Blog Round-Up

[Note: This post was authored by Stacey R. Moore, a summer associate at Akin Gump.]

Sentencing Law & Policy has several posts on the Court’s decisions yesterday in House v. Bell and Hill v. McDonough, including reactions from Doug Berman and Deborah Denno to the Court’s decision in Hill; reactions from Rory Little to the Court’s decision in House; and summaries (here and here) of developments at the Court yesterday. SL&P also has coverage of yesterday’s cert. grant in James v. United States, as well as this post on Justice Thomas’s dissent from the denial of cert. in three cases raising the Almendarez-Torres issue and this post regarding yesterday’s sentencing developments at the Court.

PrawfsBlawg has this post on the Supreme Court’s ruling in House v. Bell.

Here, Orin Kerr has a post on “Two New Death Penalty Decisions: Hill v. McDonough and House v. Bell.”

On a lighter note, as the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog reports, it looks like the Justices have been busy recently. The blog has this post identifying Justice Scalia as a part of the fashion police. At a recent reception honoring one of his former law clerks, Justice Scalia ribbed about the color of the vest that Solicitor General Clement wears to the court. There is also a post about Justice Kennedy’s recent commencement address at NYU, where he spoke about the potable water shortage in Africa. Finally, would you like your wedding to be officiated by a Supreme Court Justice? Well, that is just what Justice Alito did on Saturday evening for one of his current law clerks in New York (here).

U.S. News and World Report has this article on affirmative action and the Court’s decision to hear a case this fall regarding the role of race in elementary and high school placements.