Showing 1–50 of 145 items published in June 2015, most recent first.
Deborah W. Denno is the Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law. “Welcome to Groundhog Day,” begins Justice Antonin Scalia in his concurrence in Glossip v. Gross, a narrow five-to-four opinion in which the Court held that three death-row inmates failed to establish
Steven D. Schwinn is an Associate Professor of Law at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago. In early 2014, Oklahoma had a problem. The state planned to execute Clayton Lockett with a three-drug lethal injection cocktail, but its sources for its critical first drug dried up.
Kent Scheidegger is the attorney for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which filed an amicus brief in support of the respondents. “[I]s it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerilla war against the death penalty …?” Justice Samuel Alito asked at oral argument two months ago in Glossip v. Gross.
Yesterday morning the Court issued its final three opinions of the Term. Mark Walsh provided us with a “view” of the proceedings from the Courtroom, while Ilya Shapiro weighs in on the decisions at Cato at Liberty.
Reacting to an undoubted invitation by the Supreme Court to raise the issue, a group of California public school teachers on Tuesday persuaded the Justices to review the constitutionality of requiring government workers to pay fees to support any labor union activity.
[Updated 7/5/2015: Several pages have been updated to reflect changes to the Stat Pack. The links below will send you to the updated Stat Pack.]
Twenty-four hours after giving constitutional backing for Arizona’s use of an independent commission to draw new election district maps for its members of Congress, the Supreme Court on Tuesday took on a case complaining that the same state agency wrongly used race and partisanship in crafting state legislative district boundaries.
Fifteen years ago, Arizona voters took a drastic step to deal with partisanship in drawing the lines for federal congressional districts: they passed an amendment to the state constitution that transferred the redistricting power from the state legislature, which had previously controlled it, to an independent commission.
By the time the majority opinion was filed last Friday in Johnson v. United States, it was hardly a surprise that the Court struck down the “residual clause” of the federal Armed Career Criminal Act as unconstitutionally vague (as previewed here and here).
Court-related coverage and commentary are dominated by Friday’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage and the recognition thereof.
Raising new doubts about state universities and colleges’ use of race in choosing their entering classes, the Supreme Court on Monday assigned itself once more the task of judging the constitutionality of the admissions plan at Texas’s flagship university.
Justice Ginsburg with opinion of the Court (Art Lien) Analysis Unable itself to find a constitutional way to curb the habits of lawmakers in crafting new election districts to give their party an advantage, a divided Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a state’s voters can do that if they choose to hand over the task of fashioning congressional district boundaries to an independent commission.
There is a lot of commentary about the unusually liberal results of this Term. I thought I would mention a few data points which back up that view of things.
In 2008, the Court rejected a challenge to the three-drug protocol that Kentucky used to carry out executions by lethal injection, holding that it did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
John Elwood reviews today’s relisted cases. Before clearing out of town for the summer recess, the Justices gathered for one final Conference today. Below are the relisted cases that they considered at that Conference. We’ll find out tomorrow at 9:30 whether any of these cases made the cut.
It’s unseasonably mild on this last Monday of June in Washington. That will make it easier on those who partake in what has come to be known as “the running of the interns.” These are the young assistants, many clad in athletic shoes, who rush written opinions from the Public Information Office out to the broadcast and cable TV correspondents on the sidewalk in front of the Court building.
Splitting five to four, the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon temporarily blocked Texas from enforcing two new requirements that abortion clinic operators say will force many of them to close.
Andrew Brasher is the Solicitor General of Alabama, which filed an amicus brief supporting the respondents. The story of Glossip v. Gross is that no lethal injection protocol can satisfy people who believe there should be no executions. That has always been the subtext of the case.
Continuing to make sure that female employees and students have access to birth control, but that religious non-profit organizations where those women work or study do not have to provide it, the Supreme Court took action Monday on a case that is developing for next Term.
Operators of electric generating plants that burn coal or oil have a right to try to convince the government that regulating poisons that come out of their smokestacks will cost them too much and thus should not go ahead, the Supreme Court ruled by a five-to-four vote on Monday.
We are live-blogging this morning as the Court issues orders and opinions. Join us.
On Monday the Court granted five new cases, which Lyle reported on, and issued decisions in the last cases of the Term: Michigan v. EPA, AZ Legislature v. AZ Independent Redistricting Commission, and Glossip v. Gross.
Erwin Chemerinsky is the Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law and the Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
June 26, 2015 is a day to celebrate. (Indeed, we are going to have to make June 26 some sort of gay rights holiday now that Lawrence v. Texas, United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges all came down on that day.)
Michael C. Dorf is the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell University. He blogs at dorfonlaw.org. In the nature of split decisions, the majority opinion makes an affirmative argument and the dissent criticizes that argument, with the majority responding, if at all, in footnotes and other asides.
