Archive for the 'Clarence Thomas' Category
A Notable Milestone for Justice Thomas
0 Comments Published by Kedar February 22nd, 2010 in Clarence ThomasToday, February 22, 2010, marks the four-year anniversary of the last time Justice Thomas asked a question during oral arguments. His silence from the bench is well-document and has been discussed by commentators (including myself) quite a bit. Today, Tony Mauro has a few interesting tidbits to add in his article in the NLJ. I [...]
End of Term Thoughts
0 Comments Published by Kedar July 2nd, 2009 in Antonin Scalia, Civil Rights, Clarence Thomas, Constitutional Law, Supreme CourtWhile I will readily accept that my end-of-term comments are even less relevant than usual because they are so belligerently late, I still think I have a few interesting things to point out about the nearly-finished term. First, and least controversially, Justice Kennedy still controls an important position in the middle of the Court. Justice [...]
Supreme Court Releases Four Opinions; Ten Remain
0 Comments Published by Kedar June 19th, 2009 in Clarence Thomas, Court Procedure, Statistics, Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court released four divided opinions today including a very interesting case rejecting an inmate’s right to test the DNA used to convict him more than 15 years ago. Justice Thomas was the author of another 5-4 decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services. For some reason, I had always assumed that he filed [...]
Supreme Court Hands Down Opinion in Federal Pre-emption case
0 Comments Published by Kedar March 4th, 2009 in Clarence Thomas, Constitutional Law, John Paul Stevens, Justices and Judges, Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court handed down an opinion today in Wyeth v. Levine (here). (29) Wyeth v. Levine Docket Filing | Questions Presented Case Number: 06-1249 On Appeal From: SC-VT Date Argued: November 3, 2008 Date Decided: March 4, 2009 6-3; Affirmed Majority: Stevens(m), Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer(c), Thomas(c) Dissent: Alito(d), Roberts, Scalia Days between argument [...]
Supreme Introductions
0 Comments Published by Kedar December 20th, 2008 in Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Clerks, Court Procedure, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court(Nearly) every majority opinion features a short introduction before it jumps into the standard I, II, III, IV, etc structure. Some Justices simply introduce the facts very briefly (Scalia), while others discuss the procedural history (Thomas), and others discuss the underlying issue in the case (Souter.) I took a look at all of the cases [...]
Footnotes in Supreme Court Opinions
0 Comments Published by Kedar December 19th, 2008 in Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Constitutional Law, Court Procedure, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, Supreme CourtThe use footnotes has been a topic of quiet conversation around the judiciary for some time now. One group of Judges and practitioners (and an even larger percentage of students) find them to be burdensome and often unnecessary. Others think they serve as useful guides and make opinions more readable. Footnotes largely come in two [...]
Oral Argument Stats Posted
0 Comments Published by Kedar December 12th, 2008 in Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Constitutional Law, Court Procedure, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, John Roberts, Justices and Judges, Oral Arguments, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, Supreme CourtOnce again, I’ve conjured up some charts marking how often each Justice spoke during oral arguments in the first half of the term. You can find a detailed look into my methodology here but to summarize, these numbers represent the number of times ‘JUSTICE ______’ is mentioned in the oral argument transcripts posted on the [...]
Fishing for a Story: How the Media Is Reading Too Much Into Referrals of Obama Citizenship Cases by Conservative Supreme Court Justices
5 Comments Published by James December 9th, 2008 in Antonin Scalia, Barack Obama, Blogosphere, Blogs, Clarence Thomas, Court Procedure, Current Events, David Souter, Election Law, Media, Presidential Election, Ruth Bader GinsburgOver the course of the past week, both the blogosphere and mainstream media have been spending quite a bit of time over at the Supreme Court rumor mill. There has been a lot of buzz about two cases concerned with president-elect Obama’s citizenship, Donofrio v. Wells (08A407) and Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz (08A469). The applications for [...]
Court Appears to Deny Stay in Donofrio v. Wells
1 Comment Published by James December 6th, 2008 in Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas, David Souter, Election Law, Politics, Presidential ElectionThe Supreme Court appears to have declined review in a case filed against the Secretary of State of New Jersey that sought to nullify Barack Obama’s election to the presidency. The case, which centers on Obama’s citizenship, was not among those for which the Court accepted review on Friday; thus, watchers of the high Court [...]
Justices Stevens and Thomas Discuss Death Penalty Proportionality
0 Comments Published by Kedar October 22nd, 2008 in Clarence Thomas, Death Penalty, John Paul Stevens, Supreme CourtOn Monday the court denied review in Walker v. Georgia, a case revolving around the court’s proportionality standard applied to the death penalty. The court has long struggled to find an adequate means of countering racist bias within the capital system and there is little doubt that the issue will rear its ahead again in [...]



