Friday round-up

By Kiera Flynn
on May 20, 2011 at 11:23 am

Yesterday, by a vote of fifty-two to forty-three, the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit failed to achieve the sixty votes necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster. Coverage at the Washington Post, BLT, Nina Totenberg at NPR, the New York Times, and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones all emphasize the degree to which Liu’s testimony against Justice Alito during Alito’s confirmation hearings ultimately hurt Liu during his own nomination process.

Briefly:

• Coverage relating to Kentucky v. King continues.  At the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr responds to a recent post by Linda Greenhouse (which Amanda covered in yesterday’s round-up).  In his post, Kerr explains why he “think[s] Greenhouse and others are misreading the case,” which he characterizes as “much narrower than many seem to think.”

• Gun rights groups have filed an amicus brief in support of the federal government’s petition for certiorari in United States v. Jones (h/t: Orin Kerr at Volokh), a case involving the constitutionality of GPS tracking by police officers. SCOTUSblog’s own Lyle Denniston covered the case (as well as a related petition) here, and SCOTUSblog’s John Elwood has additional coverage here.

• Commentary on last month’s decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion continues.  At the Huffington Post, Lawrence W. Schonbrun disputes the conventional wisdom that the decision favors corporations at the expense of consumers.  Instead, he argues, “[f]or consumers, and for the cause of justice, the Supreme Court’s ruling on class action arbitration is good news. (Not great news, mind you, but good news.)”