Wednesday round-up
on Apr 22, 2015 at 7:13 am
Yesterday morning the Court issued two opinions in argued cases. In Rodriguez v. United States, the Court held that police officers cannot prolong a traffic stop just to perform a search for drugs using a specially trained dog. Rory Little covered the decision for this blog; other coverage comes from Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal and NPR’s Nina Totenberg. Commentary comes from Kent Scheidegger at Crime and Consequences, Noah Feldman at Bloomberg View, Mark Joseph Stern at Slate, and Lisa Soronen at the International Municipal Lawyers Association’s Appellate Practice Blog.
The Court also issued its opinion in ONEOK v. Learjet, holding that state-law antitrust claims by purchasers of natural gas against the interstate pipelines from which they purchase the gas are not within the field of matters preempted by the Natural Gas Act. Steven Wildberger covered the decision for JURIST, with commentary coming from Daniel Fisher at Forbes.
The Court also heard oral arguments yesterday in McFadden v. United States, in which it is considering the mens rea requirement for federal narcotics cases. Coverage comes from Tony Mauro for the Supreme Court Brief (subscription required) and Jaclyn Belczyk for JURIST, while at ISCOTUSnow Edward Lee predicts the winner in the case based on the number of questions for each side.
Coverage and commentary continue to focus on the upcoming arguments in the challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage. At Education Week (registration required), Mark Walsh reports on the school-related issues in the case; commentary comes from Steven Mazie at The Economist’s Democracy in America blog, Walter Schumm and Jason Carroll at Public Discourse, David Gans at the Constitutional Accountability Center’s Text and History Blog, and Gary Gates at Zócalo Public Square.
Briefly:
- At the Blog of Legal Times, Tony Mauro reports on the announcement that Justice Stephen Breyer is working on a new book, “on the increasingly global scope of the work of the high court.”
- On May 15, retired Justice John Paul Stevens will speak at the Sports Lawyers Association Annual Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.
[Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the petitioner in McFadden and served as counsel on an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in ONEOK. However, I am not associated with the firm.]
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