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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The blogs have been abuzz with this article from the Examiner about David Souter’s problems on the Court.
We’ve known for some time now that David Souter hasn’t been enjoying his tenure on the Court. Justice Souter started out as a conservative Justice but has since converted into a card-carrying member of the Court’s liberal […]

All of the law blogs on the internet are exploding with analysis about how the 2006 term is the sign of a major revolution in Constitutional Theory that will undo a lot of the moderate-conservative work of the Rhenquist Court (1985-2005). Balkanization, SCOTUSblog, The New York Times here and here, Washington Post, Prawfsblawg, Georgetown […]

After a disappointingly slow week, the Court handed down five opinions, one Per Curiam reversal, and a marginally interesting orders list today. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but a per curiam opinion is usually issued when the Court rejects a case based on procedural grounds and chooses to deny certiorari. Per Curiam decisions […]

After yesterday’s dense post, this one is much, much lighter. About 2,200 words lighter.
During oral arugments in Office of Senator Mark Dayton v. Hanson one of the arguing attorney’s calling Justice Souter by the wrong name. Ownage ensued.
MS. MANNING: No Justice Ginsburg, there has
been no waiver —
JUSTICE SOUTER: I’m Justice Souter.
MS. MANNING: I’m sorry. […]