Monday round-up

JOSHUA MATZ OCT 3, 2011 9:37 AM

Today, the Court officially begins the October Term 2011, which is widely expected to be one of the most exciting and important Terms in recent memory.  Bloomberg, the San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes, the Associated Press, the New York Times, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal (video), the Christian Science Monitor, NPR, the National Review Online, the National Law Journal, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Post’s PostPartisan blog, and Wired all preview the Term ahead.  At the Atlantic, Andrew Cohen has compiled a list of the “Top 10” Supreme Court previews, while Garrett Epps offers a “constitutional law nerd’s take on upcoming Supreme Court cases.”  The New York Times briefly reviews the questions presented in eight of the higher-profile cases on the docket so far, while the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times looks ahead to argue that this Term offers the Court an “opportunity to play a role it often has embraced in its history: reining in the overweening power of the state.”

The Court will hear oral argument in seven cases this week.  Writing in the Washington Post, Sarah Kliff interviews Lloyd Bookman about the Court’s “looming battle over Medicaid” in Douglas v. Independent Living Center (which Lyle previews here).  The Hill, The New Republic, and the Concord Monitor also weigh in on the case.  In an editorial in the New York Times, Lincoln Caplan and Dorothy Samuels discuss Douglas in connection with two other cases on the Court’s docket, Howes v. Fields and Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC; they characterize the trio as cases that will force the Court to consider whether “federal courts [are] the right forum for resolving societal problems.” (Lyle’s preview of Hosanna-Tabor can be found here; Kali linked to Alan Raphael’s ABA preview of Howes last week.) The National Review Online, Christian Post, and the WSJ Law Blog also cover Hosanna-Tabor.

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s arguments, at PrawfsBlawg Lee Kovarsky discusses Maples v. Thomas and Martinez v. Ryan.  (Steve Vladeck’s preview of Martinez can be found here.)  Catherine Ho provides further coverage of Maples in the Washington Post, describing it as involving “unusually high stakes: a death sentence for a man convicted of murder, and a mailroom mix-up at Sullivan & Cromwell that caused his attorneys to botch an opportunity for appeal.”

The latest developments in the Affordable Care Act’s path to the Court also drew additional coverage.  Reuters, Politico, and the Richmond-Times Dispatch all report on the announcement by the Virginia Attorney General that he plans to seek Supreme Court review of the Fourth Circuit’s decision holding that the state lacked standing to challenge the ACA’s constitutionality.  (Lyle’s coverage of this petition is here.)  And Fox News reports on the debate over whether Justices Kagan and Thomas should recuse themselves from any challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

Briefly:

• The Washington Post provides a guide to visiting the Court for oral arguments.
• In an op-ed for the New York Times, Kenneth Starr argues that “[c]ameras in the courtroom of the United States Supreme Court are long overdue.”
• At CNN, Laurie Urie notes that six Justices attended an “uncharacteristically noncontroversial” Red Mass in Washington on Sunday.  Will Storey of the New York Times provides additional coverage.
• In her column for the New York Times, Maureen Dowd discusses the significance of the fact that six of the current Justices are Catholic.
• Robert Barnes of the Washington Post reports on a conversation with Graham Blackman-Harris, who has visited the Court on the first Monday of October for eighteen of the past twenty years.
• In a separate Washington Post article, Robert Barnes notes that Justice Stevens is still “issuing opinions” on the Court in his speeches, book reviews, and a recently completed memoir entitled Five Chiefs.  Bill Mears of CNN also reports on a recent interview with Justice Stevens.

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