Showing 1–50 of 134 items published in March 2016, most recent first.
If it is true that the side that gets the most questions in a Supreme Court argument usually loses, then Gregory Welch, who filed pro se typewritten habeas pleadings as well as his petition for certiorari, should be less glum today.
The government faced an uphill battle in Wednesday’s argument in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co. As noted in my preview, the case involves the “jurisdictional determinations” (JDs) that the United States Army Corps of Engineers issues under the Clean Water Act.
Yesterday the Court issued its decision in Luis v. United States, holding that the pretrial freeze of a criminal defendant’s untainted assets violates the Sixth Amendment right to retain counsel of choice.
Four years ago, Sila Luis was indicted on charges of Medicare fraud. The government alleged that she had obtained as much as $45 million illegally but had spent almost all of it, leaving her with approximately $2 million in assets.
In its Conference of April 1, 2016, the Court will consider petitions involving issues such as whether third-party home care employers can avail themselves of the “home care” exemptions to overtime provisions in the Fair Labor Standards Act; whether an occupational licensee who shields himself from
Tuesday’s argument in Sheriff v. Gillie brought the Justices into the almost surreal world of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), and it is pretty clear they did not find it all that appealing.
As we suggested in our preview of Tuesday’s oral argument in Ross v. Blake, a case ostensibly presenting the question of whether there is a “special circumstances” exception to the exhaustion requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 (PLRA), “the real question for the Court . . . may
We will be live-blogging this morning as the Court issues opinions. Join us.
This morning the Court heard oral arguments in Welch v. United States and United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc. Rory Little previewed Welch for this blog, with additional coverage coming from law students Michael Levy and Reymond Yammine for Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.
The transcript in Welch v. United States is here; the transcript in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc. is here.
When the Court granted certiorari in CRST Van Expedited v. EEOC, the case looked like a dispute over the Eighth Circuit’s theory that attorney’s fees can be awarded to victorious defendants only if they prevail “on the merits.” In Monday’s argument, both parties stepped away from the Eighth Circuit’s theory.
Yesterday’s transcript in Betterman v. Montana suggests that the Court is agreed on perhaps two major constitutional points: First, the Due Process Clause rather than the Sixth Amendment right to “speedy trial” may provide the better foundation for complaints about delay in sentencing.
Today the Court will hear oral arguments in two cases: the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case Sheriff v. Gillie and the prisoner exhaustion case Ross v. Blake.
Final update 11:44 a.m. Analysis The most important labor union controversy to reach the Supreme Court in years sputtered to an end on Tuesday, with a four-to-four split, no explanation, and nothing settled definitely.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon, looking for a new way to spare religious non-profit institutions from any role in providing birth-control techniques for their employees even while assuring that those services are available, asked lawyers on both sides of seven cases to make new proposals on how both might be done.
The transcript in Sheriff v. Gillie is here; the transcript in Ross v. Blake is here.
This morning the Court released a per curiam opinion in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, affirming the decision below by an equally divided Court. At issue in the case was whether public-sector “agency shop” agreements violate the First Amendment.
We will be live-blogging this morning as the Court issues opinions. Join us.
This morning the Court will hear oral arguments in CRST Van Expedited v. EEOC and Betterman v. Montana. Ross Runkel previewed CRST for this blog, with other coverage coming from law students Ben Rosales and Thomas Nomura Kim for Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.
The Supreme Court on Monday stepped back into the long-running constitutional controversy over prosecutors’ power to put an individual on trial a second time for related crimes, agreeing to sort out the effect of a jury’s mixed verdict at the first trial — guilt on some counts, innocence on others.
The transcript in CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC is here; the transcript in Betterman v. Montana is here.
The Court issued orders from the March 25 Conference on Monday. It granted review in Bravo-Fernandez v. United States and called for the views of the Solicitor General in Belize v. Belize Social Development Ltd. On Tuesday the Court released its opinion in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.
On February 13, 2016, Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in his sleep, one of forty-nine Justices to die during active service on the Court. Justices are “notoriously reluctant” to leave office, James Flanagan writes in a new article for the Journal of Supreme Court History, and “almost all” of those who resigned did so on account of age or illness.
Lori A. Ringhand is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. Paul M. Collins, Jr. is Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Director of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
A guest blogger* reviews Monday’s relisted cases. John Elwood asked me to guest-write this post. John is a beautiful man and a very good friend but I told him no – Relist Watch is very very boring.
