The Supreme Court next Wednesday will hold a one-hour hearing on the legal rights of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This will be the Court’s fourth full-scale review of legal questions arising out of the Bush Administration’s policy against terrorism, and the continuing legal controversy has grown increasingly complex.

In that light, David H. Remes of Washington’s Covington & Burling, who represents some of the detainees, has prepared the attached chronologies to put next week’s hearing into context. It provides details of the histories of current and prior Supreme Court cases on the subject, satellite cases brought by the prisoners under the Detainee Treatment Act, and a combined chronology. A helpful glossary of abbreviations is at the beginning. Note that some important events appear in more than one chronology.

We have also updated the Boumediene SCOTUSwiki page with Lyle Denniston’s thorough argument preview that discusses the arguments raised by the parties at both the cert. stage and the merits stage. That argument preview is here. Finally, as previously noted, the Court will be releasing same-day audio of oral argument on Wednesday. We will link to the audio stream as soon as it is available.

In a move with potential consequences for the pending case Dada v. Mukasey (06-1181), the Justice Department earlier today published a proposed regulation that, if adopted, would resolve the precise question at issue - i.e. whether the time in which a noncitizen must leave the country under an order of voluntary departure should automatically toll upon the filing of a motion to reopen removal proceedings. In September, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a split between four circuits (the 3rd, 8th, 9th and 11th) that found the deadline should toll and three circuits (the 1st, 4th and 5th) that found it should not. Under the proposed rule, whose entry in the Federal Register discusses the split and grant of certiorari in Dada (see here), any voluntary departure order would simply terminate upon the filing of a motion to reopen or petition for judicial review.

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This edition of “Ask the Author” features a conversation with Richard Lazarus about his new article entitled, “Advocacy Matters Before and Within the Supreme Court: Transforming the Court by Transforming the Bar,” see here. Lazarus’s piece, which is forthcoming in the Georgetown Law Journal, is a very informative analysis of the role of the Supreme Court bar in shaping the work of the Court. Some of our readers may already be familiar with Lazarus as he is the co-director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law Center, see here, which also runs a moot court program for counsel appearing before the Supreme Court. For Part I of the interview, click here, and for Part II, click here.

You argue that the Court’s recent interest in business cases is largely a product of the advocacy of the elite Supreme Court bar. I might counter, however, that that bar has been dominant for the past decade or so, but the Court’s interest in business cases has really grown over the past two Terms. Is it possible that the appointments of Roberts and Alito, rather than the priorities and advocacy of the Supreme Court bar, have been the impetus for much of the renewed interest in business cases?

I think the growth in the Court’s interest in business law is not just something that has happened in the past two Terms, but something that has been gradually growing as the Bar’s influence has been growing. Persuading the Justices that an area of law is of sufficient interest is also something that can require multiple years of effort, including several years of cert denials, until the Court begins to appreciate the numbers of cases and the depth of interest. The Bar has also become far more effective, as it has grown, in using amicus briefs to support its cert petitions.

But, with this said, I don’t question that the new members of the Court, especially the new Chief Justice, have made a difference. The Chief would naturally be more open to concluding that business issues are important having represented those interests as an advocate before the Court and having made some of those same arguments.

But, to me, that possibility does not diminish the significance of the Bar. Just the opposite. It underscores it. The Bar’s rise in prominence has led to the ultimate impact on the Court as one of the Bar’s most accomplished advocates before the Court has now become an advocate within the Court. The President stressed Roberts’ skill as an advocate in nominating him to the Court. After all, he had been a judge for relatively short time, while he had been a widely celebrated Supreme Court advocate for many years.

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On Wednesday, we filed this brief on behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as Amicus Curiae in support of the Petitioner in the case of Ali v. Achim, 06-1346. No argument date has been set, but the case will likely be argued in the February sitting.

The petitioner in the case, Ahmed Ali, is a Somali national who was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee. While living in the U.S., Ali was sentenced to 11 months in prison for battery. The government then initiated proceedings to remove him to Somalia based on his conviction. For more details, the petitioner’s merits brief can be found here; the full questions presented (as printed in the petitioner’s brief) are after the jump.

