Showing 1–50 of 1046 items published in 2009, most recent first.
For the first time in his tenure as the head of the national courts, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., on Thursday issued a year-end report with no requests for money or action to aid the judiciary — a bow, he said, to the current economic plight of the nation and to Congress’ already-full schedule.
The following post is our first by Professor Lisa McElroy, of Drexel University’s law school. Lisa has agreed to write Plain English posts for us on occasion that will recap the blog’s recent activity in terms understandable by non-lawyers.
To help illustrate the terms and concepts you will often encounter in discussions of the Supreme Court, we have written an imaginary Supreme Court case. We will be creating permalinks to this post on the blog as well as on SCOTUSwiki.
Book review Frank J. Colucci, Justice Kennedy’s Jurisprudence: The Full and Necessary Meaning of Liberty, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kan., 2009), 186 pp. (cloth), $34.95. ———————- For all the power and influence that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wields on the current Supreme Court, one
The Court is still in holiday recess and will not hear any cases this week. The first activity at the Court in the new year will be the Justices’ private conference on Friday, January 8. Petitions to Watch for that conference will be posted soon.
Four recent requests for Supreme Court review have attracted some attention. The San Jose Mercury News reports on the Schwarzenegger administration’s “one last plea” for the Supreme Court to review a three-judge panel’s order to ease overcrowding in California prisons.
On October 5, the Court took what seemed to be a fairly unusual step in No. 08-1596, Rhine v. Deaton, when it asked the Solicitor General of Texas to file a brief expressing the views of the State of Texas in a challenge to a Texas statute that provides court-appointed counsel to parents facing the
Following up on yesterday’s New York Times editorial on access to federal courts, and in particular the Court’s recent decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the ACSblog – relying on Tony Mauro’s article in the National Law Journal – suggests that motions to dismiss (and decisions dismissing the
The Chicago Tribune and Christian Science Monitor report that on Monday the State of Michigan filed an original action against the State of Illinois. Michigan seeks to force the closure of shipping locks near Chicago to prevent carp from invading Lake Michigan and thereby damaging the state’s fishing industry.
In a new phase of the decades-long feud over the environmental health of the Great Lakes, Michigan has sued Illinois directly in the Supreme Court, this time over Michigan’s worries about the invasion of a fish species threatening to local fish populations.
Commentary Eighteen months ago, the Supreme Court decided Boumediene v. Bush, assigning federal trial judges in Washington, D.C., a major new role in crafting the rules that would govern the government’s power to detain individuals suspected of terrorism.
The Supreme Court building will be closed to the public on Monday, in the aftermath of Washington’s heavy snowstorm over the weekend, the Court announced Sunday. The Court is in a previously scheduled recess until next month.
UPDATE, 5 p.m.: To the merits brief schedule, we have added Hamilton v. Lanning (08-998), which was filed today. The Court is in holiday recess until January 8, when the justices will meet for their first private conference of the year.
Last Tuesday, we introduced a new feature, Yesterday in Plain English, in which we recapped some recent blog content and developments at the Court in language that we hoped was more accessible to non-lawyers.
As Erin wrote last Thursday on the blog, we’ve just opened up five of our SCOTUSwiki case pages for editing.
Nolo’s Employment Law Blog discusses City of Ontario v. Quon, the case in which the Court will examine whether text messages sent to or from a government-owned pager are protected by the right to privacy.
The Washington Independent recounts Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on the effects of Ashcroft v. Iqbal, decided last Term, and Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, decided in 2007. The hearing paralleled a Senate committee hearing on the same topic on December 2.
If you (like us) keep going back to the Wikipedia list of Supreme Court justices since 1789, you might try a more aesthetic way to get your information: the new Timeplots poster, A Visual History of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Starting this evening, we’re introducing a new feature on SCOTUSwiki. For the first time, the “pages” for five cases are now open to various degrees for editing. For each case before the Court, SCOTUSwiki hosts a wiki page with links to its briefs, analysis by SCOTUSblog, and media coverage.
Some commentary on Monday’s orders continues. At the Cato @ Liberty blog, Ilya Shapiro analyzes the Court’s action in the Chrysler bankruptcy dispute, Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler.
The Obama Administration has notified Congress that it will not ask the Supreme Court to revive a set of government regulations seeking to curb high-volume campaign spending by non-profit advocacy groups.
NOTE TO READERS: Tuesday night, the blog published a post on the planned opening of a U.S. mainland prison to house some Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and discussed how that might impact the pending Supreme Court case, Kiyemba v. Obama (08-1234). [The blog apologizes for the technical difficulties in accessing that post.]
Coverage of the Court’s Monday orders continues. David Savage of the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bob Egelko have stories on Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, an immigration case in which the Court will address whether legal permanent residents who have been charged multiple times for drug possession but not labeled as repeat offenders can be deported.
Analysis The Obama Administration’s decision, announced Tuesday through various public documents and a background briefing, to transfer some of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners to the U.S. mainland for long-term detention without a trial may have a major impact on the Supreme Court’s pending review of Kiyemba, et al., v. Obama, et al.
This is a new feature on SCOTUSblog. The Supreme Court deals with a lot of technical legal issues. Our posts tend to be written in the same way, so that if you aren’t a lawyer it can be hard to understand exactly what we’re saying. We try not to go too deep into jargon, but it’s hard.
