Wednesday round-up
on Dec 31, 2014 at 7:41 am
On this last day of 2014, here’s the Court-related news, briefly:
- Jessica Gresko of the Associated Press (via Yahoo! News) reports that Bobby Chen, the pro se petitioner in Chen v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, still cannot be found; the deadline for him to file his opening brief was December 22, but the Court has not yet received it.
- At Cato at Liberty, Ilya Shapiro discusses the amicus brief that Cato filed in King v. Burwell, the challenge to the availability of tax subsidies for individuals who purchase health insurance on a marketplace established by the federal government. The brief, Shapiro explains, “alerts the Court to the separation-of-powers and rule-of-law violations attending the ACA’s implementation.”
- At The Economist’s Democracy in America blog, Steven Mazie discusses the North Carolina abortion law that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently struck down and how it might fare at the Supreme Court if – as state officials plan to request – the Justices were to review it on the merits.
- At his Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen reports on another cert. petition from North Carolina – this one involving voting rights. He predicts that “[t]here’s a pretty good chance that the Court grants review here, although it is possible that the Court takes a pass, given that there will be a trial on the merits this summer, followed by a likely appeal, meaning the full case on the merits could be before the Court before the 2016 elections.”
- At Crime and Consequences, Kent Scheidegger reports that, after the Court “had taken the unusual step of directing the . . . Ninth Circuit to answer Arizona’s petition for an extraordinary writ . . . challenging the Ninth’s decision to stay the mandate in” one capital case “while it considers another case,” the Ninth Circuit yesterday reversed course and declined to further stay the case.
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