Tuesday round-up

By Edith Roberts
on Jan 24, 2017 at 6:32 am

Yesterday the court issued additional orders from its conference of January 19, granting no additional cases and denying review in a case involving a high-profile challenge to a Texas voter ID law. The court also denied review in a challenge to Alabama’s advisory-jury death sentencing law. Amy Howe reports on the orders for this blog. Additional coverage of the order in the Texas case comes from Robert Barnes in The Washington Post, who notes that “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said in a statement attached to the order that there was still more work for lower courts to do in assessing the law, and that Texas could return to the high court once that review is final”; Adam Liptak in The New York Times; and Lyle Denniston at Constitution Daily, who observes that the court’s move “cleared the way for the new Trump Administration to switch the government’s position – if it wishes to do so – to allow states to enforce strict photo ID requirements for America’s voters.” Commentary comes from Rick Hasen at the Election Law Blog. In USA Today, Richard Wolf reports on the death penalty case, observing that many “opponents of the Alabama system had expected the justices to take up a challenge.”

Amy Howe profiles Judge Thomas Hardiman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, who is a potential nominee to the Supreme Court, for this blog. At Think Progress, Ian Millhiser looks at the three judges who are said to be on President Trump’s current shortlist of possible nominees, as well as five others who may still be under consideration.

Briefly:

• The World and Everything in It (podcast) features a discussion of the recent oral arguments in Lee v. Tam, which stems from the government’s refusal to trademark a rock band’s disparaging name, and Nelson v. Colorado, a due process challenge to Colorado’s requirement that defendants whose convictions are later reversed must prove their innocence before receiving refunds of monetary penalties.

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