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Wednesday round-up

The death penalty is at the forefront of coverage of and commentary on the Court right now.  Writing for this blog, Lyle Denniston reports on yesterday’s order by the Court allowing Georgia to execute inmate Warren Hill, while at USA Today Richard Wolf looks at the Court and capital punishment issues more broadly.  At The Economist’s Democracy in America blog, Steven Mazie focuses on the case of the three Oklahoma inmates whose challenge the Court agreed to hear last week; he contends that “[t]he conundrum facing these three Oklahoma inmates rivals anything written by Kafka. Although the court recognises that their case has merit, they all may be executed anyway.”  And at Constitution Daily, Lyle Denniston has more on the Court and the Oklahoma lethal injection case.

Other coverage and commentary center on King v. Burwell, in which the Court will consider whether tax subsidies are available for individuals who purchase their health insurance on an exchange established by the federal government.  At Talking Points Memo, Sahil Kapur reports on the brief filed in the case last week by the federal government, noting that it cites the dissent in the 2012 challenge to the individual mandate three times, while at the Constitutional Accountability Center’s Text and History Blog Timothy Jost and Simon Lazarus criticize an amicus brief that in turn criticizes the Obama administration’s enforcement and implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Briefly:

  • At the Ogletree Deakins blog, Hera Arsen analyzes last week’s decision in Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, in which the Court ruled in favor of an air marshal turned whistleblower.
  • At Forbes, Michael Bobelian covers last week’s oral argument in Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar, in which the Court is considering the constitutionality of a Florida rule that prohibits candidates for judgeships from personally soliciting campaign contributions.
  • The Cato Institute has two posts (here and here) on the amicus brief that it filed in Michigan v. EPA, in which the Court is considering whether the agency acted unreasonably when it refused to consider costs in determining whether it should regulate hazardous air pollutants emitted by electric utilities.

A friendly reminder:  We rely on our readers to send us links for the round-up.  If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, or op-ed relating to the Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion in the round-up, please send it to roundup [at] scotusblog.com.

Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Wednesday round-up, SCOTUSblog (Jan. 28, 2015, 7:47 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2015/01/wednesday-round-up-258/