Showing 1–50 of 91 items published in July 2014, most recent first.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been in the news, with the release of excerpts from her interview with Katie Couric of Yahoo! News. Among other things, the Justice indicated that she has no plans to retire. Josh Gerstein reported on the interview for Politico.
In an exclusive interview, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg talks with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric about everything from retirement to her jabots and the Court’s recent decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Links to excerpts on specific subjects are included after the jump.
Lawyers for Abigail Fisher, who has been pursuing a lengthy court challenge to the use of race in admitting students to the University of Texas in Austin, on Tuesday asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to reconsider a new decision upholding the policy.
What civil liberties challenges we face next, the importance of Edward Snowden, the “newness” of technology and thinking about civil liberties in a climate of fear, and the qualities a Supreme Court Justice will need.
Some coverage of the Court focuses on recent decisions by the courts of appeals striking down state bans on same-sex marriage and the likelihood that the Supreme Court will take up the issue.
Ruling that the federal health care law’s mandate to buy health insurance is a law about a tax but not about raising government revenue, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday rejected a new constitutional challenge to that key part of the Affordable Care Act.
UPDATED Monday 5:16 p.m. A federal judge in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday struck down an Alabama law with the same requirement that doctors performing abortions have professional privileges at nearby hospitals.
The annual meeting of the American Bar Association, which will take place from August 8 through August 10 in Boston, will include several events of interest to Court watchers.
UPDATE 6:10 p.m. The attorney general of North Carolina said at a news conference following the ruling discussed below that his office would no longer defend his state’s ban on same-sex marriage, conceding that the Fourth Circuit decision had taken away all of the arguments that could be made for the ban.
Arguing before the Supreme Court, watching United States v. Windsor play out, the emergence of procedural barriers to courts, how the Court has changed since Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, and how to talk about the Court.
FURTHER UPDATE: Tuesday, July 29, 11:12 p.m. The judge has delayed the ruling striking down the gun-carry ban for ninety days — until October 22 — to give the local government time to enact a new permit system. That was the length of delay on which the two sides could agree.
This fall the Court will hear a case on the future of retiree health care. M&G Polymers USA v. Tackett asks a challenging question: what language in a union collective bargaining agreement will cause health-care benefits to vest – that is, continue as long as the beneficiary remains a retiree?
There has never been a shortage of books on the Supreme Court, and that tradition continues as evidenced by fifteen new or forthcoming works. The new books cover a range of topics, from a critique of the current Court to an examination of the Court’s monetary decisions to books on how the traditional and electronic media cover the Court’s work.
Gently chiding the Supreme Court for not making itself clear, a federal trial judge in Colorado refused on Wednesday to interpret the Justices’ recent actions on same-sex marriage as binding on lower courts.
How the ACLU thinks about and uses amicus briefs — and when — and what a successful amicus practice looks like. In this six-part interview, Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) since 1993, discusses his background; the ACLU’s history and mission; what civil liberties and Supreme Court advocacy look like now; and what civil liberties challenges we face next.
The Coalition for Court Transparency released a report on transparency at the Supreme Court during the October Term 2013. It concluded that the Term ended “with only modest improvements to [the Court’s] overall openness.” Tony Mauro covered the report for Legal Times.
How a changing legal landscape and the breadth and depth of civil liberties affect ACLU advocacy in and out of the courts. In this six-part interview, Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) since 1993, discusses his background; the ACLU’s history and mission; what civil liberties and Supreme Court advocacy look like now; and what civil liberties challenges we face next.
Yesterday the Court, as it periodically does in the summer, released a list of miscellaneous orders. Most of the orders were unremarkable: the Court granted, for example, requests to forgo a joint appendix in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association and Nickols v. Mortgage Bankers Association, two cases that have been consolidated for oral argument on the merits in the fall.
(UPDATED July 23, 2014: This morning the Court denied another request by Wood to stay his execution. Wood had asked the Court to review a decision by the Ninth Circuit which affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion that he had filed pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6); the Court also denied that petition for certiorari.)
In 2007, Cory Voss was found dead in his pick-up truck outside a Virginia credit union. The thirty-year-old naval officer and father of two young children had been shot five times at close range.
Yesterday, two federal courts of appeals issued conflicting decisions on a major challenge to the operation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The stakes are huge. The rule at issue provides a big subsidy for millions of people to buy insurance.
Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of a death row inmate who is seeking additional information about the drugs that Arizona intends to use to execute him; the state has now indicated that it plans to ask the Supreme Court to step in.
