Showing 1–50 of 85 items published in May 2005, most recent first.
Rick Hasen of the Election Law Blog has this post about the cases he is watching for eventual review by the Supreme Court. Orin Kerr, on Volokh Conspiracy and Michael J. Kelly, Associate Professor of Law at Creighton University posting on ACSblog, have engaged in a lively debate on Supreme Court citations to foreign law.
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Congress’ power to require officials of state and local prisons and jails to find ways to allow inmates to practice their religious beliefs.
The Court issued opinions today in the following three argued cases (details from Lyle below): No. 03-9877, Cutter v. Wilkinson, unanimously reversed. Justice Ginsburg wrote the opinion, with a concurrence by Justice Thomas. No. 03-1488, Tory v. Cochran, reversed 7-2.
The somewhat confused procedural history of Kansas’ death penalty law has followed it to the Supreme Court, so the Justices’ agreement on Tuesday to hear an appeal by the state may not lead to a significant pronouncement on a key constitutional question.
In Cutter v. Wilkinson, No. 03-9877, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that section 3 of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (affectionately known as RLUIPA) facially violated the Establishment Clause.
The Supreme Court issued a quick, unanimous and concise defeat to the Government today in Arthur Andersen v. United States, No. 04-368, overturning the accounting company’s conviction for obstruction of justice.
In my earlier post on this past Thursday’s conference, I inadvertently omitted the SG’s cert. petition in No. 04-1332, Will v. Hallock, an FTCA case.
On Monday, I posted this altogether too-long explanation of the Court’s sudden and unanimous (and long overdue) about-face in Lingle, in which it unceremoniously interred the “substantially advances” takings test that Justice Powell had infelicitously coined 25 years ago in Agins.
While Greg correctly describes the LMA decision, he does not quite defend it against the problems I identified. For example, his distinction of Barnette and Wooley fails to address my criticism that Justice Scalia improperly narrows the First Amendment interests at stake down to the personal autonomy concerns and ignores the structural purposes of the First Amendment.
Marty Lederman has this post on Raich up on the Greedy Clerks Board. Sentencing Law & Policy has a new round-up of Booker developments. The Volokh Conspiracy discusses Justice Thomas, Justice Scalia and citing to foreign law here.
The SG has filed another invitation brief — again urging that cert. be denied — this one in No. 04-165, Comstock Resources v. Kennard, which involves the False Claims Act “original source” rule.
Robert Corn-Revere of Legal Times has this book review of Speaking Freely, by Floyd Abrams. Tony Mauro of Legal Times has this article discussing Professor Laurence Tribe’s decision not to finish the second volume of the third edition of American Constitutional Law.
The Solicitor General has filed his invitation brief — this time urging that cert. be granted (or, indeed, that the judgment be summarily reversed) — in No. 04-805, Texaco v. Dagher, and No. 04-814, Shell Oil v. Dagher, which involve the application of the antitrust laws to joint ventures.
A few brief responses — and, more important, a link to our merits brief (http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/dec04.html#veneman), which explains in more detail why Erik’s position ultimately turned out to be “dead meat”: First, let me confess to thinking that our government is a
The Solicitor General today filed invitation briefs in four more cases, recommending that cert. be denied in each: No. 04-31, McFarling v. Monsanto Co., a patent licensing case; No. 04-621, Public Util.
As Tom has previously written, only two cases (Raich and Miller-El) remain pending from the “December” sitting; and Justices Stevens and Souter have yet to write majority opinions from that sitting.
High-resolution pdfs are now available here on the Green Bag’s web-site.
In the last of a series of posts profiling the OT 2005 Supreme Court clerks, today Underneath Their Robes gives us the scoop on Justice Breyer’s clerks.
We previously noted that the Solicitor General had filed his invitation brief suggesting that the Court deny certiorari in No. 04-293, Honeywell v. Hamilton Sunstrand.
Mark Johnson of the AP has this article discussing New York Gov. George Pataki’s introduction of a wine shipment bill in light of the Court’s decision in the wine cases. David J. Garrow has this article in the May/June issue of Legal Affaris discussing Justice Blackmun and Roe v. Wade.
Greg Garre of Hogan and Hartson – counsel to the private petitioners – enters the debate. Thanks to SCOTUSblog for hosting this (high protein) food fight. Our government has been speaking out for centuries — sometimes, no doubt, to more desirable ends than others.
Here are the cases we’re watching from today’s conference of the Justices: 04-908, Yarborough v. Maxwell (regarding the right to an evidentiary hearing on a competency claim) – the Court called for the record and then called for a response to the petition 04-1146, Bubna v. Anchorage Equal Rights
The Volokh Conspiracy has a lengthy discussion, starting here on a potential Supreme Court nomination for John Roberts. Last November, SCOTUS Blog profiled John Roberts in a series of posts ending here. Legal Affairs also discusses potential nominees here.
The next big terrorism case to reach the Supreme Court will be acted upon next month. The Court’s electronic docket notes that the Jose Padilla case will be considered by the Court on June 9.
SCOTUSblog is pleased to host a debate on the Court’s recent decision in the beef promotion case, featuring Erik Jaffe (who represented amici in the case) and Gregory Garre (who successfully argued on behalf of petitioner Nebraska Cattlemen et al.).
The First Amendment Center has this summary of responses to Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Association. Here are Scrivener’s Error’s thoughts on Medellín v. Dretke. Julian Ku of Opinio Juris discusses the case here.
