Thursday round-up

By Kiran Bhat
on Jan 19, 2012 at 9:51 am

The Court issued three opinions yesterday, all authored by Justice Ginsburg. Kali has details and links to the opinions here.

In Maples v. Thomas, the Court reversed the decision of the Eleventh Circuit by a vote of seven to two, holding that a death row inmate had shown requisite “cause” to excuse his procedural default, which occurred after his lawyer missed a filing deadline in state court. Greg Stohr of Bloomberg, Nina Totenberg of NPR, Adam Liptak of the New York Times, David G. Savage of the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Leonard of Courthouse News, Mike Sacks of the Huffington Post, Joan Biskupic of USA Today, Mary Orndorff of the Birmingham News, Robert Barnes of the Washington Post, James Vicini of Reuters, Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal, Jess Bravin and Joanna Chung of the WSJ Law Blog, and Mark Sherman of the Associated Press all have coverage.

In Golan v. Holder, by a vote of six to two (with Justice Kagan recused), the Court affirmed the decision of the Tenth Circuit and upheld a federal law that returned copyright protection to works that had already entered the public domain.  Lyle Denniston analyzes the decision for this blog, while Greg Stohr does the same for Bloomberg.  Other coverage comes from Adam Liptak of the New York Times, Robert Barnes of the Washington Post, Joan Biskupic of the USA Today, Mark Sherman of the Associated Press, Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal, Michael Haggerson of JURIST, David Kravets of Wired’s Threat Level blog, and Bill Mears of CNN. Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy discusses the Commerce Clause implications of Golan, while Christina Gagnier writes on the open Internet implications of the decision for the Huffington Post,

Finally, the Court unanimously held in Mims v. Arrow Financial Services LLP that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s grant of jurisdiction to state courts does not deprive federal district courts of federal-question jurisdiction over private enforcement suits. The Associated Press, Jessica Karmasek of Legal Newsline, and Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal have coverage.

After announcing opinions Wednesday, the Court heard oral arguments in two sets of immigration cases.  In Holder v. Gutierrez and Holder v. Sawyers, which were consolidated for oral argument, the Court considered whether a non-citizen may be able to rely on his parent’s residence in the country to avoid deportation.  In the second argument, Vartelas v. Holder, the Court considered whether the statutory revocation of a lawful permanent resident’s right to make “innocent, casual, and brief” trips abroad without fear of being denied reentry applies retroactively to a guilty plea taken prior to the effective date of the statute. AFP has coverage of both arguments.

Coverage of Tuesday’s order list, which Conor noted in yesterday’s round-up, continued. Wesley Young of the Winston-Salem Journal reports on the Court’s denial of cert. in a case seeking review of a decision by the Fourth Circuit prohibiting a North Carolina county from using sectarian prayers at its meetings. The editorial board of the Winston-Salem Journal contends that the Court “protected our religious freedom and saved us a whole lot of trouble” by declining to hear the case. Taryn Luna of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Peter Hall of the Lehigh Morning Call, David Kravets of Wired’s Threat Level blog, Mark Walsh of School Law, Brian Bowling of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and the AFP all cover the Court’s decision not to review several First Amendment cases involving the Internet speech by students. Bill Mears of CNN covers both sets of cert. denials.
Briefly:

• Ariane de Vogue of ABC News notes that advocate Paul Clement is “standing at the center of three blockbuster Supreme Court cases that could make this term one of the most politically significant in years.”
• In a guest column for the Seattle Times, Alex Alben discusses the constitutionality of federal indecency standards (recently at issue in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.) and concludes that “[t]he confusion of courts, broadcasters and the viewing public is understandable, but the remedies are less evident.
• The editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch criticizes the Court’s decision in Perry v. New Hampshire as choosing “established process over fairness.”
• Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports on Tuesday’s arguments in Filarsky v. Delia.