Showing 1–50 of 89 items published in February 2018, most recent first.
Today the Supreme Court decided Jennings v. Rodriguez, a class-action challenge to provisions of the immigration laws allowing for immigrant detention. After hearing oral argument in the case last term, the court asked for further briefing on the constitutionality of the detention of immigrants.
Patchak v. Zinke did not get a lot of attention before the oral argument, and it probably won’t be splashed across the national media after the decision Tuesday morning.
About midway through Tuesday’s oral argument in Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Justice Elena Kagan provoked audience laughter with a remark to Shay Dvorertzky, the attorney for the city.
Less than three weeks ago, the Supreme Court declined to get involved in a partisan-gerrymandering challenge to Pennsylvania’s federal congressional maps.
This morning the court hears argument in one case, Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, which asks whether a Minnesota law banning political apparel at polling places is facially overbroad under the First Amendment. Amy Howe had this blog‘s preview.
The transcript in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky is available on the Supreme Court’s website.
When Andy Cilek went to his local polling place in Hennepin County, Minnesota, to vote, an election worker told him to cover or take off his T-shirt, which bore both the Tea Party logo and the message “Don’t Tread on Me.” Cilek, the worker said, would have to do the same for his “Please I.D. Me” button, often worn by opponents of voter fraud.
The Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday in Ohio v. American Express Co., a challenge by 17 states to the network rules that prohibit merchants accepting Amex cards from steering customer-cardholders toward using other cards that charge the merchants lower transaction fees.
The justices will hear oral arguments in two cases this morning. The first is United States v. Microsoft Corp., which asks whether the Stored Communications Act allows the government to gain access from email providers to data that is stored overseas.
The transcript in United States v. Microsoft Corp. is available on the Supreme Court’s website; the transcript in Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Florida is also available.
Today’s decision in Merit Management Group v. FTI Consulting brought few surprises to observers familiar with the argument. As I explained in my post about the argument, the justices in November showed broad skepticism about the idea that a Bankruptcy Code provision protecting “securities payments” should provide a broad shield against exercise of the bankruptcy court’s power to recover fraudulent conveyances.
When the Supreme Court heard oral argument this morning in United States v. Microsoft, it found itself in what has become familiar terrain — trying to apply a decades-old law to modern technology.
We live-blogged as the Supreme Court released opinions in three cases this morning. The transcript is available at this link.
This morning the court hears oral argument in one of the term’s major cases, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, in which the justices will consider whether an Illinois law allowing public-sector unions to charge nonmembers for collective-bargaining activities violates the First Amendment.
We’re switching it up and spending the whole episode on one case: United States v. Microsoft Corp. You know about storing stuff on the cloud– but what does it mean for your privacy when the cloud is technically located in another country?
The transcript in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 is available on the Supreme Court’s website. The transcript in Ohio v. American Express Co. is also available.
This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from last week’s conference. The justices granted review in three new cases today, but the bigger news concerned one particular case in which they declined to intervene – at least for now.
Demonstrators have arrived early this morning to exercise their First Amendment rights about the first case for oral argument, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31.
The Supreme Court heard oral argument today in Janus v. American Federation of State, Municipal, and County Employees, a challenge by an Illinois child-support specialist to the fees that he is required to pay to the union that represents him, even though he does not belong to any union.
On Thursday, March 1, at 1 p.m., Justice Stephen Breyer will speak at the University of Virginia Law School about his 2015 book, “The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities.” More information is available here, and the event will also be live-streamed on UVA Law’s Facebook page.
On Monday the Supreme Court released orders from the February 23 conference. The justices added New Prime Inc. v. Oliviera, Mount Lemmon Fire District v. Guido and Madison v. Alabama to their merits docket for next term.
This morning the Supreme Court released its April argument calendar, which includes oral argument in Hawaii’s challenge to the travel restrictions imposed on nationals from eight countries in President Donald Trump’s September 24, 2017, order.
In a brief opinion filed on Wednesday, the Supreme Court decided that Rodney Class’ guilty plea did not automatically preclude his challenge to the constitutionality of the statute under which he was convicted.
In anticipation of Monday’s oral argument, Supreme Court coverage and commentary focus on Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, in which the court will consider whether an Illinois law allowing public-sector unions to charge nonmembers for collective-bargaining activities violates the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court today released its oral argument calendar for April, the final sitting of the court’s October Term 2017. The justices will close out their regularly scheduled arguments on April 25 with Trump v. Hawaii, the challenge to the president’s September 24, 2017, order restricting travel to the United States by nationals of eight countries.
