishandled or destroyed evidence that may bear upon whether detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been tortured or otherwise abused.
Dada reply says proposed reg weakens government argument
Earlier today, lawyers filed the reply brief (available here) in No. 06-1181, Dada v. Muskasey, arguing among other things that a recent Justice Department regulation “undercuts” the government’s interpretation of the statute at issue and offers the Court an alternative way to resolve the underlying circuit split.
The Next Supreme Court Justice?
The following column of mine ran in the Daily Journal papers on Thursday. Pepperdine Law professor (and Mitt Romney adviser) Doug Kmiec predicts in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed (“Justice Clinton?” Dec. 15, 2007, available here) that, if elected, Hillary Clinton may appoint husband Bill to the Supreme Court.
Debate continues over history of habeas
The Justice Department, continuing the post-argument dispute over the history of habeas corpus as it may affect the Court’s coming decision on detainees legal rights, told the Justices on Thursday that the detainees — if their cases were controlled by the circumstances in 1789 — would not have any chance to challenge the government’s reasons for keeping them imprisoned.
Government appeals on speech-debate privilege
The Bush Administration, expressing fear that a lower court ruling on the constitutional rights of members of Congress will hamper probes of corruption and criminal conduct by lawmakers, has asked the Supreme Court to limit the scope of the Constitution’s “Speech of Debate Clause.” In a case
US: Detainees’ rights on torture claims limited
The Justice Department has told the D.C. Circuit Court that it has no power to rule that a Guantanamo Bay detainee has been illegally tortured or otherwise coerced into making statements that may have been used to keep him imprisoned.
Granted case on asylum rights settled
Lawyers for a man who came to the U.S. eight years ago as a refugee from Somalia notified the Supreme Court on Friday that his case, granted review by the Court on Sept. 25, has been settled, and will now be voluntarily dismissed. The case is Ali v. Achim, et al.
US: No confrontation right at sentencing
The Justice Department has urged the Supreme Court to allow the lower courts to continue to explore– without the Justices’ involvement — whether to apply the Sixth Amendment right to confront one’s accusers to sentencing hearings, including those involving the death penalty.
Early release of Baze audiotape
The Supreme Court announced Thursday that it will promptly release the audiotape of the oral argument on Monday, Jan. 7, in Baze v. Rees (07-5439) — the Kentucky case testing the constitutionality of the three-drug protocol for execution by lethal injection.
Military judge: Hamdan may be tried
A military judge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ruled on Wednesday that a Yemeni national, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, is not a prisoner of war, but rather is an “unlawful enemy combatant” and may be tried on war crimes trials by a military commission.
Long sentence for juvenile challenged
Seeking an extension of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the rights of juveniles in Roper v. Simmons (2005), lawyers for a South Carolinian who committed a double murder at age 12 are challenging the youth’s prison sentence of 30 years without a chance for parole.
Invitation Brief Filed in Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn.
Yesterday, the Solicitor General filed this invitation brief in the case of Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn. (06-1595), recommending that cert. be granted. The case will be considered at the Court’s January 18 Conference.
Abu Zubaydah challenges detention
Abu Zubaydah, the Guantanamo Bay detainee who is at the center of the controversy over the destruction of Central Intelligence Agency videotapes of aggressive interrogation tactics, is asking the D.C. Circuit Court to review his continued detention at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.
Hearing set on CIA tapes
Rebuffing a Bush Administration suggestion that the courts stay out of the controversy over the destroyed Central Intelligence Agency videotapes, a U.S. District judge in Washington on Tuesday ordered a hearing for Friday morning on whether the Agency violated a court order.
Potential new obstacle to Hamdan trial
The frequently-troubled sytem set up by Congress last year to try war crimes charges against Guantanamo Bay detainees is facing another potential obstacle in the wake of a military judge’s ruling at Guantanamo on Monday.
The Week Ahead
The Court is now in winter recess and will hold its next public session on Monday, January 7. No petitioner’s merits briefs are due this week. The respondent’s merits brief is due Thursday in Gomez-Perez v. Potter (06-1321).
Government accused of biased CIA probe
Lawyers for a group of Guantanamo Bay detainees on Monday accused the Bush Adminisration of trying to arrange that only federal agencies “implicated in the destruction” of Central Intelligence Agency videotapes of harsh interrogation sessions have any role in probing that incident.
US: CIA tapes issue not for courts
The Justice Department on Friday urged the federal courts to stay out of the current controversy over the CIA’s public admission that it has destroyed videotapes of aggressive interrogations of terrorist suspects. “In light oif the current inquiries by the political branches into the destruction of
Today at the Supreme Court | 12.14.07
The Court is now in winter recess. The next public session of the Court will be held on Monday, January 7.
