Showing 1–50 of 92 items published in December 2015, most recent first.
Briefly: In The Huffington Post, Cristian Farias reports that the brief filed by the United States last week in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle (which Lyle Denniston covered for this blog) has “made waves far beyond, eliciting a media maelstrom in Puerto Rico, impassioned responses from officials and
Speaking in soft but plain words, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., used his year-end report on Thursday night to urge lawyers who practice in federal courts to take steps to help improve the efficiency, and reduce the cost, of trying cases.
Briefly: At Constitution Daily, Lyle Denniston “looks at the Justice Department’s stance on Puerto Rico’s sovereignty, which will get tested twice in the Supreme Court this year.” In the Los Angeles Times, David Savage reports that, as “the nation heads into a presidential election year, the
FURTHER UPDATE Thursday 2:33 p.m. The Supreme Court has now scheduled this case to go before the Justices at their private Conference on January 15, according to the Court’s docket.
In The Washington Post, Janell Ross reports on an interview with Justice Stephen Breyer, noting that the interview “did highlight a kind of sleeper issue scarcely mentioned in public since the 2016 presidential campaign began in earnest”: “Assuming that the composition of the court remains unchanged, Breyer will celebrate his 78th birthday by the time the next president takes office in January 2017.
FURTHER UPDATE: Thursday, 2:41 p.m. The movement of the case on a faster schedule apparently resulted from the decision of government lawyers to waive their right to file a reply brief after the states had filed their opposition brief. UPDATED Wednesday 11:51 p.m.
In her column for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse weighs in on the challenge to the University of Texas at Austin’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions policy; she suggests that, although there “is only a remote chance that the case will spell a formal end to affirmative
In the category of “papers I wish I’d written,” I have to recommend one from this month’s issue of Law & Society Review: Seasonal Affective Disorder: Clerk Training and the Success of Supreme Court Certiorari Petitions, by William D. Blake, Hans J. Hacker, and Shon R. Hopwood.
The Obama administration, relying on legal precedents going back more than a century, has urged the Supreme Court to rule that Puerto Rico remains a dependent U.S. territory and does not govern itself as an independent “sovereign.” It thus challenged the island commonwealth’s claim that since 1952
UPDATED at 1:10 p.m. (in the final paragraph) to clarify how the motion will be handled by the Supreme Court. ————- A group of Hawaiians challenging the move to set up a new “native Hawaiian” nation within the state returned to the Supreme Court Tuesday, seeking an order to hold the organizers in contempt and further orders to stop the entire process toward establishing sovereignty.
Briefly: In the Supreme Court Brief (subscription required), Tony Mauro reviews a new book by Todd Peppers and Clare Cushman on Supreme Court law clerks, noting that the book “sheds new light on some lesser-known justices” and includes stories from “some of the 13 father-daughter and father-son
UPDATED 8:42 p.m.with a link to the calendar in the first paragraph. —————- The Supreme Court on Wednesday released the schedule of oral arguments for the sitting that begins on Monday, February 22.
Briefly: Sam Baker of National Journal suggests that, if “you want to know why the Supreme Court is poised to strike a major blow to affirmative action, focusing on Antonin Scalia’s comments about black students and ‘slower-track’ universities might be missing the point.” At LinkedIn
Sarah Escalante is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. Ryan C. Black is Associate Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. Matthew Hall is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.
At the National Review’s The Corner, Roger Clegg discusses an op-ed by “a black physicist who is really upset with Chief Justice Roberts” for his comments during oral arguments in the challenge to the University of Texas at Austin’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions process.
The past year, as part of the Leon Silverman Lecture Series, the Supreme Court Historical Society explored the history of the Supreme Court during the Civil War and the Reconstruction era with a particular emphasis on the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court is now in its winter recess. The January sitting will begin on Monday, January 11.
As Lyle Denniston reported yesterday for this blog, “the Obama administration urged the Supreme Court on Wednesday not to allow two states to sue Colorado directly in the Supreme Court over their claim of cross-border crime traced to their neighbor’s regime of legal sales of marijuana.” Tony Mauro covers the government’s filing for The National Law Journal (subscription or registration required).
Lawyers for a group of Hawaiian residents challenging a move to create a new nation of native Hawaiians within the state have told a lower court that they may make a return trip to the Supreme Court to deal with a major shift in the other side’s tactics.
Citing a host of constitutional, legal and practical problems, the Obama administration urged the Supreme Court on Wednesday not to allow two states to sue Colorado directly in the Supreme Court over their claim of cross-border crime traced to their neighbor’s regime of legal sales of marijuana.
Briefly: At Crime and Consequences, Kent Scheidegger weighs in on this week’s summary reversal of the Sixth Circuit in the habeas case White v. Wheeler, arguing that “[t]he fact that it is necessary for the high court to so admonish the federal appellate courts is a sad commentary on the state of our judiciary.
Marcia D. Greenberger is co-president of the National Women’s Law Center.
John Elwood reviews Monday’s relisted cases, with profuse apologies to Louis Armstrong and all readers with even a modicum of taste. Cue music. I see grants, denials and relists too. They’re on the docket for me and you. And I think to myself, what a wonderful Court.