More coverage of Wednesday’s oral arguments in oral arguments in Zubik v. Burwell, the challenge to the accommodation offered to religious non-profit groups that do not wish to provide access to birth control for their female employees and students, comes from NPR‘s Nina Totenberg, while commentary
Oyez has posted audio and transcripts from this week’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court. The Court heard arguments this week in: Wittman v. Personhuballah RJR Nabisco v. European Community Simmons v. Himmelreich Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust Zubik v. Burwell
UPDATED Tuesday 4:01 p.m. Justice Thomas on Tuesday told the state of Texas to file a response to this application by 3 p.m. on April 11. ———— The long-running controversy over a Texas voter ID requirement — a dispute that once kept Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg up all night writing a dissent — returned to the Supreme Court on Friday as challengers sought again to stop the law’s enforcement.
Just a few weeks ago, Justice Clarence Thomas asked a question from the bench for the first time in over a decade. The event received front-page coverage in The New York Times, and it also spurred broader questions about the role of oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Clean Water Act restricts what can be done with certain waters. Among other things, it requires a permit from the United States Army Corps of Engineers to discharge dredged or fill material into “navigable waters,” which the act not so helpfully defines as “the waters of the United States.” Over the past three decades, a clear definition of that term has proven elusive.
Even after his death, Justice Antonin Scalia loomed large over his colleagues’ speaking engagements in February and March. On February 17, Justice Stephen Breyer headlined the 2016 Brennan Center Jorde Symposium at Yale Law School.
Yesterday the Court heard oral arguments in Zubik v. Burwell, the challenge to the accommodation offered to religious non-profit groups that do not wish to provide access to birth control for their female employees and students.
If you read the briefs in Simmons v. Himmelreich, you know that it could be tricky to figure out when a court’s dismissal of a federal prisoner’s Federal Tort Claims Act case forecloses his parallel Bivens claim.
In Sturgeon v. Frost, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the lower courts misinterpreted a federal law governing National Park Service authority over lands in Alaska. But, the Court stopped there.
It seems increasingly clear that the current Supreme Court Term will have to be headlined “Justice Scalia is sorely missed.” Next Wednesday, March 30, the Court will hear argument in yet another criminal case in which the unexpected passing of Antonin Scalia on February 13 will leave an unanswered “hole” in the Court’s deliberations.
Yesterday the Court issued opinions in argued cases.
Analysis The Obama administration had four Supreme Court Justices quite plainly on its side Wednesday in the latest fight over the new health care law, but that may be all that it had because there was no way to stop other Justices from thinking — and thinking negatively — about a single word:
The transcript in Zubik v. Burwell is here.
Any graduate of Catholic elementary school or CCD (that’s Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, or religious training for public school Catholics) might be trembling a bit upon entering the Supreme Court this morning.
This morning the Court heard argument in Zubik v. Burwell, a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate and the accommodation that the federal government offers to religious non-profits and colleges that object to complying with the mandate.
In its Conference of March 25, 2016, the Court will consider petitions involving issues such as whether the Double Jeopardy Clause permits a district court to retract its “judgment of acquittal” entered on remand as an interpretation of the court of appeals’ mandate; whether an occupational
No one will confuse Ross v. Blake for one of the more high-profile cases of the Supreme Court’s October 2015 Term.
Nearly sixteen years after it was first filed, the legal battle between the European Union and U.S. tobacco giant RJR Nabisco came to the Supreme Court today.
Today the Court will hear oral arguments in two cases. At issue in Simmons v. Himmelreich is when a court’s dismissal of an inmate’s Federal Tort Claims Act bars a parallel Bivens claim.
Analysis The group of purveyors of liquors in the small Nebraska town of Pender lost on one version of history in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but the Justices left open a chance that more modern history might work in their favor.
Five percent of American homeowners are in foreclosure proceedings or seriously delinquent on their mortgage. 850,000 individuals filed for bankruptcy relief last year. Americans owe $800 billion on their credit cards, about $3400 for every adult in the population.
Analysis With only three members of the Supreme Court taking a genuinely active part in a hearing Tuesday on Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, and with those three ultimately reinforcing each other’s arguments, it might have been thought it would be fairly easy for them to control the outcome of the case just among themselves.
The transcript in Simmons v. Himmelreich is here; the transcript in the consolidated cases Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust and Acosta-Febo v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust is here.
Analysis For the past five years, the Supreme Court has been building up a quite sturdy barrier against group lawsuits — the kind in which people with a supposedly common legal grievance band together because there is strength in numbers and there could be a greater promise of a better financial reward for everyone at the end.
We are live blogging this morning as the Court issues opinions in one or more argued cases. Join us.