UPDATED 7:19 p.m. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in a decision directly contrary to the D.C. Circuit decision discussed below, on Tuesday afternoon upheld the government rule that cleared the way for subsidies for those buying health insurance on exchanges run by the federal government.
The Court today issued a revised calendar for the oral argument sitting that begins on October 6. (Lyle discussed the October sitting calendar in more detail in a post earlier this month.)
The ACLU’s history and mission, the difference between civil “liberties” and civil “rights,” and whether the success of marriage equality has been quick.
UPDATED Thursday 8:35 p.m. Acting quickly to protect same-sex marriages that they argued are fully legal, four Utah couples urged the Supreme Court not to put their marriages on hold while the state seeks to undo them in a court appeal.
Moving on to another state’s ban on same-sex marriage, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Friday for a second time struck down such a measure — this time, a constitutional prohibition in Oklahoma.
The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon spared the state of Utah, temporarily, from having to officially recognize some 1,300 same-sex marriages that were performed last winter.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan refused on Thursday afternoon to block a federal appeals court ruling against continued copyright protection for fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, for any stories about him that have entered the public domain.
UPDATED 9:33 p.m.
Law school, clerking for Judge J. Edward Lumbard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and how not getting an ACLU fellowship was a good way to start a career.
To hear this audio story featuring Kristi Remington, John Elwood, and Deepak Gupta, click this link. Kali Borkoski: On June 26, the Court announced its decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, holding that three of the president’s recess appointments to the NLRB were unconstitutional.
Are Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson still under a legal cloak (or cape, if you will) of copyright law? The Supreme Court may have to solve that mystery, to decide a new legal plea filed Tuesday by the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Scottish creator of that fictional detective and his far less colorful companion.
Ruling that the Supreme Court has not barred all use of race in choosing the entering class of students at state universities and colleges, a federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld — for a second time — the admissions policies at the University of Texas in Austin.
In a sweeping new ruling that both expands and limits the power of U.S. military tribunals set up at Guantanamo Bay to try terrorist war crimes, a federal appeals court in Washington nullified two guilty verdicts of a former close aide to terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, and gave partial support to another verdict but ordered it reviewed further.
The Supreme Court on Monday released the calendar of oral arguments for the sitting that begins October 6 — the first public session of the new Term. A highlight of this sitting will be the argument on October 7 in Holt v. Hobbs, giving the Court another opportunity to rule on claims of religious freedom.
UPDATED 9:05 p.m.
With fewer than a dozen crucial words, a group of U.S. senators and representatives this week proposed what they have called a “legislative fix” to undo the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.
The petitions of the day are: Aetna Life Insurance Company v. Kobold 13-1467 Issue: Whether the Federal Employees Health Benefits Act (FEHBA), which expressly “preempt[s] any State or local law” that would prevent enforcement of “[t]he terms of any contract” under FEHBA that “relate to the nature,
Last week’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby continues to dominate commentary on the Court. At Hamilton and Griffin on Rights, Marci Hamilton looks at the fallout from the decision and suggests that the rancor which accompanied it “shines a light” on the flaws in the statute at the heart of the decision, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Over the past few weeks, there has been a raft of opinion pieces and commentary addressing the Supreme Court’s startling number of unanimous opinions during October Term 2013.
Commentary on the Court’s June 30 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby continues with an op-ed in The New York Times from Linda Greenhouse, who contends that, “[t]o grasp the full implications of the . . .
UPDATE 1:55 p.m. Another state trial judge, District Judge Andrew Hartman of Boulder, ruled on Thursday that the Boulder County clerk may continue to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but must notify those couples that “the validity of their marriages” depends upon whether the courts would later uphold the clerk’s power to issue them.
Five major advocacy groups working to promote gay rights, reacting to the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, on Tuesday backed off from support for a pending bill in Congress to make it illegal to discriminate in the workplace based on sexual orientation.
Last Monday’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby continues to dominate commentary on the Court.
“We have met the enemy and he is us” is the caption on the famous Earth Day 1970 poster by cartoonist Walt Kelly. It shows Pogo, Kelly’s anthropomorphic possum, in a forest full of junk, holding a trash-picking stick. The message was obvious: we created this mess, we should clean it up.
UPDATED 5:02 p.m. In another development on same-sex marriage Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., denied a Pennsylvania county clerk’s plea to stop such marriages in that state.
Anyone who follows the Supreme Court knows that its docket is driven by its interest in resolving circuit splits. But harder questions lurk behind that observation.
Commentators continue to parse last week’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which a divided Court held that closely held companies with strong religious objections are not required to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate.