Wednesday round-up

By Amy Howe
on Feb 26, 2014 at 8:53 am

Coverage of, and commentary on, the Court focused on the three opinions in argued cases that the Court issued yesterday.  In Fernandez v. California, the Court held – by a vote of six to three – that, even if one occupant of a dwelling objects, police may still search that dwelling if another occupant consents after the objecting occupant has been removed.  Rory Little covered the case for this blog; other coverage comes from Nina Totenberg of NPR, Jess Bravin and Brent Kendall of The Wall Street Journal,  Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, and Jaclyn Belczyk of Jurist.  The articles by Barnes and Bravin and Kendall also reported on yesterday’s opinion in Kaley v. United States, in which the Court – again divided six to three – held that a criminal defendant whose assets have been frozen before his trial does not have a right to a hearing to challenge the probable cause for his indictment, even if he needs the money to hire a lawyer to defend him against the charges.  I covered the decision in Kaley for this blog.  In the third decision yesterday, Walden v. Fiore, the Court held that a Georgia police officer could not be sued in Nevada for his conduct in Georgia, even if that conduct affected plaintiffs who had connections in Nevada.  Kimberly Bennett covered the decision for Jurist.

Other coverage of the Court focuses on today’s oral arguments in Octane Fitness v. Icon Health and Fitness and Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Management, two cases involving attorney’s fees in patent cases.  Ronald Mann previewed the cases for this blog; at Fortune, Roger Parloff breaks down the issues in the cases.

Briefly:

• In The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen discusses Monday’s denial of certiorari in Owens v. Colorado, a high-profile murder case in which state court judges have kept the record sealed to protect the safety of witnesses.
• At Mayer Brown’s Class Defense blog, Archis Parasharami discusses Mutual First Federal Credit Union v. Charvat, a case scheduled for consideration at the Justices’ March 7 Conference; at issue in the case is a plaintiff’s standing to sue when he did not suffer a concrete harm and the injury alleged involves a violation of a federal statute.
• At ISCOTUSnow, the most recent installment in Christopher Schmidt’s series on oral arguments at the Court looks back at an exchange between Justice Scalia and James R. Milkey, who argued on behalf of the petitioners in Massachusetts v. EPA.

[Disclosure:  Tom Goldstein of Goldstein & Russell, P.C., the publisher of this blog, argued Walden on behalf of the respondents; the firm’s Kevin Russell was among the counsel to the petitioner in Fernandez.]