Steve Sanders teaches constitutional law, constitutional litigation, and family law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He was co-counsel on an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Kyle Duncan is a lawyer in private practice in Washington, D.C. He successfully defended Louisiana’s marriage laws in Robicheaux v. Caldwell, and filed an amicus brief on behalf of fifteen States in Obergefell v. Hodges. The views in this post are his alone.
This morning the Court issued opinions in Johnson v. United States, holding that increasing sentences under the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act violates the Constitution, and Obergefell v. Hodges, holding that states must allow same-sex couples to marry.
Today we are happy to present the second preview of our final Stat Pack for the October Term 2014. As we approach the last opinion day of the Term, several key trends are beginning to reveal themselves. You can view the Stat Pack in its entirety here.
In its Conference of June 25, 2015, the Court is considering petitions seeking review of issues such as whether an appellate court can conduct a post-hoc assessment of trial counsel’s performance based on scientific advances not available at the time of trial, whether an officer who fired his
This morning the Court announced two decisions, Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, holding that the Fair Housing Act allows causes of action based on disparate impact, and King v. Burwell, holding that individuals who purchase their health insurance on exchanges established by the federal government will be eligible for tax subsidies.
Nicholas Bagley is an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan. Portions of this post appeared in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. With its decision in King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court handed a decisive win to the Obama administration and to the millions of people who have secured health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Michael F. Cannon (@mfcannon) is director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. He has been described as “the intellectual father” of King v. Burwell and is co-author (with Jonathan H. Adler) of Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal IRS Rule to Expand Tax Credits Under the PPACA, Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine 23, No. 1 (2013): 119-195.
Abbe R. Gluck is Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School. “A fair reading of legislation demands a fair understanding of the legislative plan.” So concludes the game-changing statutory interpretation opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts in King v. Burwell.
Adam J. White is counsel with Boyden Gray & Associates, and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His firm filed an amicus brief in King on behalf of the Galen Institute, arguing that the major questions doctrine and federalism considerations favored the challengers instead of the administration.
Statutory interpretation has seen better days. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) bans job actions that “adversely affect” employees on the basis of race and other protected traits.
John Paul Schnapper-Casteras is Special Counsel for Appellate and Supreme Court Advocacy at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which filed an amicus brief in support of the respondents in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Community Project, Inc. In Court
Paul F. Hancock and Andrew C. Glass are partners at the global law firm K&L Gates LLP. On behalf of associations representing the financial services and mortgage lending industries, Paul and Andrew have filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court addressing the issue of whether the “disparate-impact” theory is cognizable under the Fair Housing Act.
Morgan Williams is General Counsel of the National Fair Housing Alliance. Today’s decision in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project broke no new ground.
The Justices return to the bench this morning at ten o’clock to issue opinions for the third time this week. The Court issued two opinions yesterday, and both of them were big ones.
Justice Kennedy delivers opinion in same sex marriage (Art Lien) Analysis Putting itself back in the forefront of the gay rights revolution, the Supreme Court ruled by the narrowest margin on Friday that same-sex couples across the nation have an equal right to marry.
Two years ago, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the Court’s four more liberal Justices to strike down a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act defining “marriage,” for purposes of over a thousand federal laws and programs, as a union between a man and a woman.
David R. Upham is an attorney and associate professor of politics at the University of Dallas. He blogs regularly about marriage at whygethitched.com. About five generations ago, our nation adopted the Fourteenth Amendment.
Judith E. Schaeffer is the Vice President of the Constitutional Accountability Center Whether by design or serendipity, today’s historic ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges came on the anniversaries of two other momentous gay rights decisions, Lawrence v. Texas and United States v. Windsor.
Christopher Green is an Associate Professor at Ole Miss Law. Near the beginning of the oral argument in Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice Anthony Kennedy caused many observers to think that the Court might allow states to keep traditional marriage definitions after all.
Ryan T. Anderson is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and the author of the forthcoming book Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom. His amicus brief was cited in Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissenting opinion in Obergefell.
John Elwood reviews Monday’s relisted cases. Summer is officially here. Justices are streaming out of town for their vacations; visions dance in law clerks’ heads of using their modest clerkship bonuses to purchase a few long–deferred necessities; and your friendly neighborhood Relist Watchers are drafting one last full-sized post.
This morning the Court announced its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, holding that states must both allow same-sex couples to marry and recognize same-sex marriages from other states. An archived version of the live blog is here.
Wide-shot of courtroom as Kennedy’s announces opinion (Art Lien) It’s Friday, a rare day for Supreme Court opinions, and some have speculated that the two-year anniversary of the Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor would be an appropriate day for deciding this Term’s same-sex marriage cases.
We are live-blogging this morning as opinions are announced. Join us.