Our brief on behalf of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees argues that U.S. law incorporates important international principles of non-refoulement - that is, the protection that refugees have from being sent back to a country in which they will be persecuted - which provide that the government not remove petitioner for this type of crime. Drawing on the fifty years of experience supervising refugees around the globe that the UNHCR has, the brief interprets the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (both of which the U.S. is a party to) as compelling an inquiry into whether Petitioner committed a crime that was “exceptionally grave” and whether he poses a “danger to the community” before attempting to remove him to his home country. In this case, the UNHCR argues, neither of these factors applies, and so Mr. Ali should not be returned to Somalia, where he would face a “high risk of persecution” because of his status as a member of a minority clan.

Tom is Counsel of Record, with Elizabeth Dallam and Pamela Goldberg of the UNHCR and Amy Howe of Howe & Russell also on the brief.

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The Justices are scheduled to hold a private conference today, orders from which are expected to be released on Monday. Click here to see our list of “petitions to watch.”

The University of Pennsylvania Law Review Penumbra currently features an online debate between Professors Bradley Smith (Capital University Law School) and Edward Foley (Moritz College of Law-Ohio State University) on voter identification requirements and Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, see here.  The first sentence of the debate sets the stage by quoting SCOTUSblog’s own Lyle Denniston on the importance of the Crawford case.  The debate is well worth reading, particularly for those interested in election law issues.

Bradford Mank (University of Cincinnati College of Law) has posted “Should States have Greater Standing Rights than Ordinary Citizens: Massachusetts v. EPA’s New Standing Test for States” on SSRN, see here.   Professor Mank discusses the impact of the Court’s loosening of the standing requirements for states in the Massachusetts v. EPA decision that the Court decided last Term.  As you may remember, I previously highlighted a paper co-authored by Professors Kathryn Watts (University of Washington School of Law) and Amy Wildermuth (University of Utah-SJ Quinney College of Law) on the non-jurisdictional aspects of the decision in a June academic round-up, see here.

Timothy O’Neill (John Marshall Law School) has posted an interesting new essay on SSRN entitled, “The Stepford Justices: The Need for Experiential Diversity on the Roberts Court,” see here.  Among other things, the essay analyzes the present experiential homogeneity on the Supreme Court–that is, all nine Justices have previously served on the United States Courts of Appeals–and traces it back to the failed nomination of Robert Bork.  O’Neill argues that it is particularly disturbing that none of the current Justices have any prior legislative experience, given that the Court decides the constitutionality of state and federal legislation.  O’Neill is correct that the current batch of Justices is a highly homogeneous group by historical standards.

This edition of “Ask the Author” features a conversation with Richard Lazarus about his new article entitled, “Advocacy Matters Before and Within the Supreme Court: Transforming the Court by Transforming the Bar,” see here. Lazarus’s piece, which is forthcoming in the Georgetown Law Journal, is a very informative analysis of the role of the Supreme Court bar in shaping the work of the Court. Some of our readers may already be familiar with Lazarus as he is the co-director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law Center, see here, which also runs a moot court program for counsel appearing before the Supreme Court. For Part I of the interview, click here.

Do you think that the centralization of the Supreme Court bar has contributed to the decline in the plenary docket? In particular, might it explain the decline in the paid portion of the certiorari docket? If so, why?

Great question. Like others, I am intrigued by the decline in the paid portion of the docket. It seems so counterintuitive in light of the increase in the lower court docket and the rise in the Bar as well. In my article, I discuss both how the Bar has managed to increase despite the shrinking of the plenary docket and how it might have even contributed to the decrease in the number of paid petitions being filed. I have a high degree of confidence in the points I make with regard to the former, especially how a shrinking docket has promoted the expert Bar’s dominance, but not in my latter claim, which is far more speculative and tenuous. This is probably the part of my article in which I am least confident.

In particular, my article suggests that the rise of the Bar may have prompted a decline in the paid docket in two ways: (1) by increasing the number of times when members of the expert Bar counsel clients against filing a petition by providing them with a candid and honest assessment that the case has absolutely no chance of being reviewed; and (2) by raising the price of getting a top notch petition filed – our experts don’t come cheap – and thereby discouraging those who can’t afford that price from purchasing what the market price now suggests is truly a lesser (cheaper) product. I am confident that both of those possibilities sometimes happen and as a result, some petitions are not filed that might otherwise be filed.

