Continuing our examination of the “shortlist” candidates to replace Justice David H. Souter, below is a profile of Seventh Circuit Judge Diane P. Wood and brief analysis of how her opinions have intersected with the Supreme Court’s decisions. [Embedded links direct to document files and relevant news articles.]

Articulating her understanding of constitutional interpretation in a lecture entitled, “Our 18th Century Constitution in the 21st Century World,” Seventh Circuit Judge Diane P. Wood laid out her view that judges should not confine their interpretation of the Constitution to the narrowest reading of the text. Rather, the Framers understood that courts would find “unwritten” law that allowed the text to adapt to contemporary needs: “[t]here is no more reason to think that they expected the world to remain static than there is to think that any of us holds a crystal ball. The only way to create a foundational document that could stand the test of time was to build in enough flexibility that later generations would be able to adapt it to their own needs and uses.”

As an articulate proponent for a dynamic Constitution, Wood could provide the Supreme Court with a counterpoint to conservative jurisprudence of the right. In her 14 years on the Seventh Circuit, Wood has often played that role with respect to her conservative colleagues Justices Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook.  She has written over 50 dissents and concurrences and joined dozens more.

Wood, 58, was appointed by President Clinton in 1995 and became the second woman on the Seventh Circuit. She was recommended for the bench by late Illinois Senator Paul Simon and received a “well qualified” rating by the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary. A transcript of her nomination hearing and her nomination questionnaire can be found here.

Wood’s nomination would maintain a Supreme Court composed entirely of former federal judges. But she came to the appellate court from academic roots: she has taught at University of Chicago Law School since 1981, served as its the associate dean for three years, and was for a time the only woman on the faculty. Her tenure at Chicago overlapped with President Obama’s lecturer position there. With an academic background primarily in antitrust law and international finance, she might assist the Court as it answers legal questions emerging from the global economic crisis and the Department of Justice’s increased efforts at antitrust enforcement.

Wood would bring some geographic and educational diversity to the bench: eight of the nine current Justices attended Harvard or Yale and seven of the nine served on East Coast circuits. Calling Texas her “adoptive home state” (she moved at age 16), Wood received her undergraduate and law degrees from University of Texas, Austin, graduating from the law school with high honors in 1975. She clerked for the Attorney General of Texas during law school and for Judge Irving L. Goldberg of the Fifth Circuit upon graduating. She then clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun in the 1976 term.

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AP writer Pete Yost reports here that BCI Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Los Angeles asked the Supreme Court to dismiss its case today.

At FindLaw, Edward Lazarus has this essay discussing the role of the justices in the context of the Massachusetts v. EPA decision. Yesterday, Deborah Zabarenko of Reuters had this article discussing the EPA’s new renewable fuel standards and its response to the Court’s recent ruling on carbon emissions. At the WSJ.com Washington Wire blog, Maya Jackson Randall reports here on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s visit to Washington and his thoughts on the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision.

Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy has this post on the California Supreme Court’s application of the High Court’s 2002 Atkins decision. Berman also has this post pointing to Jonathan Mitchell’s new paper entitled “Apprendi’s Domain.”

Earlier this week, Florida International Law Professor Howard Wasserman had this commentary at FindLaw on the Court’s decision in Wallace v. Kato.

Jim Puzzanghera has this article in today’s LA Times on Microsoft v. AT&T; Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal reports here; and in today’s Washington Post, Robert Barnes and Alan Sipress report here.

At Slate, Douglas Kmiec has this piece on the Philip Morris decision; this editorial on the ruling runs in today’s LA Times.

Also in the LA Times, Andrew B. Coan reports here on Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, which will be argued next Wednesday, and this article discusses a Kentucky municipal bond tax case that the Court may decide to hear.

At the Bankruptcy Litigation Blog, Steve Jakubowski has this post on the Marrama decision; Todd Zywicki of Volokh Conspiracy discusses the Court’s opinion here.

This month’s edition of the Yale Law School Opening Argument has this debate entitled, “Is the Military Commissions Act Wise?” Additionally, this editorial (subscription req’d) in today’s Wall Street Journal discusses the Supreme Court’s role in reviewing this law.

Finally, Kent Scheidegger of Crime & Consequences has this post on the Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Florida and this post on the decision in Wallace v. Kato.

AP writer Mark Sherman has this article on the decision in Wallace v. Kato. AP writer Pete Yost reports here on the ruling in Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts. Yost also has this report on yesterday’s decision in Lawrence v. Florida.

Peter Kaplan of Reuters has this article on today’s oral argument in Microsoft v. AT&T. CNET News.com’s Anne Broach reports here on the patent case heard before the Supreme Court this morning. Christopher S. Rugaber has this report at Forbes.com; Ashby Jones has this post at the WSJ.com Law Blog; and Dennis Crouch reports here at Patently-O.

In today’s New York Sun, Joseph Goldstein reports here on the Court’s decision to grant review of New York State Board of Elections v.Torres. Linda Greenhouse has this article in the New York Times on the Court’s decision to review how the state of New York selects judicial candidates.

Heather Won Tesoriero of the WSJ.com Law Blog has this post on Andrew Frey and Andrew Pincus, both attorneys at Mayer Brown who won victories in the Supreme Court yesterday.

