Tuesday round-up

By Kiran Bhat
on Sep 18, 2012 at 9:53 am

Coverage of several stories featured in yesterday’s round-up continues. Adam Liptak of The New York Times, Simon Lazarus at the Constitutional Accountability Center, Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal, Ilya Somin of the Volokh Conspiracy, and Jim Galloway of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Political Insider blog cover Justice Thomas’s recent remarks on the original meaning of the Constitution. NPR’s Fresh Air program interviews Jeffrey Toobin, author of a new book on the Court entitled The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court, while Steven D. Schwinn of Constitutional Law Prof Blog, Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal, and Mollie Reilly of the Huffington Post have additional coverage. And elsewhere in the ABA Journal, Debra Cassens Weiss reports on Justice Alito’s “frustration” with media coverage of the Court, voiced during a recent appearance at the Roger Williams University School of Law.

News outlets also continue to report on Justice’s Scalia’s most recent book, co-authored with legal writing guru Bryan Garner, and his ongoing squabble with Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, who has been critical of the book.  In the most recent chapter of the often contentious debate, Terry Baynes of Reuters reports that Justice Scalia claimed that Judge Posner “lied” in his review; at the Huffington Post, Eric Segall contends that the ongoing “Scalia-Posner war” is at bottom “about how judges, especially Supreme Court Justices, decide cases, and that issue is crucially important to our constitutional democracy.”  Finally, Reuters editor in chief Stephen J. Adler moderated a conversation (video) between Justice Scalia and Garner about the book. (Thanks to Howard Bashman of How Appealing for the link.)

Briefly:

• At Bloomberg, Greg Stohr reports on several of the cases now before the Court challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
• Yesterday was Constitution Day, and retired Justice David Souter got in on the act by participating in Constitutionally Speaking (video), an interview series cosponsored by several New Hampshire institutions.
• Jeff Mateer kicks off this blog’s same-sex marriage symposium with an argument that debate over the issue “should be allowed to play out in our democratic institutions and should not be short-circuited by the courts.”
• This blog’s symposium on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin continues with posts by Richard Ford in response to Richard Kahlenberg, and from David Gans and Adam Winkler in response to Roger Clegg.
• At Buzzfeed, Chris Geidner reviews the various same-sex marriage cases before the Court.
• At the Atlantic, Jack Balkin notes a new legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act based on the Constitution’s Origination Clause and contends that the “constitutional and legal struggle over health care reform isn’t over.”
• At this blog, Lisa McElroy offers a glowing review of Law Man, a book by Shon Hopwood about his experience as a jailhouse lawyer, his successful cert. petition, and his life after prison.
• Eyewitness 12 (Wichita, Kan.) News reports that Kansas Attorney General Derek Smith will petition the Court to reverse a decision by the Kansas Supreme Court overturning the murder conviction and death sentence of Scott Cheever.
• At the Volokh Conspiracy, Stuart Benjamin links to an article that he coauthored which concludes that Court “cases with ideologically narrow coalitions are more likely to be treated negatively by later courts.”
• Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal reports that “Court clerks jumping to law firms are being enticed with a bonus that now stands at a whopping $280,000.”
• At the Center for American Progress, Ian Millhiser contends that, “as audacious as the conservative justices have been, their activism pales in comparison to Republican elected officials’ judicial wish list.”
• Patrick Anderson of Providence Business News reports on Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee’s cert. petition challenging the Department of Justice’s use of a federal court order to take custody of state inmate Jason Pleau after Chafee initially blocked the transfer under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act.
• Bill Moyers of Moyers & Company sits down with Jamin Raskin and Katrina vanden Heuvel to discuss the Court’s perceived bias towards moneyed interests in a segment entitled “The One-Percent Court.”