Justice O’Connor went on The Daily Show last night to talk about her new civics project, www.OurCourts.org. Its a pretty entertaining interview for anyone interested in the Court, and she mentions at various points how she was upset at the backlash from Bush v. Gore and how she hates being called a “swing” justice. Part [...]

Justice O’Connor may have retired from the Court in 2005, but her judicial career is still alive and well. She recently sat on a case in the Second Circuit and wrote the majority opinion (here)! The case centered around a defendant, Scott Holyoke, who was notified that his call was subject to monitoring and proceeded [...]

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 [...]

Justice O’Connor presented at a gamer’s conference and talked about her new game, Our Courts. Check it out here at Wired’s GameLife blog: That’s why, O’Connor said, she wanted to work alongside University of Wisconsin-Madison professor James Paul Gee to create Our Courts, which will begin rolling out in September 2009. The game “lets students [...]

From now until the start of October Term 2007 on October 1, I’ll be counting down the things that I’m looking forward to in the upcoming term of the Court. Today I’ll take a look at the Court’s power struggle with its co-equal branches. Supreme Court Justices have always been considered a body of intellectuals [...]

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 [...]

I am going absolutely crazy with all the talk of Clarence Thomas and his total perversion of originalism. I’m not one to rant, but this is the closest I will ever come to declaring an absolute- Originalism is NEVER appropriate. Thats right, there is never an instance where it is appropriate to take our noses [...]

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 Law [...]

The Court’s decision today to uphold a “partial birth abortion” ban in Gonzalez v. Carhart has been 21-years in the making. Regan-ites Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy joined forces with Thomas, Alito, and the Chief Justice to combat the forces of liberalism that are ever-present in our society. Conservatives have to be pleased with Justices [...]

Whenever Justices come and go on the Court, the mainstream media starts bloviating about the dynamics of the Court. The most recent shift in the Court occurred when the decidedly conservative Chief Justice Rehnquist and more moderate Associate Justice O’Connor were replaced by the thus-far moderately conservative Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Alito. So [...]