Mark H. Anderson of MarketWatch has this article on the Court’s decision yesterday in Weyerhauser. Ethan Leib of PrawfsBlawg weighs in here on the Philip Morris decision; Mark Moller of the CATO Institute has this analysis at CATO@Liberty. For more on the Philip Morris decision, Howard Bashman of How Appealing gathers reports and analysis here.

Finally, at Workplace Prof Blog Paul Secunda has this post on LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg, and Assoc., an ERISA case that will be considered during an upcoming conference.

The decision in Wallace v. Kato, 05-1240, is here.

The decision in Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts, 05-996, is here.

The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that an individual filing a civil rights lawsuit claiming a false arrest by police must sue within a time period that begins to run at the time of detention, not after any resulting conviction or sentence has been overturned. This requires plaintiffs to file considerably earlier than they would have preferred, and perhaps before their claim has matured or been strengthened through a successful appeal of a conviction.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. There were two Justices in partial dissent. The case was Wallace v. Kato (05-1240, download here). In that case, the statute of limitations for filing a civil rights claim was two years, under Illinois law.

The false arrest claim in the civil rights lawsuit by Andre Wallace of Chicago had its origin, the Court ruled, when he appeared before a magistrate after his arrest and was bound over for trial. More than two years elapsed between that date and the day he filed his lawsuit, and thus, the Court decided, the lawsuit was too late.

The Scalia opinion was supported by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and by Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas. Justice John Paul Stevens joined in the result only, along with Justice David H. Souter. Justice Stephen G. Breyer dissented, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In the only other decision on the merits Wednesday, the Court ruled by a 5-4 vote that the right in the Bankruptcy Code to convert a Chapter 7 case into a Chapter 13 proceeding is not absolute, and may be forfeited. In the case of Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts (05-996, download here), the Court ruled that a Gloucester, Mass., man, Robert Louis Marrama, had forfeited his right to convert his bankruptcy case because he did not qualify as a debtor under Chapter 13.

Both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 allow an individual who has become insolvent to have some debts erased in order to help begin a fresh start. Chapter 7 allows some debts to be excused after a trustee has liquidated the assets and distributed the proceeds to creditors. The trustee in that situation controls the assets. Chapter 13 allows an individual with regular income to have some debts excused after completing a debt-payment plan approved by the bankruptcy court; in that situation, the debtor retains possession of the property.

Lower courts have been divided on whether a debtor who acts in bad faith during a Chapter 13 proceeding by concealing assets forfeits the right to convert to such a proceeding. Some courts have said that even a bad-faith debtor has a right to convert. The Court on Wednesday rejected that view.

In the case of Marrama, the Gloucester businessman (he had been in the flooring business) had sought an increase in a line of credit from a bank to deal with cash flow problems. The bank refused, and called in its debts. He was then unemployed and had no income, and had shut down his business. He filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 7.

He later got a job in his brother’s flooring business, and had regular income. He then sought to convert his bankruptcy case to Chapter 13 to try to salvage his interest in homes in Gloucester and in Maine. The trustee and the bank objected, contending that Marrama had put his Maine property in a trust to shield it from creditors. The bankruptcy court denied conversion, and that was upheld on appeal by the First Circuit Court. That result was affirmed by the Supreme Court in the opinion written by Justice Stevens.

Joining in the majority were Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy and Souter. Justice Alito dissented, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Thomas.

The Supreme Court on Monday released the argument calendar for its November sitting, which actually begins on Oct. 30. The official calendar can be found here. (The arguments in October, the first sitting of the Term, can be found here.)

Two of the major cases of the Term — two U.S. government appeals on the constitutionality of the federal ban on so-called “partial-birth” abortions — are scheduled for back-to-back argument on Wed., Nov. 8 — one day after election day, when a key test of voter sentiment on the future of abortion rights is on the ballot in South Dakota.

Here are the scheduled cases, with a brief description of the issues involved:

Monday, Oct. 30:
Osborn v. Haley (05-593) — immunity of federal employees to private lawsuits
Jones v. Bock and Williams v. Overton (05-7058 and 05-7142) — scope of exhaustion of remedies duty under Prison Litigation Reform Act (Consolidated, l hour hearing)

Tuesday, Oct. 31:
Philip Morris USA v. Williams (05-1256) — standards for punitive damage awards for corporate wrongdoing
Lawrence v. Florida (05-8820) — – suspension of habeas filing deadline while petition for certiorari is pendng

Wednesday, Nov. 1:
Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy Corp. (05-848) — permit standards under Clean Air Act; also, proper court venue for Clean Air Act appeals
Whorton v. Bocking (05-595) — retroactivity of Crawford v. Washington on admission of out-of-court statements

Monday, Nov. 6:
Marrama v. Citizens Bank (05-996) — right to convert Chapter 7 bankruptcy to Chapter 13
Wallace v. Kato (05-1240) — time for filing damages lawsuit based on false arrest claim

Tuesday, Nov. 7:
James v. U.S. (05-9264) — attempted burglary as a “violent felony” under Armed Career Criminal Act
Burton v. Waddington (05-9222) — retroactivity of Blakely v.Wahington on state criminal sentencing guidelines

Wednesday, Nov. 8:
Gonzales v. Carhart (05-380) — constitutionality of federal ban on “partial-birth” abortion (Eighth Circuit case)
Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood (05-1382) — same issue, along with separate questions on remedy and on vagueness (Ninth Circuit case)