Monday round-up

By Adam Chandler
on Aug 29, 2011 at 8:28 am

The repercussions of several recent high-profile Court decisions are in the news. The New York Times examines “the increasingly blurry line between presidential candidates and the so-called Super PACs that have proliferated” in the wake of the Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC. In the Los Angeles Times, David Savage reports on the litigation that has followed the Court’s decisions striking down handgun bans in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago; in two pending petitions, gun rights advocates have asked the Court to “correct the widespread misapprehension that the 2nd Amendment’s scope does not extend beyond the home.”  And in the Dealbook blog of the New York Times, Stephen Lubben discusses the prospect that the Court’s recent ruling in Stern v. Marshall will “upend a great deal of routine bankruptcy practice.”

Also, SCOTUSblog’s symposium on same-sex marriage added two posts on Friday, from Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School and Deborah Hellman of the University of Maryland. The entire symposium can be found here.

Here is the rest of the weekend’s Court coverage, in brief:

• At Balkinization, Josh Hafetz previews five “war on terror” cases that are “now working their way through the lower courts [and] may soon end up on the Supreme Court’s doorstep.” In each, an American citizen alleges torture and abuse while in illegal U.S. detention.

• The Washington Post editorial board marks the back-to-school season with praise for last Term’s ruling in J.D.B. v. North Carolina, in which the Court held that a child’s age is relevant to determining whether the child is “in custody” for Miranda purposes.

• UPI covers the American Bar Association’s amicus brief in Smith v. Cain, a case scheduled for oral argument on November 8, which asks the Court to broaden the rule requiring prosecutors to disclose mitigating evidence. (See Thursday’s round-up for additional coverage of the brief.)

• SCOTUSblog and the Blog of LegalTimes report that O’Melveny & Myers partner Sri Srinivasan has been named Principal Deputy Solicitor General.

• David Bernstein of the Volokh Conspiracy reacts to Linda Greenhouse’s Opinionator column on absolutism and proportionality at the Court (covered in last Thursday’s round-up); Paul Horwitz of PrawfsBlawg then reacts to Bernstein’s reaction.

• On Friday, Kiera covered a proposal by Gerard Magliocca at Concurring Opinions for circuit judges to sit by designation on the Court when a Justice is recused. At Just Enrichment, Mark Savignac discusses the drawbacks of that proposal and suggests an alternative: “let each Justice designate a specific circuit judge (or two, or three) ahead of time to replace him or her in case of recusal.”

• At the Huffington Post, Mark Osler argues that, “[i]n the interest of diverse perspectives, [President Obama] or his successor should seek to fill the next vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court with a Protestant.”

• In his new memoir, former Vice President Dick Cheney recounts that he “warned [President Bush] that nominating White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court would be ‘a tough sell,’” according to the Washington Post.