Wednesday round-up

By Conor McEvily
on Sep 7, 2011 at 9:01 am

In his “Sidebar” column for the New York Times, Adam Liptak discusses the “perpetual dissent” – an approach in which a Justice dissents when an issue first reaches the Court and then continues to dissent in subsequent cases presenting the same issue.    Liptak points to Justice Breyer’s dissent in Apprendi v. New Jersey, in which the Court held that a judge may only increase a sentence based upon facts found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, as one example of the “perpetual dissent,” and he notes that the Justices will consider another case on this issue at their September 26 Conference.  The San Francisco Chronicle has posted an audio segment discussing Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to “realign[]” the California prison system in response to last Term’s decision in Brown v. Plata, in which the Court upheld an order by a three-judge district court panel requiring California to reduce its prison population to remedy constitutional violations caused by overcrowding.  Reporting on another response to a recent Court decision, the Chicago Tribune describes the ongoing adjustments being made by Chicago’s City Council to gun-control measures it quickly approved after the Court’s 2010 decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago, holding that the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms applies to state and local governments.

Looking ahead to the upcoming Term, the (Fort Smith, Ark.) Times Record interviews Arkansas criminal attorneys, who explain why the Court’s decision in Perry v. New Hampshire – in which the Court will consider whether due process protections against unreliable identification evidence apply only when suggestive circumstances were orchestrated by police – will not have a significant effect on cases in that state.  SCOTUSblog’s summer symposium on the Court’s recent class-action decisions continues.  Yesterday J. Russell Jackson reviewed last Term’s decisions in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, AT&T v. Concepcion, and Smith v. Bayer Corp., concluding that if the lessons from the three cases “are applied uniformly, fewer class actions may be certified, but those that are should have a clear roadmap for how a classwide trial will be managed to adjudicate everyone’s claims.”

Brielfy:

• The Associated Press (via the Chicago Tribune) notes that Georgia has set an execution date for Troy Davis, the death row inmate for whom the Court ordered a district court hearing on innocence back in 2009.  The website OpenSecrets.org analyzes the Justices’ financial disclosures.
• The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog has a Q&A session with former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal about his move from the government to Hogan Lovells; Bloomberg also has coverage of Katyal’s move.  The Associated Press (via the Washington Post) reports that former Defense Secretary Robert Gates will replace retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as the College of William and Mary’s next chancellor, an honorary post.