Monday round-up

By Amy Howe
on Mar 3, 2014 at 7:28 am

Another day, another snowstorm here in our nation’s capital.  But — as usual — the Court is open and there is plenty of news coverage.  This morning the Court will hear oral arguments in Hall v. Florida, the challenge to Florida’s scheme for identifying defendants who are intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty.  Lyle Denniston previewed the oral argument for this blog, and Steve Wermiel discussed the case in his column for law students.  Other coverage comes from NPR’s Nina Totenberg and Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal, while in his column for The Atlantic Andrew Cohen argues that, “[i]f the Supreme Court meant what it said in Atkins [v. Virginia], the justices must loudly declare that the execution of the mentally retarded in America will not be tolerated, either as a nod to states’ rights or for any other hoary justification.”

Briefly:

• In an op-ed for The Boston Globe, Kent Greenfield weighs in on the challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, arguing that a decision in the challengers’ favor “could do real damage. Hobby Lobby wants to be relieved of regulatory controls because of religious views. Such relief will give it an unfair advantage in the marketplace, since Hobby Lobby would not have to provide health coverage that its competitors still must.”
• At Cato At Liberty, Ilya Shapiro discusses the amicus brief that Cato recently filed in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, a case involving the right to challenge a state law prohibiting false statements in elections.  Cato’s fellow amicus on the brief is “legendary satirist” P.J. O’Rourke, and the brief argues – among other things – that “mocking and satire are as old as America.”
• At Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost weighs in on Justice Clarence Thomas’s practice of not asking questions at oral argument.
• At more than twenty cents, Andrew Suszek criticizes what he describes as the “strong trend among journalists and judges alike in using the” Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, striking down a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, “to conclude that state same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional.”