Major tax case reaches Court
UPDATE Tuesday a.m. Dec. 18: The case has now been docketed as 07-802. The response is due Jan. 16, unless the government obtains an extension of time to file it. It is doubtful that the case would be granted in time for a decision during the current Term, unless significantly expedited.
Today at the Supreme Court | 12.13.07
The Court is now in winter recess. The next public session of the Court will be held on Monday, January 7.
Petitions to Watch | Conference of 1.4.08
The latest edition of “Petitions to Watch” features cases up for consideration at the Justices’ private conference of January 4, 2008. As always, the list reflects the petitions on the Court’s ‘paid’ docket that Tom has deemed to have a reasonable chance of being granted.
“Ask the Author”: Cass Sunstein & Tom Miles, Part II
This edition of “Ask the Author” features a conversation with Cass Sunstein and Tom Miles about their article entitled, “Do Judges Make Regulatory Policy?: An Empirical Investigation of Chevron,” see here, which was published in Volume 73 of the University of Chicago Law Review.
More Thoughts on the January Conferences
Although we are only roughly one-third of the way through the Term, we can begin to get a firmer sense of how the final docket will look. The docket is full through the March sitting.
Appeals court acts on torture evidence
Update Monday a.m., Dec. 17: The motion to declare interrogation methods to be torture, described in the fifth paragraph of the post below, is now available in redacted form. It can be downloaded here. (Thanks to the Miami Herald, via Howard Bashman’s How Appealing blog, for the text of the motion.)
New brief in Boumediene
Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees in the Supreme Court cases argued last Wednesday have asked the Court to allow them to file a new brief to bolster their claim that the captives should have the legal right to test the military’s reasons for continuing to hold them in prison in Cuba.
Secret court won’t release spying orders
Describing itself as a “unique and uniquely non-public court,” the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday denied a request by civil liberties lawyers for public release of that tribunal’s orders authorizing the Bush Administration to carry on a broadened program of global electronic spying that may include the telephone calls and e-mails of people in the United States.
Today at the Supreme Court | 12.12.07
The Court is now in winter recess. The next public session of the Court will be held on Monday, January 7.
Opinion Recap: Logan
Julian Park, a 3L at Berkeley School of Law, originally wrote this analysis of last Tuesday’s decision in Logan v. US for SCOTUSwiki. Read the rest of her Logan wiki entry here.
New Filing in Sprint & AT&T v. APCC Services
Today we filed this Reply Brief for the Petitioners in No. 07-552, Sprint & AT&T v. APCC Services, et al. The case presents a question of Article III standing. The petition for certiorari and appendix are here, the brief in opposition is here, and an amicus brief by Qwest is here.
New challenge on CIA tapes
Lawyers in a second Guantanamo Bay detainee case filed a plea in federal court in Washington Monday, asking that the Central Intelligence Agency be ordered to explain destruction of two tapes showing aggressive questioning of detainees.
Commentary: Gall and Appellate Court Transparency
This entry is part of our continuing commentary on the decisions yesterday in Gall v. US and Kimbrough v. US, both of which addressed issues in federal sentencing. This entry is by Carissa Byrne Hessick and Andrew Hessick.
“Ask the Author”: Cass Sunstein & Tom Miles, Part I
This edition of “Ask the Author” features a conversation with Cass Sunstein and Tom Miles about their article entitled, “Do Judges Make Regulatory Policy?: An Empirical Investigation of Chevron,” see here, which was published in Volume 73 of the University of Chicago Law Review.
Commentary: Gall and Kimbrough From Three Perspectives
This entry is part of our continuing commentary on the decisions yesterday in Gall v. US and Kimbrough v. US, both of which addressed issues in federal sentencing. This entry is by Frank Bowman of the University of Missouri School of Law. His bio and contact info are here.
The Week Ahead
On Monday, the Court is scheduled to release the remaining orders from the Justices’ private conference last Friday. For a recap of the initial round of orders, consisting of grants of certiorari in six cases, click here.
Today at the Supreme Court | 12.10.07
At 10 a.m., the Court may release one or more opinions on the merits. If so, we will provide links to the opinions as soon as possible. Also at 10 a.m., the Court is scheduled to release the remaining orders from the Justices’ private conference last Friday.
Court eases cocaine sentencing
FINAL UPDATE 1:34 p.m. The Supreme Court on Monday gave federal judges new authority to set sentences for crack cocaine crimes below the range of punishment set by federal guidelines — a major restoration of flexibility for trial judges in drug cases.
Today’s Orders and Opinions
A copy of today’s orders is now available here. The opinion in Kimbrough (06-6330) is here. The opinion in Gall (06-7949) is here. The opinion in Watson (06-571) is here.
Commentary: Winners and Losers in Gall and Kimbrough
Throughout today and tomorrow, we’ll have commentary on the decisions this morning in Gall v. US and Kimbrough v. US, both of which addressed issues in federal sentencing. This entry is by Mark W. Osler of Baylor Law School.
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