Monday round-up
This weekend’s coverage of the Court highlights some of the high-profile cases slated for oral argument in the second half of the Term. In an editorial for The New York Times, Lincoln Caplan urges Justice Anthony Kennedy and the Court “to ensure the right to vote by upholding Section 5” of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. Richard Wolf of USA Today summarizes the roughly three dozen amicus briefs filed in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California Proposition 8, and United States v. Windsor, the challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), by opponents of same-sex marriage; in these briefs, Wolf explains, the opponents warn the Court that “lifting state or federal restrictions [on same-sex marriage] would threaten their own economic and religious freedoms and lead to social and political upheaval.” Finally, David Savage of the Los Angeles Times previews this month’s Maryland v. King, in which the Court will consider whether the taking of a DNA sample from a person in custody but not convicted is an “unreasonable search” forbidden by the Fourth Amendment.
Briefly:
- On Friday night, Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke to an audience at the University of Miami about her path to the Court, as well as what inspired her to write her memoir, My Beloved World. The Miami Herald’s Jessica De Leon has coverage.
- Justice Sotomayor was also the subject of a feature by Ian Shapira of The Washington Post, who discusses the Justice’s involvement in her new neighborhood, Washington’s U Street corridor.
- In an interview with Margaret Warner of the PBS NewsHour for the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, retired Justice David H. Souter discusses his views on constitutional interpretation.
- The New York Times‘s Timothy Williams reports on the denial of a petition filed by the federal government seeking review of a decision by the Ninth Circuit that allowed a lawsuit against an F.B.I. agent for failing to properly investigate crimes against Native Americans to proceed.
- Robert Barnes of The Washington Post considers the use of dictionaries by the Justices in the context of a new study arguing that the Justices “brandish definitions as a way to dress up their subjective decisions with an ‘objective veneer.'”
- This blog continues its new feature, “SCOTUSblog on camera,” with the fourth and final part of its interview with Adam Liptak of The New York Times.
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