Monday round-up
on Nov 11, 2013 at 8:14 am
Last week’s argument in Town of Greece v. Galloway, the challenge to a New York town’s practice of beginning its town council meetings with a prayer, continues to garner coverage and commentary. I provided a Plain English report with audio on the argument for this blog. In his report for The New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen suggests that “it’s possible that the Court will rule narrowly that legislative prayers are fine because of their long historical pedigree, and there is no need to review the content of the prayers as long as all sects are eligible to participate. But it’s also possible, if Kennedy decides this is an opportunity to make clear that he is more concerned about the subtly coercive pressures to pray on children than adults, that the scope of public prayer in America could be significantly expanded.” And at The Economist’s Democracy in America blog, Steven Mazie discusses what he regards as a concession by Douglas Laycock, who argued on behalf of the town residents challenging the prayers, with regard to atheists; Mazie notes that Laycock “is asking the justices to instruct Greece to change its prayer practice in a way that would continue to coercively offend one of his clients. Less Jesus talk might be enough to satisfy Ms Galloway, but Ms Stephens would still be uncomfortable with the more general God talk that would take its place.”
Briefly:
- At ACSblog, J. Amy Dillard discusses Hall v. Florida, in which the Court will consider the constitutionality of Florida’s scheme for identifying death row inmates who are too intellectually disabled to be executed.
- At this blog, Lyle Denniston previews tomorrow’s oral argument in Burrage v. United States, in which the Court will consider what kind of proof is required to secure an enhanced prison sentence for a drug dealer whose customer died after ingesting the drug.
