Thursday Round-up

Following yesterday’s release of ten new cases the Court agreed to hear at conference on Tuesday, the media is abuzz with coverage of the expanded OT09 docket.

The center of attention is McDonald v. Chicago, a case challenging a Chicago handgun ban on Second Amendment grounds.  The Court now has the opportunity to decide whether the individual right to bear arms it declared in DC v. Heller last year applies against city and state governments.  The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the National Law Journal cover the cert. grants, focusing on McDonald.  Observers predict that the Court, led by the five justices of the Heller majority, are likely to strike down the gun law and “incorporate” the Second Amendment against local governments.  All note that Justice Sotomayor sat on a similar case before the Second Circuit that concluded only that the Supreme Court alone could decide that issue.

Continuing this week’s discussion of how the Court could incorporate the Second Amendment, which now may happen in McDonald, ACSblog interviews the Constitutional Accountability Center’s Doug Kendall, who says the privileges and immunities clause is one option.  Kurt Lash at PrawfsBlog points out the difference between the Article IV “privileges and immunities” clauses and the Section I “privileges or immunities” clause.  At Sentencing Law and Policy, Doug Berman initially questions whether the Court could make a good legal argument for not incorporating the Second Amendment.  David Kopel at Volokh Conspiracy posts some notable scholarship on the issue.

The Los Angeles Times considers how a ruling against the government in McDonald could spawn lawsuits across the United States in cities with hand gun laws.  Yet, the National Law Journal doubts that an incorporation decision would touch many local gun regulations that fall short of outright bans.

The BLT has an overview of other major cases the Court agreed to hear, including Lewis v. Chicago, the first employment law case of this term, and Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, a case testing the constitutionality of criminalizing “material support” to foreign groups labeled terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.  David Savage at the Los Angeles Times further discusses Lewis, a firefighter discrimination case related to last term’s Ricci v. DeStefano.  At issue is how long workers have to file a discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.  CrimProf Blog highlights the new cert. grants involving criminal law and procedure.  The New York Times (AP) reports on other cases granted cert. that escaped the limelight: here, on Migliaccio v. Castaneda and Henneford v. Castaneda, two cases seeking to hold the government liable for medical negligence toward a federal prisoner; here, on Berghuis v. Smith, asking for the reversal of a black man’s murder conviction by an all-white jury; here, on Berghuis v. Thompkins, arguing that a prisoner who remains silent invokes his Miranda rights by default; and, here, on Carr v. United States, asking whether sex offenders who didn’t register with state officials before harsher punishments went into effect can still be sentenced to extra time in prison.

The Los Angeles Times opinion page hosts the latest installment in a debate on Salazar v. Buono between U.C. Irvine Professor Erwin Chemerinsky and Joseph Infranco, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund.  Cherminsky argues that a reasonable viewer who sees a distant cross on public land would interpret it as a symbol of government endorsing religion.  Infranco counters that an informed viewer would see the cross, long used as a symbol to honor military casualties, as an historical war memorial.

CrimProf Blog continues the blog discussion of Maryland v. Shatzer, a case on the Miranda right to counsel, to be argued on Monday.  Donald Dripps and Yale Kamizar trace the incremental expansion of Miranda rights since Edwards v. Arizona in 1981.  But they expect the Court to stop short this term, limiting the time required between a prisoner’s assertion of his right to counsel and questioning by the police absent counsel.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that the Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the 9^th Circuit by former Alaskan Representative Bruce Weyhrauch, who is awaiting trial for mail fraud under the “honest services” statute used to convict former Governor Rod Blagojevich.  The move is a rare one for the Court, which rarely intervenes in a criminal case until after trial.

A new public opinion poll sponsored by C-SPAN finds that 88% of Americans believe the Supreme Court has a “big impact” on their everyday lives.  At the same time, only 49% could name one case decided by the Court, and the vast majority of those could name only Roe v. Wade.  The poll covered contentious Court topics from life tenure to televised oral arguments.  Watch an interview with the pollster here.

Again at Sentencing Law and Policy, Doug Berman links the recent explosion of media attention on life sentences for juveniles to the Court’s decision to consider the life without parole sentences in Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida.  Berman lists 14 recent articles and blog posts on juvenile sentencing.