Where I am nonetheless plainly on thin ice is by suggesting that this happens enough to overcome pressures from other sources that promote the filing of more paid petitions. I am, however, a strong proponent of legal scholarship floating provocative ideas, even at the risk of their being shot down. Sometimes, they aren’t and further support is offered by others. But even when that does not happen, the resulting discussion is usually valuable and grist for the academic mill.

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No oral arguments are scheduled and no non-capital orders are expected today from the Court.

A massive group of lawsuits, seeking upwards of $400 billion in damages from corporations located in the U.S., Canada and Europe, is on its way to the Supreme Court, surrounded by an intriguing question: has the Court already indicated that the case should not proceed? One federal judge has drawn that conclusion, but others have said that conclusion is premature.

The case is about the harms done by decades of apartheid in South Africa; it was brought in federal court in this country as part of a worldwide movement to hold someone accountable for human rights abuses; closely parallel lawsuits have been pursued — not very successfully — over the wrongs done by slavery in this country. The Second Circuit Court has allowed the apartheid case to move forward — though perhaps not to a full-scale trial on the merits — in the face of vigorous objections by the government of South Africa, with fervent backing from the U.S. government, and opposition, of course, from the businesses involved.

Lawyers for the corporations have begun preparing an appeal to the Supreme Court; the government of South Africa is not a party and thus has no right to appeal. The petition is due at the Court no later than Jan. 10. Preparing the case is complicated, because there are perhaps four dozen companies involved, and coordinating among the clients the arguments to be made may be difficult. The attorneys have not yet decided whether to ask the Justices to postpone the Second Circuit’s Oct. 12 ruling; the Circuit Court itself, in a 2-1 ruling on Nov. 9, refused to stay its decision. The judge in dissent urged lawyers to rush the case on to the Supreme Court, so that it might be decided this Term.

The dissenting judge, U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman of Brooklyn (sitting on the Circuit Court by special assignment), said the Supreme Court had already telegraphed its skepticism about this case and thus had indicated it may well agree to hear the companies’ appeal seeking to head off further development of the case. Judge Korman was citing a highly unusual footnote in the Court’s June 2004 decision in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (docket 03-339). The main ruling of Oct. 12 and Judge Korman’s dissent can be found here, and Tuesday’s opinion explaining its Nov. 9 denial of a stay, with Korman again dissenting, is here. The lead case is Khulumani v. Barclay Nat’l Bank (Circuit docket 05-2141).  The litigation had been dismissed by a U.S. District judge five months after the Supreme Court’s Sosa decision, relying heavily upon that ruling. But the Second Circuit has now revived the lawsuit, insisting it was not ruling on the merits of any part of it.

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This edition of “Ask the Author” features a conversation with Richard Lazarus about his new article entitled, “Advocacy Matters Before and Within the Supreme Court: Transforming the Court by Transforming the Bar,” see here. Lazarus’s piece, which is forthcoming in the Georgetown Law Journal, is a very informative analysis of the role of the Supreme Court bar in shaping the work of the Court. Some of our readers may already be familiar with Lazarus as he is the co-director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law Center, see here, which also runs a moot court program for counsel appearing before the Supreme Court. For Part II of the interview, click here.

What was your motivation for studying the influence of experienced advocates before the Supreme Court? Was your data consistent with your expectations prior to commencing the project?

The research for this article originated in an article I was researching on the 14 Supreme Court cases concerned with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), because I have long been intrigued by the fact that environmentalists have not been the petitioner in any of the cases, the government has won every time, and the environmentalists have not even obtained a single vote from a Justice since 1976. To try to discover what happened, I reviewed all the jurisdictional and merits briefs and oral argument transcripts filed in not only those cases but in the far greater number of cases in which the Court denied review. I also read the available papers of Justices Blackmun, Brennan, Douglas, and Powell pertaining to all of these cases, including pool memos, bench memos, argument notes, draft opinions. What I discovered was what a big difference good advocacy made in those cases, including advocacy made by advocates before the Court, knowing what arguments to press and which ones to discard, and by Justices acting as advocates within the Court, especially Rehnquist who was especially effective and Douglas who was especially ineffective.

