Friday round-up
on Oct 12, 2012 at 9:30 am
Yesterday’s coverage of the Court focused primarily on Wednesday’s oral argument in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, challenging the university’s use of race in its undergraduate admissions process. Some coverage looked at the roles played by individual Justices: at Reuters, Joan Biskupic analyzed Justice Kennedy’s role in the case, while Tejinder Singh of this blog and Josh Gerstein of Politico discussed the approaches of the Chief Justice and Justice Alito, respectively. More general coverage of the oral argument comes from Greg Stohr at Bloomberg and Lyle at Constitution Daily. JURIST has coverage not only of Wednesday’s oral argument in Fisher but also of Wednesday’s oral argument in Moncrieffe v. Holder, in which the Court will decide whether a conviction under a state law that includes but is not limited to the distribution of a small amount of marijuana without payment constitutes an “aggravated felony” for deportation purposes. Additional commentary on Fisher comes from Elise Boddie at this blog, Mark Ladov at ACSblog, Michael McGough at the Los Angeles Times, and Jeffrey Toobin at the New Yorker. [Disclosure: The law firm of Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, filed an amicus brief in support of the university in Fisher and represents the petitioner in Moncrieffe.]
Yesterday the Sixth Circuit held that Ohio must count provisional ballots cast in the wrong location as a result of a mistake by a poll worker. At his Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen argues that the decision “has got to be right” and urges the state to “leave[] this alone and not go any further.” At Roll Call, Amanda Becker reports on both the provisional ballot issue and the Ohio early voting case, which Cormac covered in yesterday’s round-up.
Briefly:
- In an op-ed for The New York Times, Michael Klarman discusses how the Court might rule in the challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act and concludes that “it seems likely that when the case arises, Justice Kennedy will be tempted to write an opinion that would quickly become the Brown v. Board of the gay rights movement.”
- At Alison Frankel’s On the Case blog for Thomson Reuters, Erin Geiger Smith examines the Court’s recent grant of certiorari in McBurney v. Young, in which the Court will decide whether a state may, under the Privileges and Immunities Clause and the dormant Commerce Clause, restrict only citizens of other states from accessing its public records.
- At Crime and Consequences, Kent Scheidegger examines a “quirk” of Supreme Court procedure that permits stays denied by one Justice to be refiled in front of another.
- At the Constitutional Accountability Center’s Text & History blog, David Gans discusses the pending cert. petition in Shelby County v. Holder, a challenge to the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Gans argues that, while the petition has been pending, “a string of conservative judges have been quietly but powerfully making the case why the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act is still necessary to prevent and deter racial discrimination in voting.”
- At Patent Docs, Kevin Noonan analyzes the amicus brief filed by the Washington Legal Foundation in support of certiorari in Merck & Co. v. Louisiana Wholesale Drug Co., which seeks review of the Third Circuit’s opinion on reverse payment settlements. [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, serves as co-counsel to the respondents in the Merck case.]
- On Wednesday, the Court declined to stay the execution of Jonathan Green, a Texas death row inmate. Green was executed Wednesday night. Reuters, UPI, and the Los Angeles Times have coverage.
