Monday round-up

MARISSA MILLER NOV 7, 2011 9:43 AM

With the Court set to hear arguments this week in two of the Term’s most anticipated cases – United States v. Jones and M.B.Z. v. Clinton – today’s clippings focus on the week ahead.

Lyle Denniston of this blog previews the Jones case, in which the Court will consider the constitutionality of the government’s warrantless use of GPS tracking devices. Reuters and the Washington Examiner also have coverage.  In her preview of the case for the Los Angeles Times, Carol Williams takes a broader look at technology and the Fourth Amendment – an issue also addressed by the editorial board of the New York Times, which urges the Court to “think[] differently about reasonable expectations of privacy” in light of powerful modern technologies. Finally, at the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr posts a video of his recent panel on this case at William & Mary.

David Savage of the Los Angeles Times and NPR’s Nina Totenberg preview today’s oral argument in the M.B.Z. case, in which the Court will consider the balance of power between the executive branch and Congress in the context of the Middle East peace process.  Mark Sherman of the Associated Press and Harriet Robbins Ost of UPI also preview the case, as does Steven Schwinn at the Constitutional Law Prof Blog. The Huffington Post’s Mike Sacks has brief previews of both M.B.Z. and Jones.

This blog’s Lyle Denniston and the New Orleans Times-Picayune preview tomorrow’s oral argument in Smith v. Cain, in which the Court will consider another legal challenge to prosecutorial conduct in the New Orleans D.A.’s office.

Briefly:

• Dahlia Lithwick reviews the recent memoir by retired Justice John Paul Stevens, Five Chiefs, for the Washington Post.

• UPI’s Michael Kirkland discusses Missouri v. Frye and Lafler v. Cooper, last week’s cases on ineffective counsel at the plea bargaining stage. The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times also weighs in, arguing that the two cases give “the justices an opportunity to enforce fairness in the legal system at every level.”

• UPI’s Kirkland also reports on Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent from the Court’s denial of cert. in Utah Highway Patrol Association v. American Atheists.

• Robert Barnes at the Washington Post reports on retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s recent activities in retirement, describing the Court’s first female justice as “breaking ground again and creating her own template for life after the court.”

• The ABA Journal’s Mark Hansen reports on last week’s oral arguments in Perry v. New Hampshire, in which the Court is considering eyewitness identifications made under “suggestive circumstances.”

• Writing for the Huffington Post, MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan criticizes some of the Court’s recent business and campaign finance decisions and concludes that what the U.S. justice system needs “is a new legal theory for the 99%, a new way of looking at corruption.”

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