Richard W. Garnett is Paul J. Schierl / Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School. The current iteration of the religious-freedom challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s preventive-services mandate (not, as is sometimes suggested, to the act itself) is called Zubik v. Burwell.
Commentary on Monday’s opinion in DIRECTV v. Imburgia, holding that the interpretation by the California Court of Appeal of a service agreement that included a binding arbitration provision with a class arbitration waiver is pre-empted by the Federal Arbitration Act, continues.
Reaching back seventy-eight years to find a limit on the Chief Justice’s power to assign visiting judges, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday wiped out a judge’s ruling on the scope of gun rights under the Second Amendment.
Leslie C. Griffin is William S. Boyd Professor of Law at UNLV Boyd School of Law. The Little Sisters of the Poor, who generously provide care to the elderly poor, have appeared as the most sympathetic of the thirty-six religious nonprofit petitioners in seven consolidated Supreme Court cases challenging the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Helen M. Alvaré is Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law. It seems a safe bet that a post-Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Court will have little difficulty concluding that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contraception coverage mandate “burdens” religious freedom for purposes of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
Yesterday the Court issued its opinion in DIRECTV v. Imburgia, holding that the interpretation by the California Court of Appeals of a service agreement that included a binding arbitration provision with a class arbitration waiver is pre-empted by the Federal Arbitration Act.
Ira C. Lupu is the F. Elwood & Eleanor Davis Professor of Law Emeritus, and Robert W. Tuttle is the David R. and Sherry Kirschner Berz Research Professor of Law and Religion, at George Washington University.
Last week Justice Elena Kagan convened two other “Tribunes of Rome” – Judge Cornelia Pillard from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Judge Amy Jackson from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia – to hear an appeal left unresolved for nearly twenty centuries: Was Salomé guilty of conspiring to murder John the Baptist, as a lower tribunal had ruled?
Erin Morrow Hawley is Associate Professor of Law and the University of Missouri School of Law. She filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Independent Women’s Forum in support of the petitioners in Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell.
On Friday afternoon the Court added four hours of arguments to its merits docket for this Term. Lyle Denniston covered the orders for this blog.
UPDATED 12:05 p.m., noting grant of review of a new case on Indian rights. In its first action on a case on the parental rights of gays and lesbians since it allowed same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court on Monday gave a temporary victory to an Alabama woman who lost her right to adopt three children she had been raising with her same-sex partner before the couple split up.
With its last opinion of 2015, the Justices added DIRECTV v. Imburgia to the ever-growing line of decisions reversing state court refusals to enforce arbitration agreements. The particular topic here is classwide arbitration.
Frederick Mark Gedicks is Guy Anderson Chair and Professor of Law at Brigham Young University. He has authored numerous articles on religious exemptions and the ACA contraception mandate. This post reflects his personal views and not necessarily those of Brigham Young University.
John Bursch co-chairs the Appellate & Supreme Court Practice at Warner Norcross & Judd LLP. John has argued nine U.S. Supreme Court cases since 2011 and was recently inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
We are live-blogging this morning as the Court issues orders and opinions. Join us.
On Monday the Court granted one additional case from its December 11 Conference, United States v. Bryant. The Court also released its opinion in DIRECTV v. Imburgia. The January sitting will begin on Monday, January 11.
Justice Anthony Kennedy picks up a couple of awards, Justice Stephen Breyer continues promoting his book on international law and the Supreme Court, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., reflects on his role as the Court’s leader in this overview of the Justices’ November and December events.
NOTE TO READERS: Next week the blog will publish a multi-part symposium on the seven cases the Supreme Court will hear this Term on the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act: a protest by religious non-profits arising from the law’s birth-control mandate.
Coverage of and commentary on the challenge to the University of Texas at Austin’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions process come from Michael Bobelian for Forbes, Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, Roger Clegg at Inside Higher Ed, Garrett Epps of The Atlantic (which is also hosting a reader debate on the issue), and Steven Mazie at Big Think.
Oyez has posted audio and transcripts from this week’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court. The Court heard arguments this week in: Dollar General Corp. v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission Evenwel v. Abbott Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin
In a move that could have a nationwide effect on the roadside actions of police officers, the Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether a blood or breath test for drunk driving can be made without a search warrant and whether, if there is no warrant, an individual can be charged with a crime for refusing to take such a test.
Anticipation is high for the last argument before the holiday break, and one of the biggest cases of the term, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin.
Yesterday’s oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the challenge to the university’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions process, continue to garner coverage and commentary.
John Elwood reviews Monday’s relisted cases. Swamp the Court with cert. petitions, Re re re re re re re re list! ‘Tis a holiday tradition, Re re re re re re re re list! Don the jurists’ black apparel, Re re re re re re re re list!
The argument in Dollar General v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians yesterday continued what may be a watershed year for Native American interests at the Court. In the last eleven years, the Roberts Court has heard just over ten cases directly regarding Indian Country.
This morning the Court heard oral arguments in two cases involving the principle of “one person, one vote.” Amy Howe covered the oral argument in Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission for this blog, while Lyle Denniston covered the second argument, in Evenwel v. Abbott.
Coverage of and commentary on the Court focus on today’s oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the challenge to the University of Texas at Austin’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions process.