Everything published in February 2006, most recent first.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Tuesday that the federal Hobbs Act does not outlaw acts or threats of violence, thus undercutting a verdict and a nationwide injunction that abortion clinics had won against anti-abortion demonstrators.
The Supreme Court devoted a lively two-hour session Tuesday to money in politics and money in family feuds, giving strong hints along the way that Vermont may not succeed in arguing that its politicians are being corrupted, and that a woman best known as a topless dancer may soon be considerably wealthier.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued its regular orders list. No new cases were granted, and there was no action on the pending appeal by Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen challenging his detention as an “enemy combatant” (Padilla v. Hanft, 05-533). Few of the actions on the list were noteworthy.
Here is an article from the New Yorker by Jeffrey Toobin on the Texas redistricting cases. Here is a CNN article about a speech Justice Scalia gave Saturday at the National Wild Turkey Federation’s annual convention.
At 6:30pm on Wednesday March 1st, The American Constitution Society is hosting a panel discussion titled: “The Advocates Speak: Texas Redistricting Cases.” The cases are League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 05-204; Travis County v. Perry, 05-254; Jackson v. Perry, 05-276; and GI Forum of Texas v. Perry, 05- 439.
(This is another in a continuing series of reports on the impact that Supreme Court decisions have on later cases. The ruling discussed here is a sequel to the Court’s Jan. 18 ruling in the case of Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England [04-1144], limiting court orders in abortion cases.)
The Court will hear reargument in No. 04-473, Garcetti v. Ceballos, on Tuesday, March 21st, at 1:00. (Can anyone identify the last time the Court heard reargument in the same term that a case was first argued? I believe the answer is Slack v. McDaniel, in October Term 1999, see 528 U.S. 949 (1999).)
The Solicitor General on Thursday filed the federal government’s brief on the merits in the case challenging the war crimes “military commissions” set up for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 05-184).
After an individual has been convicted of murder, that person has no constitutional right to try to head off a death sentence by trying to offer new evidence suggesting that the conviction itself was invalid, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday.
On February 25th, C-SPAN’s program, “American and the Courts” will air its tape of an event yesterday in which Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia talked about the role of international and foreign law in American judicial decision-making at the American Enterprise Institute.
Here is yet another post on Justice Alito’s clerk hires, this one on Concurring Opinions. PrawfsBlawg also has this follow-up discussing Justice Brennan’s decision to to withdraw his offer of a clerkship to Michael Tigar in 1966.
A bill drafted specifically to test the Supreme Court’s current view on abortion rights — and to set up a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade — won approval Wednesday in the upper house of the South Dakota legislature. The bill, H.B. 1215, was passed by the state Senate on a 23-12 vote.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to rule on the constitutionality of the federal ban on so-called “partial-birth” abortions — the first-ever law passed by Congress to outlaw a method for terminating pregnancy.
Objective Justice has this post on a challenge to legalized abortion coming out of South Dakota. Here is PrawfsBlawg with a post on Justice Alito’s clerk hires and the subsequent press they received.
We previously posted the briefs in Marshall v. Marshall (aka “the Anna Nicole Smith case”), No. 04-1544. You can find them here. Today we received petitioner’s reply brief. Oral argument is scheduled for February 28. Disclosure: Goldstein & Howe is co-counsel for respondent.
OK, so it was strange enough when, last Wednesday, the Washington Post decided that Justice Alito’s hiring of former Ashcroft aide Adam Ciongoli was worthy of a full, section A news story.
That was the question recently posed on a constitutional law academic discussion list. Ceballos is the lone case that the Court has (thus far) restored to the calendar for reargument in the wake of Justice Alito replacing Justice O’Connor. [UPDATE: I’m informed the reargument might be this Term, despite the fact that the Court has accepted enough cases to fill the April sitting.]
Today we, along with the students in the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, are filing this cert. petition in Ledbetter v. Goodyear. The case involves the application of the statute of limitations for Title VII claims when an employee is challenging her current pay based on pay decisions that occurred outside the limitations period.
The Supreme Court on Friday ordered re-argument in a significant pending case on the free speech rights of government employees — Garcetti v. Ceballos (docket 04-473). There were no grants of new cases on Friday. Here is the Orders List.
