Tuesday round-up

AMY HOWE OCT 14, 2014 8:28 AM

The Court resumes oral arguments today, kicking off the second and final week of the October sitting.  Today the Court will hear oral argument first in the water-rights case Kansas v. Nebraska and Colorado.  Ryke Longest previewed the case for us; Jeremy P. Jacobs does the same for Greenwire. The Court will also hear oral argument in the antitrust case North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC, which Eric Fraser previewed for us.

Events at the Court last week – and in particular the Court’s announcement that it would not review any of the seven petitions arising out of challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage – continue to garner coverage and commentary.  This blog’s Tom Goldstein joined Dahlia Lithwick to discuss the week in a podcast for Slate Radio, while at Hydratext Anthony Kreis discusses the possible strategy behind the denials in a podcast with Christian Turner and Joe Miller.  In USA Today, Richard Wolf looks more broadly at the Court’s decision to deny review in the same-sex marriage cases, observing that, “when the court gave same-sex marriage the green light across major sections of the country last week, the battle cry from conservatives was muted at best.”  And at Dorf on Law, Michael Dorf considers the “relative importance of inter-circuit conflict and state-circuit conflict” in the Court’s decision whether to grant cert. 

Rick Hasen had extensive coverage at his Election Law Blog of the Court’s orders in three separate voting rights cases from Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina.  And at Slate, he tries to make sense out of those three seemingly contradictory orders.

At Constitution Daily, Dawinder Sidhu explains why Holt v. Hobbs, in which the Justices heard oral argument last week on whether state prison officials can prohibit a Muslim inmate from growing a half-inch beard, matters.   Erik Sherman of CBS News reports on last week’s oral argument in Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, in which the Court is considering whether workers are entitled to overtime pay for time spent in security screenings; other coverage of the case comes from Law 360 (subscription or registration required).

Briefly:

• At the Blog of Legal Times (registration or subscription required), Tony Mauro reports that, while in private practice, Chief Judge John Roberts considered representing then-President Bill Clinton in the lawsuit filed against him by Paula Jones.
• In his Sidebar column for The New York Times, Adam Liptak discusses the Court and its ban on free speech on the marble plaza in front of the Court building.
• In California Lawyer, Erwin Chemerinsky previews the new October Term 2014.
• In Java World, James Niccolai reports on the petition for review recently filed by Google, which is asking the Court to rule on the merits of its Android copyright dispute.
• In his column for The Washington Post, Joe Davidson weighs in on the whistleblower case Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean. If MacLean loses, Davidson contends, “Uncle Sam will have greater power to bully whistleblowers. Fewer federal employees might be willing to disclose waste, fraud, abuse and dumb decisions.”
• At Talking Points Memo, Sahil Kapur interviews Erwin Chemerinsky about his new book, The Case Against the Supreme Court.
• At the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Liberty Blog, Wen Fa responds to recent criticism about the usefulness of amicus briefs at the Court.
• In The Washington Post, Robert Barnes discusses the lack of explanations for some of the Court’s recent actions, concluding that “[t]he why of the Supreme Court’s action will remain a mystery until the court itself decides to reveal the answer.”

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