That research prompted me to switch gears in mid-stream and to consider whether the rise of the modern Supreme Court Bar was similarly having an impact on the Court’s docket and its decisionmaking. For the NEPA cases, the expert advocates before the Court were primarily the SG’s Office representing federal agencies. What I wanted to consider was whether the rise of a modern private sector expert Supreme Court Bar in the past couple decades meant that the Bar’s clients were experiencing disproportionate success. My expectation was that they were enjoying such success based on my observations of the outstanding quality of the work of their counsel. And, I expected that the impact would be potentially far greater at the cert stage than on the merits.

I was surprised therefore not by the conclusions that I ended up drawing after closer examination of the data, but on the extent of the impact. I did not fully appreciate the extent to which the Bar had grown and was dominating advocacy before the Court. And, I far underestimated their success at the cert stage. Also surprising to me was how the Bar’s dominance seemed to be dramatically increasing even as I studied it during the past couple years.

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New briefs filed after the Supreme Court had heard argument in a significant case on federal judges’ power to second-guess arbitrators’ awards have opened up a new layer of dispute, potentially complicating the Court’s coming decision. The new controversy resulted from the Court’s Nov. 16 order adding three new legal issues for lawyers to address in post-hearing briefs in Hall Street Associates v. Mattel, Inc. (06-989).

Mattel, which wants its original victory in arbitration to be made final, argued that the case must rise or fall on the meaning of the Federal Arbitration Act — a law that strictly limits judicial review of arbitration awards. But Hall Street Associates, which took the case to the Supreme Court in hopes of having the award in favor of Mattel undone, argued that federal judges have at least two other sources of authority allowing them to move beyond the FAA’s tight curb on their review powers.

During the Court’s hearing on the case on Nov. 7, an issue arose over whether the case was only about the FAA. The Court then followed up the hearing with an order for further briefing on whether there were other sources of law that bore on federal judges’ powers to react to arbitration awards, whether the two sides in this dispute had relied upon that authority in agreeing to arbitration, and whether Hall Street Associates had waived any such authority. Read the rest of this entry »

The transcript of today’s argument in Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transport Assn. (06-457) is now available here.

At 10 a.m, the Court is scheduled to hear argument in Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transport Assn. (06-457), asking whether the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act preempts a Maine state law meant to block the delivery of tobacco purchased over the Internet to teenagers. Paul Stern of the Maine Attorney General’s office will argue for the petitioner, and Beth Brinkmann of Washington, D.C., and Douglas Hallward-Driemeier of the Solicitor General’s office will argue for the respondent. Click here for more on the case at SCOTUSwiki.

We will post a copy of the argument transcript as soon as it becomes available.

The transcript of today’s argument in Knight v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (06-1286) is now available here.

The transcript of today’s argument in New Jersey v. Delaware (134 Original) is now available here.

The Supreme Court will release promptly the audiotape of the oral argument on Wednesday, Dec. 5, in the two cases testing the legal rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. U.S., 06-1196).  The hearing is to begin at 10 a.m.; the tape will be made available for media and public access shortly after the argument concludes — that is, sometime soon after 11 a.m.  The Court’s press release discussing access can be found here.

 As usual, the written transcript of the argument will be available by early afternoon.  It will be posted on this site when available.

At 10 a.m, the Court is scheduled to hear argument in Knight v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (06-1286), asking whether fees paid to financial advisers are fully deductible from the income of a trust or estate. Peter J. Rubin of Washington, D.C., will argue for the petitioner, and Eric D. Miller of the Solicitor General’s office will argue for the respondent. Click here for more on the case on SCOTUSwiki.

At 11 a.m., the Court is scheduled to hear argument in New Jersey v. Delaware (134 Original), asking whether, under a century-old compact between the two states, New Jersey may authorize the construction of a natural gas facility along its side of the Delaware River. H. Bartow Farr of Washington, D.C., will argue for the petitioner, and David C. Frederick of Washington, D.C., will argue for the respondent. Click here for more on the case on SCOTUSwiki.

We will post links to the argument transcripts as soon as they are available.