Adam Liptak of The New York Times has this article on City of Ontario v. Quon, in which the Court granted cert. yesterday. He suggests that although the legal issue in the case is limited to text messaging in government workplaces, the decision may nonetheless hint at the Court’s views on the broader issue of privacy rights in the Internet era.
Tom Goldstein sometimes thinks it’s best to speak directly to our readers by video. He showed you his techno-savvy in the earliest days of the iPod. Then he showed you why you should hire him as your Supreme Court counsel. Now, he’s just very, very sorry. The video is on YouTube, too, here.
No oral arguments are scheduled this week. Orders — but no opinions — are coming this morning. As for merits briefs, the petitioner’s replies are due in American Needle v. NFL (08-661), Abbott v. Abbott (08-645), and Jerman v. Carlisle (08-1200) on Thursday, Dec. 17.
SECOND UPDATE, 4:50 p.m.: The briefs in all cases acted on now appear below the jump, including those missing earlier in Robertson v. U.S. ex rel. Watson. The Court has granted certiorari in three cases, City of Ontario v. Quon (08-1332), Robertson v. U.S. ex rel.
The Supreme Court refused on Monday to hear a major new case involving a claim of torture by four Britons while they were held at Guantanamo Bay. It also wiped out the last remaining challenge to the deal that saved the automaker Chrysler, and it granted three new cases.
C-SPAN has this video of a recent discussion of the role of the Solicitor General by former Solicitors General Paul Clement, Drew Days, and Kenneth Starr; Justice Kennedy provided opening remarks.
Below, Josh Friedman of Akin Gump looks back at last week’s decision in Alvarez v. Smith. Earlier coverage of the cert., merits, and argument stages in the case can be read on the Alvarez v. Smith (08-351) SCOTUSwiki page.
The Supreme Court on Monday took two steps to alter its oral argument schedules this Term, moving up to an earlier date its hearing on a key constitutional challenge to a federal mail fraud law, and adding new time in another case to let the government argue a middle-ground position on a major issue of antitrust law.
In Union Pacific Railroad Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a railroad company involved in a dispute with its labor union asked the Court to decide whether a federal court could set aside a decision by the National Railroad Adjustment Board (NRAB) on the ground that the NRAB
Starting today, we will be instituting a new weekly post called “This Week on the Wiki,” where we will recap all substantive updates made over the past seven days to the case pages on SCOTUSwiki, our companion site.
This edition of “Petitions to Watch” features cases up for consideration at the Justices’ private conference today. As always, it lists the petitions on the Court’s paid docket that Tom has deemed to have a reasonable chance of being granted.
Following the Supreme Court’s request for the views of the executive branch in U.S. Chamber of Commerce v. Candelaria (09-115) – a case involving an Arizona statute that imposes penalties on employers for hiring illegal aliens – a New York Times editorial urges the Solicitor General to recommend a
The Justices will hold their private conference, orders from which are expected on Monday; the next conference is January 8, 2010. To see our the petitions Tom has deemed to have a reasonable chance of being granted at this conference, see this morning’s edition of Petitions to Watch.
Below, Vivian Wang of Stanford Law School recaps Wednesday’s oral argument in Stolt-Nielsen, S.A. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp. Vivian’s earlier preview of the case is available here. Check the Stolt-Nielsen (08-1198) SCOTUSwiki page for additional updates.
Below, Akin Gump associate Jonathan Eisenman analyzes the Court’s decision, handed down Tuesday, in Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter (08-678). Check the Mohawk v. Carpenter SCOTUSwiki page for commentary on the briefing and argument stages of the case.
The Supreme Court expects to issue orders at 10 a.m. Monday, according to a public announcement. No mention was made of any opinions. After Monday, the Court will be in recess until a private Conference on Jan. 8 and public sessions beginning Jan. 11.
Lawyers for a former Enron Corp. executive bluntly told the Supreme Court on Friday that it is not the Justices’ job to rewrite a federal criminal law to give it meaning that Congress failed to provide.
Here’s an update on the blog’s activity on Twitter: Tweeting more: Starting last week, all six core members of our team began tweeting most days. Our intent is to capture our collective knowledge about developments at the Court or on the blog that aren’t appropriate for separate posts, and to better solicit reactions from you about new programming and features we’re considering.
No oral arguments are scheduled and no non-capital orders are expected.
The Court heard argument yesterday in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp., a class action arbitration dispute previewed by Vivian Wang on Tuesday. Courthouse News Service provides a recap of the argument. Events from earlier in the week continue to garner attention.
NOTE: This post has been updated to clarify a point of Alaskan law. Bel0w, Rakesh Kilaru of Stanford Law School recaps Weyhrauch v. United States, one of the two “honest services” cases heard by the Court on Tuesday.
It is not one of the Supreme Court’s great decisions, but Leo Sheep Co. v. U.S. is Bill Rehnquist, the historian, at his very best.
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the Defense Department was in contempt of court, for failing to videotape testimony given by a Guantanamo Bay detainee by teleconference at a court hearing in June.
At 10 a.m., the Court will hear oral argument in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp. (08-1198), which raises whether the Federal Arbitration Act permits arbitrators to impose class arbitration on parties whose arbitration agreements are silent on that subject.
Decisions handed down by the Court in four cases yesterday dominate today’s headlines. The AP, MSNBC, ABC News, JURIST, and the BLT all have coverage of the Court’s decision in Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter, an attorney-client privilege dispute that was also Justice Sotomayor’s first opinion since she joined the Court.