DailyWrit

After being invited by the Court, the Solicitor General has filed an amicus brief in Quanta Computers v. LG Electronics. The Court requested the opinion of the US in the cert. stage of this case on April 16, 2007 and the Solictor General filed his brief on August 24, 2007. Also of note, Dell, Inc. […]

The Democratic National Committee voted to take away Florida’s electoral power at the national convention if Florida kept its January 29th primary date. Synopsis: Florida, in an attempt to make the candidates actually care about the state (”put me in, coach!”), moved up their primary date from February to January, hoping to steal the thunder […]

The Petitioner’s Briefs have been submitted in Al-Odah v. US and Boumediene v. Bush, the two high-profile detainee cases that the court has accepted for review. Thanks to SCOTUSblog, everyone can access the Al-Odah briefs here (Al-Odah) and here (El-Banna) and the Boumediene brief here. I’ll use Al-Odah for the majority of my analysis but […]

On October 9, 2007, the Court will hear oral arguments in Watson v. US.
Watson revolves around the question of whether or not the presence of a firearm in a drug exchange consitutes ‘use’ as it applies to sentencing provisions. If an individual is convicted of using a firearm within the context of a drug deal, […]

On October 3, 2007, the Court will hear oral arguments in US v. Santos.
From the 1970’s through the 1990’s, Efrain Santos operated an illegal lottery in north-west Indiana. He was convicted of running an illegal gambling ring and laundering that money through his payment of runners and money collectors who were involved in his […]

AJ and James have had a little disagreement about the constitutionality / advisability of age-discrimination laws. I’m not sure that my ideas on the advisability of such legislation would add much to the discussion, but have a few comments to add as to the constitutionality of legislation that targets certain age groups.
The Supreme Court has […]

Today I’ve mused quite a bit about both how much I hate Dallas and also about a small constitutional question. I accidentally bought a Dallas Morning News instead of an Austin-American Statesman today at lunch, and this article was on the center of the front page. This was my first clue that I had bought a Dallas […]

Although my friends and family would call me argumentative to fault, I try to make a point of admitting when I’m wrong. I’ve been watching this spectacular debate between Justices Breyer and Scalia and it looks like I might have seriously underrated the value of originalism. If you have 90 minutes to spare, I suggest […]

In a debate between Justices Scalia and Breyer that took place almost a 9 months ago, both Justices declared that they were more concerned with establishing broad precedence than reaching a sound conclusion in a single case. Here are the comments from the Justices:

Scalia: I don’t much care about your particular case. I am not […]

On October 2, 2007, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Kimbrough v. US. Kimbrough centers around the 1986 federal law that imposes a “100:1 crack/powder ratio.” Under the law, a defendant caught with one amount of crack (rock) should receive a sentence similar to that of a defendant who was caught with a […]

[ October 2, 2007; ] On October 2, 2007, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Gall v. US. Brian Gall sold ecstasy at the University of Iowa for a few months in 2000. After cleaning up his act, he graduated, moved to Arizona, and started a job in the construction industry. Law enforcement officers came to him three-years […]

On October 3rd of this year, the Supreme Court will entertain arguments is New York State Board of Elections v. López Torres, which centers on the method by which the state of New York selects its trial judges. Margarita López Torres, an aspiring candidate, argued in the US District Court for the Eastern District of […]

[ October 1, 2007; 10:00 am to 11:00 am. ] On October 1, 2007, the Court will hear the first case of the October 2007 term. Washington State Grange v. Washington Republican Party and its sister case, Washington v. Washington Republican Party, centers around the Washington state law that allows candidates to state their ‘party preference’ as opposed to an all-out party affiliation and its […]

J. Scott Jennings, the 29-year old aide to Karl Rove, was forced to go in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about the US Attorney Scandal. As soon as I read the title to the New York Times article,”With Rove Absent, Aide Is Grilled by Senate Panel”, I knew it was going […]

When scheduling cases for oral arguments, the court tries to give precedence to the cases that were granted certiorari first. For example, if Case A was granted cert. in February and Case B was granted cert. in April, the court would generally try to hear Case A first. This allows council enough time to prepare […]