DailyWrit

The Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments in Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a case revolving around Navy sonar exercises off the coast of California and their potential impact on the environment.
Justices on both sides of the normal ideological division seemed unpersuaded by the NRDC. Justice Breyer at one time asked,
I will express a […]

The Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in Herring v. US, a case that revolves around whether or not the exclusionary rule applies in scenarios where there is an error made by the police. Plaintiff was arrested after police where mistakenly notified that a warrant was out for his arrest. The warrant had been withdrawn […]

The Court convened Monday to begin the new term and first heard oral arguments in Altria Group v. Good. The case revolves around whether or not federal labeling regulations on the use of ‘light’ or ‘low-tar’ cigarettes preempts state deceptive advertising claims.
Theodore Olsen opened arguments on the day on behalf of the tobacco companies […]

The Court last week decided to end months of speculation in Louisiana v. Kennedy when it struck down a motion for rehearing and simply issued a revised opinion. The move is not unprecedented but it is extremely unusual and done only in very specific circumstances. The modified opinion can be found here.
Justice Kennedy wrote an […]

The state of Louisiana and attorneys for Patrick Kennedy have filed petitions arguing whether or not the Court should rehear the landmark death penalty case as a result of research oversight. The original petition for rehearing can be found here. You can find the Petitioner’s brief in opposition of rehearing here, the Respondent’s brief in […]

All of this John Edwards business has got me thinking about early voting. I am registered to vote in Texas, where Election Codes 81.001 and 82.005 specify that I can ”vote early” – up to seventeen days before any federal election. Say, hypothetically, that John Edwards had rallied for a victory in South Carolina and […]

First, Davis v. FEC came down against the “Millionaire’s Amendment.” Alito read from his majority opinion. Not terribly surprising, but almost certainly an interesting read. Interestingly enough, the Court took down disclosure requirements and contribution limits. Contribution limits went down for not being equally applied across the board and “disclosure requirements, which were designed to […]

Now, for Heller: Affirmed, quite naturally. Wow! It came down 5-4, with none of the traditionally ‘liberal’ Justices joining the pro-gun rights majority. Scalia must have written an incredibly strong majority opinion and the ‘conservatives’ must have been unwilling to budge.
Opinions are straight 5-4, one majority and two dissent. No concurring, partials. I’m surprised […]

The Supreme Court today handed down a series opinions on the penultimate day of the term. Major thanks should go to SCOTUSblog for getting these opinions online minutes after the Court announces them. I’ll eventually change the links to redirect to the Supreme Court’s website, but thanks go to SCOTUSblog for letting us read the […]

The Court is widely expected to hand down the remaining seven opinions from this term today and either tomorrow or Monday. Among the cases to watch are Kennedy v. Louisiana (death penalty for child rape) and DC v. Heller (DC Gun ban.)
Justice Scalia is the only Justice remaining from the March sitting who has […]

The Supreme Court’s landmark public use decision Kelo v. City of New London was handed down three years ago today. On June 23, 2005, Justices Stevens handed down an opinion that held that “there is no basis for exempting economic development from our traditionally broad understanding of public purpose.” Justices Kennedy, Souter, Breyer, and Ginsburg […]

The Supreme Court released five opinions today, the most interesting of which is the decision in Boumediene v. Bush, the landmark detainee right’s case. The Court held, 5-4, that detainees currently designated as ‘enemy combatants’ have signficant habeus corpus rights and have the right to have them upheld in federal district court.
I’m reading this […]

US v. Williams (opinion) stole the spotlight amongst last week’s decided cases and for good reason. The court narrowed scope of the PROTECT Act and upheld its basic tenants against first amendment claims. Another case, US v. Ressam, struck me as being particularly interesting.
The facts of Ressam (opinion) aren’t terribly complex. Ahmed Ressam tried to […]

The Supreme Court released three opinions yesterday, two of which sided with workers in discrimination cases.
The first was Gomez-Perez v. Potter (opinion) in which the court held that Section 29 U.S.C. 633a(a) protects a worker’s right to be safe from retaliation after filing an age discrimination claim.
The Court held similarly in CBOCS West v. […]

The Supreme Court today issued an orders list and rejected eleven Baze claims. Justice Stevens wrote brief opinions (here and here) relating to two of the cases where he said:
While I agree with the Court’s decision to deny certiorari in this case, it is appropriate to emphasize, as I have in the past, see, e.g., […]