Oyez has posted the aligned audio and transcripts from this week’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court. The court heard argument this week in: Currier v. Virginia City of Hays v. Vogt Dahda v. United States Rosales-Mireles v. United States
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post ran on January 22, as an introduction to this blog’s symposium on Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, as well as at Howe on the Court, where it was originally published.
Sometimes, an appellate court uses oral argument to help it decide who ought to win. Other times, the justices know who will win, and oral argument becomes an opportunity for the judges to use counsel as a sounding board as to how the opinion should be written.
The oral argument in Dahda v. United States started off on a bad note for Los Rovell Dahda, who was represented by Kannon Shanmugam.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court in Murphy v. Smith held that prisoners who are awarded attorney’s fees in connection with their successful civil rights cases must also pay those fees, up to a maximum of one quarter of their damages awards.
Setting the stage The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 created a bounty system designed to reward those who provide information to the Securities and Exchange Commission when that information leads to monetary penalties.
In its conference of February 23, 2018, the court will consider petitions involving issues such as whether the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is lawful; whether under the Supreme Court’s opinions in
Yesterday the court doubled its opinion output for this term in argued cases. Adam Liptak reports on all four of yesterday’s opinions for The New York Times, and Nina Totenberg does the same at NPR.
John Elwood reviews Tuesday’s relists, after a fashion. The Supreme Court has just finished one of its longest breaks between conferences, from January 19 (which already seems like ancient history) to February 16.
[Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post ran on February 5, as an introduction to this blog’s symposium on United States v. Microsoft Corp., as well as at Howe on the Court, where it was originally published.]
On November 15, 2006, Fane Lozman rose to speak during the public-comments portion of a regular public meeting of the City Council of Riviera Beach, Florida. What followed was anything but a run-of-the-mill discussion about the intricacies of local government.
During yesterday’s oral argument in Currier v. Virginia, Justice Stephen Breyer stated what most constitutional scholars know about double jeopardy: “It’s complicated.” The argument reflected this complexity, with seven justices focusing on different branches of the double jeopardy protection and on different aspects of the case.
My preview of City of Hays, Kansas v. Vogt described the case as “deceptively complex.” Some of the difficulties in the case seem to have come into focus only (as Justice Stephen Breyer candidly put it) “suddenly … for the first time” at yesterday’s oral argument.
This morning the court hears oral argument in two criminal-procedure cases. The first is Rosales-Mireles v. United States, which asks when erroneous applications of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines should be corrected on plain-error review. Evan Lee previewed the case for this blog.
The Supreme Court ruled today that U.S. victims of a 1997 terrorist attack in Jerusalem cannot rely on a provision of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to seize a collection of Iranian antiquities held by the University of Chicago.
The transcript in Rosales-Mireles v. United States is available on the Supreme Court’s website; the transcript in Dahda v. United States is also available.
We live-blogged as the Supreme Court released opinions. The transcript is available at this link.
[Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post ran on December 18, as an introduction to this blog’s symposium on Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, as well as at Howe on the Court, where it was originally published.]
In March, Richard Hasen will hold a series of conversations on his new book, “The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption“: With Kate Shaw at Cardozo School of Law in New York, on March 5 at 12 p.m., details here.
Today the justices return after a three-week break to hear oral arguments in two criminal cases. First up is Currier v. Virginia, which asks what happens to a defendant’s double jeopardy protections when he consents to sequential trials for multiple, overlapping offenses.
Ohio v. American Express Co., which is set for argument on February 26, may simply reinforce the burden-shifting approach that has been developed and applied in civil antitrust cases, or it could announce a particular new approach defining markets and assessing competitive harm in multi-sided platforms and markets.
This morning the Supreme Court released orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The court did not act on the federal government’s petition for review of a dispute over whether the Trump administration can terminate the program known as “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” which allows undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to apply for protection from deportation.
The transcript in Currier v. Virginia is available on the Supreme Court’s website; the transcript in City of Hays v. Vogt is also available.
The court has returned from its nearly four-week midwinter recess, one marked by a number of extracurricular orders, an even bigger number of public appearances by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and a smaller number of public appearances by other justices.
The Supreme Court’s long break is over and we’re here to preview some of the most interesting cases from the February sitting. We take a deep dive into Janus v. AFSCME, Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Currier v. Virginia and Ohio v. American Express, making our trademark predictions as to each case.