Wednesday round-up
on Oct 7, 2015 at 6:43 am
Yesterday the Court heard oral argument in two cases: Ocasio v. United States, in which it is considering whether a conspiracy to commit extortion requires the conspirators to agree to obtain property from someone outside the conspiracy, and the arbitration case DIRECTV v. Imburgia. Coverage of Ocasio comes from Zoe Tillman for the Supreme Court Brief (subscription required), who also talks to Ethan Davis, who argued on Ocasio’s behalf, for The National Law Journal. Noah Feldman previewed the case in his column for Bloomberg View, describing it as “a scenario ripped from the greatest television show ever made” – The Wire. Coverage of DIRECTV comes from David Savage of the Los Angeles Times and Adam Liptak of The New York Times.
Other coverage and commentary focus on one of Monday’s cases, OBB Personenverkehr v. Sachs, in which the Court is considering whether the Austrian national railroad is entitled to sovereign immunity from a lawsuit filed by a California woman who lost both legs in a railroad accident in Austria. Noah Feldman weighed in on the case in his column for Bloomberg View, suggesting that the Court is hearing the case “to try to keep control of how U.S. laws implicate foreign sovereigns,” while Steven Mazie discusses the case in his column for The Economist’s Democracy in America Blog,
Still other coverage and commentary focus on Monday’s orders from its September 28 Conference. Matt Levine of Bloomberg View discusses the Court’s denial of review in a major insider-trading case, while Howard Fischer of the Arizona Capitol Times reports that the Court’s denial of review in another case “could make it harder for state environmental officials to reach settlements with some polluters to clean up hazardous waste sites.” And at Fangraphs, Nathaniel Grow discusses why the Court may have denied review in San Jose’s antitrust lawsuit against major league baseball. And Nina Totenberg of NPR reports on the Court’s new ban on paid linestanders for lawyers, as does Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal.
Previews of the new Term also continue. At Bloomberg View, Noah Feldman looks ahead at the Court’s new landmark cases, concluding that the theme of the new Term “looks like it may be the achievement of longtime conservative aspirations using traditionally liberal constitutional tools.” And at the Xpert HR Blog, David Weisenfeld previews the Term from a labor and employment law perspective.
Briefly:
- In the Supreme Court Brief (subscription required), Tony Mauro interviews Melvin Urofsky about his new book, Dissent and the Supreme Court.
- At Dorf on Law, Eric Segall looks ahead at Evenwel v. Abbott, the Texas “one person, one vote” case.
- At the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Liberty Blog, Wen Fa looks ahead at Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the challenge to that school’s use of race in its undergraduate admissions process, and urges the Court to strike down the university’s policy.
[DISCLOSURE: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the respondents in DIRECTV. However, I am not affiliated with the firm.]
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.
