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Invitations to the Solicitor General and a Dissent from the Denial of Cert.

The Court asked for the views of the government in 2 cases today:

No. 04-621, Public Util. Dist. No. 1 v. Dynegy Power Marketing, a case involving the filed-rate doctrine.

No. 04-805, Texaco v. Dagher and Nos. 04-815, Shell Oil Co. v. Dagher, a case we’ve noted before regarding joint ventures and antitrust liability.

Separately, Justice Breyer noted that he would have granted cert. in No. 04-7507, Lewis v. California. This is a capital case from California. We haven’t seen the petition, but would wager that Justice Breyer’s dissent arises from the last issue considered by the California S. Ct. — whether the 15 year delay between the petitioner’s arrest and the California Supreme Court’s ruling (and hence the delay in his execution) is unconstitutional.