Wednesday round-up

By Conor McEvily
on Dec 14, 2011 at 12:15 pm

Reporting on Monday’s orders and opinions, particularly the Court’s decision to grant cert. in Arizona v. United States, continued to keep Court watchers and commentators busy yesterday.  In Arizona the Court will consider overturning the lower courts’ decisions blocking the controversial Arizona immigration law, S.B. 1070. Daniel Fisher of Forbes discusses the preemption issue at the heart of the case.  The editorial boards at Bloomberg, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times all weigh in on the grant, while at Politico Tim Mak surveys the blogosphere’s reactions to Justice Kagan’s recusal in the case.  At Balkinization Ken Kersh responds to Adam Liptak’s article in the New York Times (included in yesterday’s round-up), which compares what is fast becoming a blockbuster Term this year to past noteworthy Terms.  And finally, Lyle Denniston at the Huffington Post and Josh Gerstein at Politico both discuss the potential political fallout from the Court’s decisions this Term in the health care, S.B. 1070, and Texas redistricting cases – a subject that is also covered by a video clip posted at PBS NewsHour.

Monday’s other opinions and orders received continuing coverage as well.  At this blog, Kevin Johnson analyzes the opinion in Judulang v. Holder, in which the Court unanimously held that the policy used by the Board of Immigration Appeals to determine whether a resident alien may seek relief from deportation under a repealed immigration law is “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedure Act.  At the ABA Journal, Mark Hansen discusses the cert. grant in the consolidated cases Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v. Patchak and Salazar v. Patchak, in which the Court will consider whether private citizens or groups may sue to enjoin the federal government from purchasing lands for use by Native American tribes.  And Jessie Balmert at the Newark (Ohio) Advocate discusses Monday’s cert. denial in Ohio v. D.B., in which the state had asked the Court to review the constitutionality of the state’s statutory rape law as it applied to children under the age of thirteen.

Briefly:

• At this blog, Kedar Bhatia analyzes the statistical trends at the Court in the first Stat Pack of the Term.
• Also at this blog, Ronald Collins reviews Clare Cushman’s book Courtwatchers: Eyewitness Accounts in Supreme Court History.
• At the National Law Journal, Tony Mauro reports on the Court’s accidental early release of its order list and opinions on its website Monday morning.
• Bill Mears of CNN reports on a recently released tribute to Justice Ginsburg’s late husband Marty: a collection of his recipes gathered by the Supreme Court Historical Society in a book titled “Chef Supreme: Martin Ginsburg.”  Recipes from the book are available here.
• At the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, Joe Palazzolo polls readers on whether the Supreme Court should allow cameras in the courtroom for arguments in the health care cases.
• At the Washington Post blog The Fix, Aaron Blake lists “five things you need to know” about the Court’s announcement last week that it would review the constitutionality of three redistricting plans drawn up by a federal court for Texas. 
• At the Volokh Conspiracy Orin Kerr weighs in on some of the Chief Justice’s questions during last month’s oral argument in United States v. Jones; Kerr suggests that the questions “may reflect a common misunderstanding of the [reasonable expectation of privacy] test.” 
• At PrawfsBlawg, Ryan Scoville observes that Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, in which the Court will consider whether the Alien Tort Statute gives federal jurisdiction over claims of corporate violations of customary international law, “seems to raise an interesting question about the method by which courts go about ascertaining custom.” 
• At the Huffington Post, Mike Sacks reports on a bill introduced by Republican congressman Leonard Lance that would exempt the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the constitutionality of which the Court will hear this Term, from the Anti-Injunction Act, which allows taxpayers to challenge taxes only after they have been enforced against them.