Showing 1–50 of 106 items published in April 2016, most recent first.
John Elwood (barely) reviews Monday’s relisted cases. For a second week, my day job is inexplicably crowding out my efforts to bring the legal market to a screeching halt by inserting malicious hyperlinks into purportedly humorous SCOTUSblog posts.
On Wednesday the Court heard oral arguments in the challenge by former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell to his fraud convictions.
The Supreme Court refused on Friday to stop Texas from enforcing a strict photo ID requirement for voters in the state, but left open the chance that it might change its mind later.
In a ruling that potentially could disrupt Amtrak’s efforts to make its passenger trains run on time and its ability to earn profits in doing so, a federal appeals court on Friday struck down the corporation’s power to help write rules on the use of railroad tracks across the country.
Oral argument audio and transcripts from this week’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court are available on Oyez. The Court heard arguments this week in: Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee Mathis v. United States Dietz v. Bouldin McDonnell v. United States
In its Conference of April 29, 2016, the Court will consider petitions involving issues such as whether, for federal habeas purposes, California’s procedural rule generally barring review of claims that were available but not raised on direct appeal is an “adequate” state-law ground for rejection
Yesterday the Court heard oral arguments in the challenge by former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell to his fraud convictions. Molly Runkle rounded up early coverage for this blog, which included Lyle Denniston’s report for us.
Here’s a question for you, Supreme Court fans. What’s more intimidating than arguing before the United States Supreme Court? Answer: explaining to a Supreme Court Justice that she doesn’t understand one of her own majority opinions.
In what reads like a brisk fifty-two-minute argument this morning, the Justices seemed inclined – but not certain – to accept, in Dietz v. Bouldin, some limited authority for federal judges to recall a “discharged” jury.
Today the Court will hear oral arguments in the challenge by former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell to his fraud convictions. Lyle Denniston previewed the case for this blog; other coverage comes from NPR’s Nina Totenberg, David Savage of the Los Angeles Times, and law student Ben Einhouse for Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.
Analysis When a government criminal case looks like it may collapse from more than one legal weakness, maybe the only challenge to the Supreme Court is to pick the one that limits the damage for prosecutors.
The transcript in McDonnell v. United States is here.
It’s the last day of oral argument for the Term, and the Court has one big case to deal with: McDonnell v. United States, about whether “official action” under the relevant federal fraud statutes is limited to exercising actual government power, or pressuring others to exercise such power, and related questions.
This morning the Court heard oral argument in McDonnell v. United States, the challenge by former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell to his fraud convictions. Lyle Denniston covered the argument for this blog, while Mark Walsh has our “view” from the Court.
Monday morning was IP day at the Supreme Court. The double bill began with a case about attorney’s fee awards in copyright cases (Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons) and continued with a case about standards for invalidating patents (Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee).
The oral argument yesterday in Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee did not clarify much about the case, but it did suggest that the Justices will not be composing a paean to the deftness of congressional drafting.
This morning the Court will hear oral arguments in two cases. In his preview for this blog, Evan Lee describes Mathis v. United States as a case that is “likely to be the Term’s most important federal sentencing case, and its second-most important immigration case after United States v. Texas.” Law students Kelsey MacElroy and Katie Marren have a preview for Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.
Heffernan v. City of Paterson reduces to a simple question: is “[d]emoting a dutiful son who aids his elderly, bedridden mother” merely callous? Or, when based on an erroneous factual belief about what the dutiful son was doing, does it also violate the First Amendment?
The transcript in Mathis v. United States is here; the transcript in Dietz v. Bouldin is here.
We are live-blogging this morning as the Court issues opinions. Join us.
Today the Justices will hear oral arguments in two cases. Ronald Mann previewed Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, involving the standard for awarding attorney’s fees in a copyright case, for this blog, while law students Alexander Gray and Tina Zheng do the same for Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.
Less than two years after trying to sort out the proof federal prosecutors must offer to get convictions for bank fraud, the Supreme Court on Monday decided to try again even though few lower-court judges have yet applied the Justices’ prior ruling.
The transcript in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is here; the transcript in Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee is here.
UPDATED Wednesday April 27 5:10 p.m.
The Court issued orders from its April 22 Conference on Monday. It granted review in two cases. On Tuesday the Court released its opinion in Heffernan v. City of Paterson. The Court also heard oral arguments on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The calendar for the April sitting is available here.
The Mills Legal Clinic of Stanford Law School is seeking a new instructor for the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
Monday’s oral argument in United States v. Texas, the challenge to the Obama administration’s deferred-action policy for some undocumented immigrants, continues to dominate coverage of and commentary on the Court. C-SPAN Radio will air the oral argument today at 3:30 p.m. and Saturday at 6 p.m.
