Monday round-up
on Jan 14, 2013 at 9:15 am
On Friday, the Court granted cert. in six new cases. The weekend’s clippings focus on these new grants, the release of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir, and the cases that are scheduled for oral arguments this week.
As this blog’s Lyle Denniston reported on Friday, the Justices have agreed to hear six new cases, including Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Salinas v. Texas, American Trucking Associations v. City of Los Angeles, and United States v. Kebodeaux. In the first of these cases, Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, the Court will consider whether the First Amendment allows the government to deny funding for an international anti-AIDS program to organizations that do not actively oppose prostitution. Coverage of this cert. grant comes from Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News, Mark Sherman of the Associated Press, Jonathan Stempel of Reuters, Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, David Savage of the Los Angeles Times, Adam Liptak of The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal’s Jess Bravin (subscription required). Several of those stories also include coverage of Salinas v. Texas, in which the Justices will consider whether the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause protects pre-arrest, pre-Miranda silence; both Warren Richey of The Christian Science Monitor and Jonathan Stempel and Terry Baynes of Reuters also have coverage. [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the co-counsel to the petitioner in Salinas.] David Savage of the Los Angeles Times reports on American Trucking Associations v. City of Los Angeles, in which the Court will consider whether certain port regulations are preempted by federal law. And the Associated Press covers United States v. Kebodeaux, in which the Court will consider whether sex offenders who were released unconditionally before new sex offender registration rules were passed can be prosecuted for not registering.
With Justice Sotomayor’s memoir, My Beloved World, set for release on Tuesday, this weekend’s coverage includes reviews of the book by Dahlia Lithwick (writing for The Washington Post) and Jay Wexler (writing for the Boston Globe). Other coverage of the book comes from Nina Totenberg at NPR (which has also published the first part of an interview with the Justice), Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, Adam Liptak of The New York Times, Richard Wolf of USA Today, and Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic.
Finally, at this blog, Lyle previews today’s oral argument in Alleyne v. United States, in which the Justices will reconsider whether the Sixth Amendment requires facts that increase a mandatory minimum sentence to be determined by a jury. The editorial board of The New York Times urges the Court to hold that it does, arguing that such a decision would bolster Sixth Amendment rights and restore a role that the Constitution gives the jury. Writing for this blog, Rory Little previews todays argument in Boyer v. Louisiana, in which the Court will consider whether a state’s failure to fund counsel for an indigent defendant for five years as a direct result of the prosecution’s choice to seek the death penalty should be weighed against the state for speedy trial purposes. Also at this blog, Kevin Amer previews Tuesday’s arguments in Levin v. United States, which focuses on whether a civilian’s battery claim against the United States for injuries allegedly caused by military medical personnel during the performance of their duties is barred by sovereign immunity. And at Written Description, Lisa Larrimore Oullette previews Wednesday’s argument in Gunn v. Minton, a case that asks the Court to determine whether federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over state law malpractice claims in which the underlying question involves patent law.
Briefly:
- At this blog, Ronald Mann reports on last week’s oral argument in Delia v. E.M.A., while Kevin Russell covers the argument in Maracich v. Spears. The former asks the Court to determine whether a North Carolina statute is preempted by the Medicaid Act’s anti-lien provision; the latter concerns the application of the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, a law that prohibits the use of data from a department of motor vehicles for solicitation without the driver’s prior consent.
- Michael Doyle of McClatchy Newspapers previews this week’s oral argument Koontz v. St. John River Water Management District, a land-use case that may determine the power of government to impose certain monetary conditions before granting land-use permits. At Greenwire, Lawrence Hurley reports on the wetlands regulation that underlies the dispute.
- The San Francisco Chronicle’s Bob Egelko reports on the challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that workplace health insurance plans cover birth-control pills and other female contraceptives, as well as the likelihood that one of these cases may reach the Court as soon as next year.
- Michael Kirkland of UPI discusses the recent retirement of the Court’s clerk, William Suter, after twenty-two years, commenting that, “[m]ore than any other official, Suter brought the Supreme Court into the 21st century, bringing logic and organization to the process of taking a case to the court.”
- Also at UPI, Kirkland has coverage of the Court’s decision to schedule argument on the Proposition 8 case and the federal Defense of Marriage Act on consecutive days.
