Tuesday round-up

Today the justices return after a three-week break to hear oral arguments in two criminal cases. First up is Currier v. Virginia, which asks what happens to a defendant’s double jeopardy protections when he consents to sequential trials for multiple, overlapping offenses. Lissa Griffin previewed the case for this blog. Amanda Wong and Jared Ham offer a preview at Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute. Counting to 5 (podcast) provides another preview of Currier and, in a second episode, a look ahead at all this week’s cases. The George Washington Law Review’s On the Docket blog previews all the cases in the February argument sitting.

This morning’s second case is City of Hays v. Vogt, which asks whether a probable-cause hearing is part of a criminal case within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination clause. Rory Little has this blog’s preview. Madeline Horn and Conley Wouters preview the case for Cornell.

Briefly:

• At Constitution Daily, Lyle Denniston notes that the justices left for the President’s Day weekend without ruling on the federal government’s request that they review a lower-court decision preventing the federal government from dismantling the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and offers “some … possible explanations for what is going on at the Court, and why each might or might not occur.”
• At PBS News Hour, Marcia Coyle highlights “three cases to watch closely” in the oral argument session that begins today.
• At the Heritage Foundation’s SCOTUS 101 podcast, Elizabeth Slattery and Tiffany Bates “preview cases coming up at SCOTUS this spring: free speech, internet sales tax, administrative law judges, and more.”
• At the Associated Press, Jessica Gresko looks at Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, which asks whether a Minnesota law banning political apparel at polling places violates the First Amendment.
• For The New York Times, Adam Liptak considers the factors that may influence the timing of a Supreme Court justice’s decision to retire.
• For New York Magazine, Jill Abramson revisits the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas in light of the #MeToo movement.
• Subscript offers a graphic explainer for Marbury v. Madison, connecting that seminal case to several cases on this term’s docket.
• At Empirical SCOTUS, Adam Feldman surveys the cases in which the court “has ruled a statute unconstitutional and/or has overturned its own precedent … since the 2000 term” and identifies the interest groups that “were clearly dominant in filing briefs on behalf of winning sides in these cases.”
• At The World and Everything In It (podcast), Mary Reichard discusses the oral arguments in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, Hall v. Hall and Encino Motorcars v. Navarro.
• For Capitol Media Services (via Tucson.com), Howard Fischer reports that “Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is getting no help from the Trump administration in his last-ditch bid to deny driver’s licenses to ‘dreamers,’” and that “the Department of Justice is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject his plea.”
• At the Florida Court Review, John Cavaliere highlights the cert petition and stay application of a Florida death-row inmate whose execution is scheduled for this week.
• At the Maryland Appellate Blog, Michael Wein looks at a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit that deepens the circuit split in Republic of Sudan v. Harrison, a cert petition involving the procedures used to serve process in the United States on a foreign nation, on which the court has asked the federal government to weigh in.
• At Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost maintains that as Justice Anthony Kennedy “marks the end of his thirtieth year as a Supreme Court justice,” Kennedy’s precedent-setting or -breaking opinions on issues ranging from abortion, affirmative action, capital punishment, and gay rights to campaign finance and religious liberty represent a monumental legacy that marks him as the most consequential justice of his time on the Court.”

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