Showing 1–50 of 88 items published in January 2006, most recent first.
1. When did the Senate’s confirmation of a nominee to be Supreme Court Justice decrease the number of Justices on the Court? (Partial) Answer: Today, Tuesday, January 31, 2006. Justice O’Connor’s resignation becomes effective upon the Senate’s confirmation of Justice Alito.
The Senate at midday Tuesday approved the nomination of Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to be a Justice of the Supreme Court. The vote was 58-42, with all but one of the Senate’s 55 Republicans voting for him. Only four of the Senate’s 44 Democrtats voted for him.
(9 P.M. UPDATE: Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., made his first public appearance in robes as a member of the Supreme Court Tuesday evening, showing up to observe the State of the Union message of President Bush.
The Ninth Circuit Court, the first lower court to apply the Supreme Court’s new abortion ruling, on Tuesday struck down the federal ban on so-called “partial-birth: abortions.
The D.C. Circuit Court has told lawyers in two packets of cases involving war-on-terrorism detainees to file new written arguments on the effect on pending cases of the new Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.
The Senate voted overwelmingly on Monday to cut off debate on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. Tne vote was 72 to 25, 12 more than the minimum 60 needed to approve the debate-stopping “cloture” motion offered by Senate Republican leaders last week.
Here is Concurring Opinions with a post on Justice Scalia and the CLE event he attended during the Roberts’ swearing in. Here is the Bankruptcy Litigation Blog with a post on the Anna Nicole Smith case.
Lawyers for foreign nationals captured during the war on terrorism have mounted a broad challenge to the Bush Administration’s unusual argument that a federal appeals court has lost the power to hear their cases but still may go ahead with a strictly limited review of the detainees’ legal claims.
The Senate’s Republican leader moved on Thursday afternoon to try to force a final vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to begin at 11 a.m. next Tuesday.
MORNING UPDATE: News organizations reported that Indiana carried out the execution of Marvin Bieghler after about a 30-minute delay awaiting word from the Supreme Court on the state’s request to allow the execution.. He reportedly was pronounced dead at 2:17 a.m. LATEST UPDATE: 00:45 a.m.
On January 20, the respondent filed his brief in Marshall v. Marshall, No. 04-1544, (aka, the Anna Nichole Smith case). The question before the Court involves the application of the so-called “probate exception” to federal bankruptcy jurisdiction.
On Alito: Law Dork has this post on “What Alito Means to the Left.” Here is the National Jewish Democrat Council’s blog with their statement against Alito. ACS Blog has this post on state’s seeking to challenge Roe once Alito is on the bench.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear an appeal by Clarence Edward. Hill, a Florida death row inmate who is challenging the method that the state uses to carry out executions.
Courtesy of How Appealing, ABC News has this “investigative report” that raises an “ethics controversy” because Justice Scalia missed the swearing in of the Chief Justice because he was at a Federalist Society event.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, with all Republicans voting in favor and all Democrats opposed, agreed at 12:21 p.m. Tuesday to report the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samual A. Alito, Jr., to the full Senate, with final action expected there before early next week.
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday, without dissent, that it has not barred all challenges to actual operation in practice of federal campaign finance restrictions on political advertising.
As today’s per curiam decision in Wisconsin Right to Life demonstrates, there is at least one decided trend so far on the Roberts Court: A strong preference for as-applied challenges — case-by-case, incremental decisionmaking — in constitutional cases, at least until Justice O’Connor’s replacement is on the Court.
I had predicted that four cases were the most likely candidates to be reargued next Term when Justice Alito (presumably) will be on the Court, because in each of the four I figured that there was a good chance Justice O’Connor would be the swing vote and that a Justice Alito would come out the other way.
The Supreme Court on Monday released the oral argument schedule for its March sitting.
Today, the Court issued a 5-4 decision in Central Virginia Community College v. Katz, holding that States do not have sovereign immunity to suits by bankruptcy trustees seeking the return of preferential transfers under the federal bankruptcy act.
In response to my take, and Sam Bagenstos’s, on the “as applied” decisions this Term, NYU Professor Rick Pildes writes in with a very different, and provocative, perspective: I expect these cases will indeed be re-argued before a new Court, though not in the technical sense of re-argument you initially had in mind.
In nomination news: Concurring Opinions has this post on the consequences of misleading the Judiciary Committee in the judicial nomination process. The Fix, the Washington Posts’ politics blog has this post on pro-Alito ads targeting two Senate Democrats.
The Supreme Court completed its weekly Conference on Friday without issuing any orders on new cases. Any orders resulting from the Conference, including new grants, if any, will come on Monday.
The Justice Department on Wednesday spelled out a new and more expansive view of the new Detainee Treatment Act’s court-stripping provisions. The Act, according to a new filing in the D.C. Circuit Court, appears to take away the courts’ authority to decide challenges to military detention even by captured foreign nationals who are not considered “enemy combatants” in the war on terrorism.
