Tuesday round-up

By Amy Howe
on Feb 4, 2014 at 8:14 am

Briefly:

• In The National Law Journal, Tony Mauro reports on the latest developments in a lawsuit challenging the Supreme Court’s ban on protests on the Court’s plaza:  an amicus brief filed by the ACLU, which cites the media stakeouts and press gaggles in front of the Court as a “fatal sign of inconsistency. . . .  How can protests be banned, when court officials allow the plaza to be used for other clearly expressive activities protected by the First Amendment?”
• In a column for Forbes, Ilya Shapiro weighs in on the challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, arguing that “[t]here’s nothing inherent in the corporate form that requires people who use it to surrender their right to conduct business in a way that comports with their morality. And Congress, in passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act . . . didn’t intend to restrict the religious liberties people enjoy in their business affairs based solely on how those affairs are organized under civil law.”
• In The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen has the story of Herbert Smulls, the Missouri death row inmate who was executed last week before the Court ruled on his application to stay his execution.