Analysis
At least since Adam Smith was writing economic tracts in the late 1700s, it has been widely accepted that when consumers demand more of a product, either someone will produce more or prices will go up. That’s one of the theories of the “law” of supply and demand. But is there a way to balance out a market, so that supply and demand flow more evenly and prices are held in check?
How about paying some consumers to back off as buyers just when overall demand is expected to peak — say, turning off the air conditioner for a few hours when all of America is trying to cool itself during a heat wave? The Supreme Court this week will ponder the legality of a federal program using that kind of economic incentive to smooth out the nation’s electricity market.
The role of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in a pay-to-abstain arrangement is at issue in two cases, combined for a one-hour hearing at 11 a.m. Wednesday, that will come to be known by the first case of the two: FERC v. Energy Power Supply Association. The cases will be heard by a Court of eight; Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., is recused, presumably because of some of his investments.
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On Monday the Court is closed in observance of the federal holiday. We expect orders from the October 9 Conference on Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. The Court will also hear oral arguments on Tuesday and Wednesday, beginning at 10 a.m. On Friday the Justices will meet for their October 16 Conference; our list of “petitions to watch” for that Conference will be available soon.
Analysis
For years, the Supreme Court has been engaged in an energetic effort to enhance the role of the jury in criminal courts. No part of that has been more actively pursued than deepening the jury’s involvement in sentencing — a part of the process long dominated by trial judges. A new case from Florida, set for argument at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, provides a new test.
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John Elwood reviews this week’s relisted cases.
Welcome back to another season of Relist Watch! For those of you who are only now stumbling on this feature because of a Google search gone horribly wrong, here is what we do: When a case under consideration at the Justices’ private Conference gives them such warm fuzzies that they put the case back on the calendar for further consideration at the next Conference, we write about it until your eyes glaze over. If that strikes you as a colossal waste of time, you understand matters perfectly. Some of these cases turn out to be huge winners, others turn out not to matter. Although the Court hasn’t said so in as many words, it is widely understood that the Court relists cases that it has tentatively decided to grant certiorari to review, and uses the extra time to perform a check for vehicle problems that might keep the Court from resolving the question presented. For that reason, since February 2014, almost every case that the Court has granted has been relisted at least once, with the main exception being cases granted out of the late-September “Long Conference” (presumably because during the summer, the Court has enough extra time that the relist isn’t necessary). Mind you, the Justices also relist cases for a number of other reasons, including to give them time to write an opinion summarily reversing a lower-court judgment or dissenting from the Court’s decision not to review it. Got it? This mind-numbing paragraph is as interesting as this column will ever get.
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Oyez has posted audio and transcripts from this week’s oral arguments.
The Court heard argument this week in:
The Supreme Court on Friday released the calendar of oral arguments for the December sitting, which begins on Monday, November 30. Three high-profile cases will be among those scheduled: the affirmative action case from the University of Texas, and two cases on the “one person, one vote” issue.
All of the arguments will be in the morning sessions, beginning at 10 a.m. The daily schedules, with a summary of the issue in each case, follows the jump.
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Coverage of and commentary on Wednesday’s oral arguments in the Kansas death penalty cases continues. Nina Totenberg reports on the cases for NPR, noting that, although “the justices seemed to be in some agreement on the technical questions before the court, the issue of the death penalty clearly remains an open sore, with Justice Scalia, at one point, pointedly disdaining Justice Stephen Breyer’s views on the subject.” And at Slate, Mark Joseph Stern suggests that the arguments finished “with no clear answers and a lot of barely muffled irritation among the justices.” Continue reading »
Analysis
June 25, 2012, has stood as a barrier to potential freedom for thousands of youths who were sentenced before then to life in prison, without a chance of release, for murders they had committed. The Supreme Court several times since then has refused to consider appeals asking that those youths, too, get the benefit of a ruling on that day that such sentences should seldom be imposed.
The Justices have now taken on that retroactivity issue, in Montgomery v. Louisiana. But they also have added a question of whether they even have the authority to decide it. Both issues will be heard at 10 a.m. next Tuesday, with the hearing expanded to seventy-five minutes to allow discussion on the Court’s power to act.
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Yesterday the Justices heard oral arguments in three Kansas death-penalty cases. The issues before the Court were whether the instructions given to the juries violated their Eighth Amendment right to individualized sentencing determinations because they did not indicate that jurors did not have to find mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt, as well as whether the rights of two brothers were violated when they were sentenced together. I covered the arguments for this blog, while Lyle Denniston did the same at Lyle Denniston Law News. Other coverage comes from Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal and Adam Liptak of The New York Times. Continue reading »
After two hours of oral arguments this morning in a trio of Kansas death penalty cases, one thing seemed clear: a solid majority of the Justices appeared ready to reverse rulings by the Kansas Supreme Court that had overturned the inmates’ death sentences. What was less clear, however, was what effect such a ruling would ultimately have. Continue reading »
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