Friday round-up
on Oct 28, 2011 at 9:54 am
Promoting his new memoir, retired Justice John Paul Stevens continues to make news. In this morning’s USA Today, Joan Biskupic reports on her recent interview with the Justice, who rejected calls for changes in the Court’s practices on potential conflict of interests but did indicate that Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife “never should have failed to report her income” on financial disclosure forms. Meanwhile, coverage of some of the Term’s highest-profile cases (and cert. petitions) continues. Writing for Greenwire, Lawrence Hurley considers whether the federal government will file amicus briefs in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum and Mohamad v. Rajoub, two cases involving corporate liability for human rights violations committed abroad – and, if so, what position the government might take. And writing at the Huffington Post, Bama Athreya urges the Court to rule in Kiobel that corporations can be held liable for violations of international human rights.
At this blog and the Volokh Conspiracy, Professor Orin Kerr examines the second question presented in United States v. Jones: whether the act of installing a GPS device on a car constitutes a Fourth Amendment search or seizure. Kerr concludes that this is a “surprisingly difficult and open question” that “could plausibly go either way.”
In an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle, Sharon Browne and Roger Clegg urge the Court to grant cert. in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin and invalidate race-based preferences. At the National Review Online, Hans A. von Spakovsky discusses recent developments surrounding the case, arguing that Justice Kagan has an “absolute obligation” to recuse herself because of her personal involvement, in her prior role as the Solicitor General, in the amicus brief that the federal government filed in the Fifth Circuit.
Briefly:
- In the Chicago Tribune, Cynthia Dizikes reports on the cert. petition filed this week (which Kiran covered in yesterday’s round-up) by five Midwestern states seeking to stop the spread of Asian carp into the Great Lakes. Jurist also has coverage.
- At the Winston-Salem Journal, Wesley Young reports that a North Carolina county has recently filed a cert. petition seeking review of a lower court’s decision barring it from opening meetings with sectarian prayers.