Note: The following argument recap is by Paul Secunda of the University of Mississippi School of Law and Workplace Prof Blog, where this entry is cross-posted.  The SCOTUSwiki page for this case, with more links and documents, is here.

As Rick pointed out this past weekend, the highly-anticipated ERISA case of LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Assoc. was argued today in front of the Supreme Court.  This is a case which will help define a 401(k) pension plan holder’s right to sue plan administrators for breach of fiduciary duty. More specifically, the case may shine much needed light on the scope of relief available to employees under Sections 502(a)(2) and 502(a)(3) of ERISA.

Below are my initial thoughts on the oral argument today in the case based upon an analysis of the oral transcript.   (Full disclosure: I was one of eleven law professors who signed an amicus brief supporting LaRue’s opposition to DeWolff’s motion to dismiss. I  hope, however, that this fact does not cloud my analysis of the oral argument).

1.  Peter Stris, a law professor at Whittier, went first.  He put forward his “straightforward” argument: “The plain meaning of ‘any losses to the plan’ includes any diminution in value of defined contribution plan assets, regardless of the number of participants ultimately affected.” FWIW, that sounds right to me.

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The following column, featuring a selected petition up for consideration at the Justices’ private conference on November 30, appears in today’s edition of Legal Times (available to subscribers here). To see the full list of “petitions to watch” for Friday’s conference, click here.

Conference Call: GOP Spying Case Heads to Supreme Court

Justices asked to decide whether nearly $1 million in civil penalties against House Democrat should stand

In 1998, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) filed what is believed to be the first lawsuit against a fellow member of Congress. The target was Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), who during the previous year had shared with reporters a tape of an embarrassing phone call involving Republican Party leaders originally recorded by a Florida couple using a police scanner from RadioShack.

While the making of the recording violated federal law, McDermott, who had merely received a copy of the conversation, has consistently maintained that the First Amendment protected his right to pass its contents along. Now, more than a decade after the original conference phone call - and more than six years after the Supreme Court remanded the case in light of another decision - the justices will decide on Nov. 30 whether to settle the matter once and for all. (The petition is No. 07-439, McDermott v. Boehner.)

The call in question occurred in 1996, just hours before then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted wrongdoing in a House ethics subcommittee probe. In lieu of embarrassing hearings, members agreed to accept Gingrich’s mea culpa on the condition that Gingrich not launch a counterattack against the committee itself. On a December morning in Florida, however, John and Alice Martin overheard a conference call involving Boehner, who was talking on a nearby cell phone; Gingrich; and other Republican leaders orchestrating the GOP’s response to the charges.

Recognizing Gingrich’s voice, the couple recorded the conversation and, less than three weeks later, arrived in Washington to give it to McDermott, then the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee. Presented in a sealed envelope, the tape came with an attached letter stating that the call was “heard over a scanner” and indicating the couple’s belief that they would be granted immunity for turning it over. After listening to the tape, McDermott played it for reporters from The New York Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution, while insisting they not name him in their stories.

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A copy of today’s orders is available here.

UPDATED to 10:45 a.m.

The Supreme Court on Monday turned aside an appeal  by six welfare recipients in San Diego, seeking to challenge the constitutionality of a requirement that all applicants for public assistance allow a search of their homes as a condition for eligibility. The Court made no comment as it denied the appeal in Sanchez, et al., v. San Diego County, et al. (07-211). The case involved a program adopted in 1997 by San Diego County’s district attorney’s office, requiring consent for a home visit by the office’s fraud investigators. The Ninth Circuit Court upheld the policy.

The Court also refused to return to the continuing controversy over the government’s legal or constitutional obligation to allow faith-based groups to take part equally in state-funded programs. The Court denied review of Teen Ranch, Inc., et al., v. Udow, et al. (07-362), a test of the cutoff of participation in a state program in Michigan for a residential treatment center for troubled youth in Kingston, Mich.  State courts ruled that the center could be denied further state placements of youths because it could not assure that youths could “opt out” of religious-based activity.