Oral argument audio and transcripts from this week’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court are available on Oyez. The Court heard arguments this week in: – United States v. Texas – United States v. Bryant – Universal Health Services v. Escobar – Birchfield v. North Dakota – Encino Motorcars v. Navarro
“I’m not talking law, I’m talking practical facts,” Justice Stephen Breyer told Kathryn Keena, a Minnesota county attorney, about two-thirds of the way through today’s seventy-one-minute oral argument in Birchfield v. North Dakota.
Yesterday the Court issued opinions in several argued cases. Andrew Hamm rounded up early coverage and commentary for this blog. In Bank Markazi v. Peterson, the Court upheld a statute which directs that Iranian assets go to terror victims and their families.
The last argument of the week brought the Justices a dispute under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Encino Motorcars v. Navarro. The case involves service advisors at car dealers – the employees who meet with the customers to discuss what services the customers should buy.
In its Conference of April 22, 2016, the Court will consider petitions involving issues such as whether a change in state law reducing a prisoner’s ability to earn future good-time credits based on new or continuing prison misconduct violates the Ex Post Facto Clause as applied to a prisoner who
Next Tuesday in the penultimate argument of the Term, the Court will consider an interesting, if not earth-shattering, question of federal judicial authority, in a small car-crash case tried by a federal magistrate judge in Montana.
Photograph by Gage Skidmore Analysis In one of the swiftest falls from political grace in the nation’s modern history, a once-rising star among Republican governors is left now with an eve-of-prison attempt to persuade the Supreme Court that he is innocent of corruption.
About the only thing clarified by yesterday’s oral argument in Universal Health Services v. United States ex rel. Escobar is that the Court is unlikely to issue a unanimous opinion. The visceral reactions of the Justices on the merits of the case could hardly be more disparate.
This morning the Court will hear oral argument in a challenge to Minnesota and North Dakota laws that make it a crime for a driver suspected of drunk driving to refuse a chemical test to measure his blood-alcohol concentration.
Analysis Brushing aside the dissenters’ complaint that it was upsetting the Constitution’s balance of powers, and walking further away from a historic Civil War-era precedent on judicial independence, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Congress’s power to give one side in a federal lawsuit a victory, if it stops just short of flatly declaring that they are the winner.
John Elwood (barely) reviews Monday’s relisted cases. Today’s post answers the question of what Relist Watch would look like if you were able to remove the strained attempts at humor (as some readers have requested — kick629, this one’s for you).
In June 2015, the Supreme Court announced that it would review a challenge to the redistricting map drawn by Arizona’s independent redistricting commission.
The transcript in the consolidated cases Birchfield v. North Dakota, Bernard v. Minnesota, and Beylund v. Levi is here; the transcript in Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro is here.
In my preview of Molina-Martinez v. United States a few months ago, I suggested that petitioner Saul Molina-Martinez’s attorney would face an uphill battle trying to convince the Justices to adopt a presumption of prejudice as part of plain-error review when a sentence was based on an erroneous guideline range not noticed until appeal.
Distance remained on Wednesday between the two sides in the controversy over the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate, with each continuing to emphasize problems they have with each other’s views rather than trying to reach for a common approach.
This morning the Court released three opinions. In Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, the Court upheld Arizona’s redistricting plan. Amy Howe covered the decision for this blog.
Here is an overview of today’s case coverage: 11:40 a.m.: Lyle Denniston previewed next week’s arguments in McDonnell v. United States. 12:39 p.m.: Lyle analyzed today’s opinion in Bank Markazi v. Peterson. 1:35 p.m.: John Elwood compiled a Relist Watch for this Friday’s Conference. 2:21 p.m.: Amy
We are live blogging this morning as the Court issues opinions. Join us.
Yesterday’s opinion in Welch v. United States was not, after oral argument, much of a surprise. The Court decided, by a vote of seven to one, that last Term’s decision in Johnson v. United States, which struck down as unconstitutionally vague a part of a federal sentencing enhancement statute, should apply “retroactively” even to cases that were final before Johnson was decided.
Photograph by Amanda Munoz. For the third time in as many years, and the second time this Term, the Justices will spend an hour next week considering how district courts should decide whether to enhance compensatory awards in intellectual property cases.
On Tuesday, April 26, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Mathis v. United States, likely to be the Term’s most important federal sentencing case, and its second-most important immigration case after United States v. Texas.
It’s the last two-week argument session of the Term, and today is the biggest of the last group of cases: United States v. Texas, about the Obama administration’s deferred-action program for specified undocumented immigrants.
Yesterday the Court heard oral arguments in United States v. Texas, the challenge to the Obama administration’s deferred-action policy for certain undocumented immigrants. Molly Runkle rounded up early coverage of and commentary on the case for this blog.