News on the Court’s opinion in Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Ass’n and Nebraska Cattlemen v. Livestock Marketing Ass’n [Goldstein & Howe, P.C. for respondents]: Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times; Andrew Martin of The Chicago Tribune; Tony Mauro of Legal Times; Steve Raabe of The Denver Post; Warren Richey of The Christian Science Monitor; David G. Savage of The L.A. Times; and Greg Stohr of Bloomberg.
Updating this post from last week, the Court has now decided 45 argued cases and has 29 remaining. All of the decisions from the October and November sittings have been issued. For the December sitting, decisions are outstanding in Raich (medical marijuana) and Miller-El (Batson).
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide a long-unsettled issue of abortion law: the standard to be used in judging the constitutionality of a restriction on a women’s right to end a pregnancy.
Here is the list. Ayotte is the only grant. The Court again relisted the Kansas capital case (No. 04-1170). Justice Breyer noted his dissent from the denial of cert. in No. 04-872, Kucera v. Bradbury, which involved Oregon’s process for reviewing nominating petitions.
The Court DIGged (dismissed as improvidently granted) No. 04-5928, Medellin v. Dretke. Justice Ginsburg concurred, joined in part by Justice Scalia. Justice O’Connor dissented, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Breyer.
Justice O’Connor’s wonderful opening line in her opinion for a unanimous Court today in No. 04-163, Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., speaks volumes: “On occasion, a would-be doctrinal rule or test finds its way into our case law through simple repetition of a phrase—however fortuitously coined.” This
The Supreme Court, turning aside protests by dissenters that it was avoiding “questions of national importance,” on Monday opted to let the state courts of Texas be the first to decide a profound question of presidential authority.
We won’t be separately covering the Clingman decision, but recommend this post by Rick Hasen.
A six-Justice majority of the Supreme Court today upheld federally mandated commodity promotion programs against First Amendment challenge. These programs require producers of various commodities – here, beef ranchers – to contribute to a federal fund principally used for generic advertising.
Michael C. Dorf has this essay on FindLaw discussing the Court’s decision in Granholm v. Heald, which was issued last week. George F. Will had this article in The Washington Post’s Sunday edition on the same opinion. Cliff Sloan has this book review of Becoming Justice Blackmun by Linda Greenhouse.
The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to put the abortion controversy back on its decision docket could produce a major new ruling next Term on the power of states to enforce their new abortion control laws.
(Justices in the majority are highlighted; author is bordered in red) No. 04-5928, Medellin v. Dretke No. 04-5293, Deck v. Missouri No. 04-37, Clingman v. Beaver Nos. 03-1164, Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Ass’n, and 03-1165, Nebraska Cattlemen v. Livestock Marketing Ass’n (consolidated) No. 04-163, Lingle v. Chevron USA
Here is Orin Kerr on Professor Tribe’s decision to stop updating his treatise. Sentencing Law and Policy has this post detailing the week’s sentencing developments, concentrating on Booker and Blakely. Underneath Their Robes has even more dirt on the OT 2005 clerks here.
Here is the pdf of the Larry Tribe letters to be published next week in the Green Bag. To avoid posting a file of unwieldy size, we’ve posted this in a pdf of only moderate resolution. The editors of the Green Bag promise that the hardcopy in the forthcoming issue will be in high resolution.
Underneath Their Robes has this commentary on Justice Ginsburg’s OT 2005 clerks. Douglas Berman has this piece up on the constitutionality of lethal injection protocols.
The grand project of Harvard professor Laurence H. Tribe’s synthesis of constitutional doctrine — his treatise, “American Constitutional Law” — may have seen its last entry. When the third edition of the work came out in 1999, it was to be a two-volume work.
The Justice Department on Friday urged the Supreme Court to grant review of the first case raising an issue on how lower courts are to implement the Justices’ January 12 ruling on federal Sentencing Guidelines – U.S. v. Booker.
The Wall Street Journal’s online “Econoblog” has today published a debate between Harvard Law Professor David Barron and George Mason Economics Department Chair Don Boudreaux, ostensibly about the Court’s pending decision in Kelo v. City of New London.
Including today, the Justices have six Conferences remaining this Term at which they will consider petitions for certiorari. The Court has started to fill its December argument calendar and I continue to think they will fill that calendar before leaving for the summer recess in late-June or early-July.
Timothy K. Lewis has this editorial piece in The L.A. Times on Sterling v. Dretke, No. 04-9337. Gina Holland of the AP has this article in The Boston Globe discussing action by the Court that temporarily stopped the execution on Vernon Brown.
The Ninth Circuit has invited the Solicitor General to join in a fundamental examination of the constitutionality of the 1996 law passed by Congress to curb habeas corpus in federal courts — the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.
Sherry F. Colb of FindLaw has this essay on Georgia v. Randolph, in which the Court granted cert. last month. Further news on the wine cases – Granholm v. Heald, No. 03-1116; Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association v. Heald, No. 03-1120; and Swedenburg v. Kelly, No. 03-1274: Spencer E. Ante of BusinessNews; Jess Bravin and Vanessa O’Connell of The Wall Street Journal; and The Ledger has this editorial piece.
Having talked this through with various people (including particularly Marty) and looked more at the argument transcripts and related opinions, I’m now slightly revising my assessment of who is writing in the December sitting. I made my original pointless and unsubstantiated prediction here.
I thought it couldn’t hurt to summarize briefly where the Court is in deciding the argued cases. The Court has decided all of the cases argued in the October and November sittings.