The Hearing List of the attorneys who will be appearing in the ten arguments this sitting, beginning Tuesday and continuing through March 1st, is available here.
(UPDATE: The following report has been updated to include material from the new brief filed by the Justice Department in the D.C. Circuit. The filings came in the combined cases that begin with Boumediene v. Bush [05-5062].).
Here is Bloomberg.com with an article on Alito’s new clerk hires. The First Amendment Center has posted this article by Tony Mauro on Justice Alito’s chance to weigh in on the First Amendment in Randall v. Sorrell, Sorrell v. Randall and Vermont Republican State Committee v. Sorrell.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., took his seat on the Supreme Court’s bench for the first time Thursday afternoon near the close of a four-minute investiture ceremony in the Court’s ornate chamber.
The Bush Administration urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to move ahead with a final ruling on the constitutionality of the controversial federal ban on “partial-birth abortions,” arguing that there would be no value in sending a pending case back to a lower court for another look.
Lawyers for a Yemeni national held in U.S. military detention made a final move Wednesday to keep alive his case in the Supreme Court, arguing that the text of the Constitution itself makes clear that captives at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba are protected against the loss of their right to contest theirtreatment as “enemy combatants.”.
We are filing this cert. petition today in Abdur’Rahman v. Bredesen, which challenges the constitutionality of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol. While the Court has been bombarded with a number of lethal injection cases of late, we believe that if the Court is inclined to consider the issue this one is an especially appropriate case for the Court’s review, for a couple of reasons.
Here the National Voting Rights Institute has compiled the briefs in Randall v. Sorrell. The Election Law Blog comments here. The Volokh Conspiracy has this post on Catholic League president Bill Donohue’s thoughts on Justice Ginsburg’s decisions not to put a wreath on her office door and not to attend the Court’s annual Red Mass.
The Bush Administration told the Supreme Court on Monday that the Justices could put a stop to a foreign national’s challenge to a military war crimes trial without worrying about any constitutional violations, since detainees like him have no rights under the Constitution.
Up on Law.com, Tony Mauro has this article on “Justice Alito’s Green Day.” Three cases challenging the scope of the Clean Water Act will be argued Feb. 21, testing themes of federalism and commerce clause power that were much at issue during Alito’s confirmation hearings.
We asked Jerry Goldman, who runs the Oyez project, to give us some details on the new materials they’ve posted and their new technology. Here is what he wrote back. The OYEZ Project has just released the 2004 Term SCOTUS audio in mp3 format for download.
On February 21, the American Enterprise Institute will host a symposium on “Outsourcing American Law” with a Keynote Address by Justice Scalia and three panels, including Jack Goldsmith, John Yoo, Morton Halperin, Andrew McCarthy, Stuart Taylor, and our own Tom Goldstein.
Here Charles Lane from the Washington Post has an article on Paul Gregory House, a Tennessee inmate on death row. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear his case, which involves a clarification of the rules for “actual innocence” claims.
After asking around, here is my sense of the state of play in the Supreme Court lethal injection cases. There is a procedural issue: whether a challenge to a legal injection protocol is a successive habeas application.
Here is the printed (as opposed to page proof) version of the Hamdan opposition to the motion to dismiss, which simply means that it has the tables of contents and authorities included.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., one day after joining the Court, cast his first significant vote on Wednesday evening, and in the process split with the Court’s other conservatives: Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Here and here, the Election Law Blog has posted the briefs in the Texas redistricting case. Rick Hasen also has this post on Wisconsin Right-to-Life. The plaintiffs in the case have asked for expedited review on remand, which may put the case back before the Supreme Court this term.
Defense lawyers for war-on-terrorism detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan told the Supreme Court Tuesday night that the Court’s own role in the plan of the Constitution may be at stake in the interpretation of the new law to strip courts of authority to decide detainee cases.
With thanks to Michael Dimino of Widener Law, here is the revised assignment of Circuit Justices. Justice Alito gets the Eighth Circuit. Justice Thomas picks up his native Eleventh Circuit. And Justice Kennedy picks up his former court, the Ninth Circuit.
Here is the President’s statement on Justice Alito being confirmed by the Senate and here is a snapshot (figuratively, not literally) of the composition of the new Roberts Court, both courtesy of the Washington Post.