On Concurring Opinions, Roberts Tsai has this post on Justice Roberts’ dissent in Gonzales v. Oregon. PrawfsBlawg has this post on “the potentially illusory significance” of the current Padilla case before the Supreme Court. Here is Jack Balkin’s analysis of the Ayotte decision.
A professor just asked this question on a listserv, and I thought it was worth throwing out to our readers: Because inclement weather shut down the Ft.
Filling in gaps in the Bush Administration’s argument that Congress meant to wipe out existing court challenges to war on terrorism detention of foreign nationals, the Washington Legal Foundation on Wednesday said that the Constitution imposes no barrier to Congress’ authority to do so.
In nomination news: Here is Professor Bainbridge with a post on why the Harriet Miers fight was worth it. Here the Washington Post has transcripts of the Alito hearings. Here is Sentencing Law & Policy with a post on the impact of Scalia/Roberts on sentencing jurisprudence.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave New Hampshire a new chance to salvage — though in a narrower form — its law requiring that parents be notified if their teenaged daughter is seeking an abortion.
The Court will be issuing an Orders List this morning, and will be issuing one or more opinions in argued cases both today and tomorrow. The only two remaining opinions from the October sitting are Gonzales v. Oregon (the physician-assisted suicide case) and Garcetti v. Ceballos (an important First Amendment case concerning government employee speech).
The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Oregon to continue to allow doctors to provide the drugs that terminally ill patients may use to take their own lives.
On Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear argument in United States of America v. Grubbs, No. 04-1414.
The Court issued its opinion in United States v. Booker a year ago last week.
The S. Ct. has granted two cases this term on the scope of the Clean Water Act. In the SD Warren v. Maine BEP case (No. 04-1527), Richard Lazarus and others have filed this brief for certain of the respondents.
In its decision in McConnell v. FEC, the Supreme Court upheld most of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) against a facial First Amendment challenge. Yet only two years later, the constitutionality of one of BCRA’s provisions is again at issue.
The federal courts’ review of the impact of the new Detainee Treatment Act on the pending cases of terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will now go forward on two tracks: in the Supreme Court and in the D.C. Circuit Court.
11:00 Michelman continues. Alito shows no concern for the effect his rulings will have on regular people. His rulings on the Third Circuit concerning abortion show that he does not consider the real affect they will have on thousands of women.
11:56 Sen. Coburn thanks everyone and that’s the end of the panel. There will be a 5 minute break and then a final panel. 11:51 Sen. Sessions: compliments Mr. Gray as a leader from the South. The both chuckle over the fact that each had dashed hopes of a judgeship.
1:00 Kennedy asks panel to comment on importance of diversity on the Supreme Court. (Each has 30 seconds to answer — can’t record them all): Gonzales: would rather have a fair shake than an Hispanic (although would prefer to have both). Schultz: Alito is replacing first woman.
The Supreme Court on Friday granted review of a case testing whether the prosecution or the defense has the burden at trial on the issue of duress or coercion as a defense to a criminal charge — an issue that has divided lower courts. The case is Dixon v. U.S.(05-7053).
1:32 That concludes Alito’s nomination hearings. 1:29 Leahy says that Specter’s policy for voting against a nominee in committee but then voting to send him or her to the senate floor for a vote is a good one. 1:28 Specter will prepare a written statement further detalining his reasons for
On the hearings: Here is an article in the New York Times titled, “Blogger Reaction to the Alito Hearings.” Here PrawfsBlawg asks if Alito is an originalist. Here the Campaign for the Court has a post on a conversation between Mrs. Alito and the First Lady.
The rapidly escalating courthouse battle over the cases of foreign nationals being held by the U.S. military as terrorism suspects has broken out in a new skirmish.
Attorneys for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national who is challenging the “military commission” that is scheduled to try him on war crimes charges, urged the Supreme Court on Wednesday to call for additional legal briefs on the impact on his case of the new Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.
This post will sit on top of the blog all day. The liveblog of the Alito hearings will occcupy most of the space on the blog today, but be sure not to miss our other posts, including coverage of today’s opinions (here) and the cases being argued today(here and here)
10:55 The committee breaks until 11:10. 10:54 Kohl asks whether it is likely that Alito will turn out to be in the center. Alito says he’ll be the same sort of justice as he has been a judge.
12:01 Feingold asks about Alito’s views on affirmative action and diversity in education. Alito says that when he has taught, diversity in the classroom enriched the experience, and that under existing precedent diversity it is a compelling government interest. 11:59 Feingold says assume all procedures are perfect – is there a contitutional right to not be executed if one is innocent?
12:57 Durbin quotes a recent opinion by Judge Posner criticizing the federal government’s handling of immigration cases under a program to clear a backlog of asylum applications. Durbin asks about an asylum case Alito decided, involving a man whose wife was raped by police coming to look for him.
3:00: The Committee is questioning a panel from the ABA which includes Stephen L. Tober, Marna Tucker and John Payton. 3:01: Senator Kennedy is asking Payton what the ABA knew when about the Vanguard recusal issue.
4:58: Senator Cornyn points out that Alito has disagreed with his colleagues before so there is no reason to think that their testimony today could lead to a conflict of interest.