DailyWrit

Earlier tonight, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama joined Pastor Rick Warren at his California megachurch for an event pegged as “The Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency.” The interviews, each an hour in length, were separated by thirty-six tense seconds in which the presumptive nominees shared the stage (and an awkward hug [video here!]). […]

I’ve been a little surprised by how scarcely the Supreme Court is being mentioned during this election cycle. Especially as the dust was settling from Heller, I expected more talk about the role our next president may play in determining the trajectory of the Court. Recently, however, I’ve noticed that some smaller conservative blogs have […]

Randy Newman sang a rather interesting song at the conclusion of the Macworld Keynote Speech. Here was the relevant portion of his song:
Its pissing me off a little that the Supreme Court is going to outlive me. Couple young Italian fellas and a brother on the Court now, too. But I defy you to find […]

This is nothing new, groundbreaking, or particularly insightful but I was reading Hill v. Colorado (2000) for one of my Constitutional Law classes and I stumbled upon this line from the introduction to Justice Scalia’s dissent:
None of these remarkable conclusions should come as a surprise. What is before us, after all, is a speech […]

Oral Arguments took place this morning in Boumediene v. Bush and its sister case, Al-Odah v. US. Because of the heightened interest in the case, the Supreme Court opted to expedite the delivery of the audio recording and it was broadcast on C-Span by 11:50EST, less than an hour after the arguments concluded.
The arguments went […]

I found a neat article over at the New York Times Archives entitled “Ideas % Trends; Scalia Speaks Up, Quite Clearly, At Bar Convention from 1987. According to the article, Justice Scalia was the most talkative person on the bench even in the late 80’s when he was a relative newcomer to the Court.
The New […]

After finding the most talkative Justice, I was interested in finding the funniest Justice. According to my calculations, there were 51 total references to (Laughter.) in the court’s first two months of arguements. Here is the breakdown:

Case
JR
JPS
AS
AK
DS
CT
RBG
SB
SA
COUNSEL
TOTAL

Washington
1

2
3

Tom F.

0

Gall

1

2
3

Kimbrough

1

1

2

Torres
3

1

4

Santos

1

1

Watson

1
1

1

3

Stoneridge

1

1

Medellin

1
1

1

3

Klein

0

Ali

1

1

Williams

1

1

1
3

Logan

0

Danforth
1
2
3

6

CSX

2

1

3

Davis
2
1
1

1

1

6

John R.
1
1
1

1
4

Fed. Ex.

4

1
5

Hall

1
1

1
3

TOTAL
8
6
17
2
4
0
0
5
1
8
51

No surprises here. Scalia talks almost twice as much as everyone else. […]

Two months into the term, the Supreme Court has held oral arguments in 19 different cases. After reading a few of the transcripts, I thought it would be interesting to see which Justices spoke most often during oral arguments.
I found transcripts from the usual place and I copied the text into TextMate. From there, I […]

UK’s The Telegraph created lists of the 100 most influential conservatives and the most influential liberals leading into the 2008 elections. John Roberts made number #8 on the conservative list, Antonin Scalia came in at #62, and Clarence Thomas came in at #85. John Paul Stevens, despite claiming to be a conservative, came in at […]

Yesterday, The Supreme Court released an order in Berry v. Mississippi. In an unusual move, the Court denied Earl Berry’s stay for execution and proceeded to briefly explain their decision:
The judgment of the Mississippi Supreme Court relies upon an adequate and independent state ground that deprives the Court of jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court has now granted […]

During oral arguments in Gall v. US two weeks ago, the court discussed whether sentences that fell within guidelines are presumed to be reasonable. My earlier analysis of the case can be found here.
Justice Thomas has been a long-time critic of Judges who speak out during oral arguments only to argue with their colleagues. […]

C-Span followed Clarence Thomas around his book release party at the home of Armstrong Williams. Its a rather amusing video with cameos from David Souter, Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, the ever-lovely Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Arlen Specter, Lindsey Graham, Dick Cheney and a plethora of mid-major political stars and their spouses. Here […]

Its no secret that Justice Scalia loves 24, but seeing the Justices in cartoon form is always funny.

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 […]