Monday round-up

AMY HOWE MAR 23, 2015 5:59 AM

Today the Court returns for the March sitting and will hear oral arguments in two cases.  First up is Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, the challenge to Texas’s specialty license-plate scheme. Lyle Denniston previewed the case for this blog; other coverage comes from Nina Totenberg of NPR, who also profiled the attorney arguing on behalf of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.  The second case is City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan, in which the Court will consider the duties that the Americans with Disabilities Act imposes on police officers when they deal with people with mental disabilities.  Lyle Denniston previewed the case for this blog, with another preview coming from Leslie Shoebotham at Hamilton and Griffin on Rights.

At BuzzFeed, Chris Geidner profiles Jim Obergefell, one of the plaintiffs in the challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage.  And at the National Law Journal, Marcia Coyle and Tony Mauro report on the intra-team debate over which lawyer or lawyers will represent the plaintiffs at the oral argument next month.

Briefly:

• At Lawfare, Ingrid Wuerth looks at how the Solicitor General’s recommendations in invitation briefs have fared recently in foreign relations cases and concludes that “it appears that the Court does not treat foreign relations cases as presenting an exceptional need to follow the views of the SG on whether to grant or deny certiorari.”
• At Hamilton and Griffin on Rights, Marci Hamilton remembers David Frohnmayer, the former attorney general of Oregon who litigated Employment Division v. Smith.
• At PrawfsBlawg, Adam Steinman discusses voting alignments on the Court, including one that involves “a fascinating (if trivial) feature that I don’t recall seeing in any other Supreme Court decision.”
• Also at PrawfsBlawg, Richard Re discusses the Court’s opinion in Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads, focusing in particular on Justice Alito’s concurring opinion and its “brief but thoughtful remarks on the constitutional oath of office.”
• At Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost weighs in on the case of Cecil Clayton, a Missouri death row inmate whose execution the Supreme Court declined to block.
• At Crime and Consequences, Kent Scheidegger criticizes the amicus brief that the National Catholic Reporter filed in Glossip v. Gross, the challenge to Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol.

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