Those cases were among a list of denials of review in pending cases.  As expected, the Court granted no new cases for review.  The Orders List showed no action on an appeal by five Washington, D.C., residents seeking to loosen restrictions on individuals’ right to bring constitutional challenges to laws before they are actually enforced. The case, Parker, et al., v. District of Columbia, et al. (07-335), is a companion to the District of Columbia’s appeal on the scope of the Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms.”  The city’s appeal (District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290), was granted last Tuesday, and is expected to be heard in March.  The Court may be holding the appeal in Parker until Heller is decided.

 Among other issues denied review on Monday were these:

**  Whether the Fifth Circuit Court should have vacated a federal judge’s decision, after it had become moot, requiring  Harris County, Texas, to remove a monument that stood outside the Civil Courts Building in Houston because the monument had an open Bible displayed in a chamber on top. The case became moot when the structure was put into storage during extensive renovation of the building. (Harris County v. Staley, 07-100)

**Whether a police officer’s claim of immunity to a civil rights lawsuit may be denied on an evenly split decision of an en banc federal appeals court. The appeal argued that a constitutional right cannot be “clearly established,” thus requiring police to be aware of it, when an en banc court divides evenly on the question. A deputy sheriff in White County, Ark., was seeking in the appeal to head off a civil rights damages lawsuit claiming he used “excessive force” in applying handcuffs to a suspect arrested after a fight at a demolition derby track. (Edwards v. Kenyon, 07-130)

** Whether the Court would extend constitutional protection against politically-motivated firing of public employees to situations where the employee personally takes no political position or action. The case arose in Mineral County, W.Va., when a court clerk was fired because her adult son ran for office against an incumbent clerk for another court in the same courthouse. (Smith v. Frye, 07-360).

At 10 a.m., the Court is scheduled to hear argument in Larue v. DeWolff (06-856), asking whether ERISA provides private causes of action for plan participants alleging fiduciary breaches. Peter K. Stris of Costa Mesa, Calif., and Matthew D. Roberts of the Solicitor General’s office will argue for the petitioner, and Thomas P. Gies of Washington, D.C., will argue for the respondent. For a full preview of the argument, check out the case page here on SCOTUSwiki.

In advance of the argument, the Court is expected to release remaining orders from the November 20 conference (see here for the initial round of orders released last Tuesday).

On Monday, the Court is scheduled to hear argument in Larue v. DeWolff (06-856), asking whether ERISA provides private causes of action for plan participants alleging fiduciary breaches. In advance of the argument, the Court is expected to release remaining orders from the November 20 conference (see here for the initial round of orders released last Tuesday).

On Tuesday, the Court is scheduled to hear argument in Knight v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (06-1286), asking whether fees paid to financial advisers are fully deductible from the income of a trust or estate, and in New Jersey v. Delaware (134 Original), asking whether, under a century-old compact between the two states, New Jersey may authorize the construction of a natural gas facility along its side of the Delaware River over Delaware’s objection.

On Wednesday, the Court is scheduled to hear argument in Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transport Assn. (06-457), asking whether the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act preempts a Maine state law meant to block the delivery of tobacco purchased over the Internet to teenagers.

(All case names link to argument previews on SCOTUSwiki.)

On Friday, the Justices are scheduled to hold a private conference, orders from which could be released as soon as the following Monday, Dec. 3. Click here for our list of petitions to watch at Friday’s conference.

The petitioner’s brief is due Thursday in Cuellar v. United States (06-1456). No respondents’ briefs are due this week. If filed, the reply brief is due Tuesday in Snyder v. Louisiana (06-10119). Supplement briefs are due Tuesday in Hall Street Assoc. v. Mattel (06-989), a case argued Nov. 7. (See here for a discussion of the new issues to be briefed.)

Two seasoned advocates at the Supreme Court’s bar will argue the cases testing the legal rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees, set for a one-hour hearing at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 5.  For the detainees will be former U.S. Solicitor General Seth P. Waxman, now a Washington private attorney, and arguing for the government will be the current Solicitor General, Paul D. Clement.  The cases are Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. U.S., 06-1196.  A report on the case when the Court granted review can be found here at ScotusWiki.

 The list of counsel appearing in the eight cases in the November-December sitting can be downloaded here.

No oral arguments are scheduled and no non-capital orders are expected to be released from the Court today.

The Court is closed today for Thanksgiving.