Friday round-up

Commentary continues on Collins v. Virginia, in which the justices held on Tuesday that the automobile exception to the warrant requirement does not permit a warrantless search of a vehicle parked in the driveway of a home. At PrawfsBlawg, Leah Litman notes that “Justice Thomas wrote a separate opinion in which he questioned the application of the exclusionary rule to the states,” which she argues exemplifies the court’s tendency to “engage in something of a shell game with respect to remedies for violations related to policing.” At The Daily Signal, Elizabeth Slattery and John-Michael Seibler maintain that Thomas’ “proposed … answer … bucks Supreme Court precedent, but holds true to the original meaning of the Constitution.”

At the Election Law Blog, Bill Whitford, the lead plaintiff in partisan-gerrymandering case Gill v. Whitford, explains that his challenge to Wisconsin’s electoral map “propose[s] a statewide analysis that compares statewide votes to seats,” and that although “[a]t first glance it may appear that a district-by-district approach would be a less intrusive limitation on what has traditionally been a legislative function (redistricting),” “[i]n fact, a district-by-district approach will involve the courts in many of the problems that historically made them reluctant to place constitutional restraints on partisan gerrymanders, and to a much greater degree than if the courts proceeded on a statewide analysis.” Flippable offers a guide to Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone, “the cases that could impact elections for a generation.”

Briefly:

• The Heritage Foundation’s SCOTUS 101 podcast features discussions of “an ‘easy’ 4th Amendment decision and two lingering Establishment Clause cert. petitions.”
• In an op-ed for The National Law Journal (subscription or registration required), Marsha Levick urges the justices to review Dassey v. Dittman, a cert petition filed by one of the subjects of the Netflix documentary series “Making a Murderer,” “[b]ecause Dassey’s case raises crucial issues concerning the way impaired children are protected—or not—during police interrogation.” [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the petitioner in this case.]
• The latest episode of Counting to 5 (podcast) “review[s] the Court’s two new opinions in argued cases.”
• At Law360 (subscription required), Jimmy Hoover reports that, after the court’s ruling “last term that judges could hear evidence of racial bias in the jury room despite a long tradition of secrecy in such deliberations,” “[a] gay man sentenced to death by a South Dakota jury in the early 1990s is now asking the justices to apply that decision to alleged homophobia in a case to be considered next month,” Rhines v. South Dakota.
• The Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast features a discussion of Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, in which the court will consider whether an Illinois law allowing public-sector unions to charge nonmembers for collective-bargaining activities violates the First Amendment, “and what it means for the future of organized labor in America.” [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel on an amicus brief in support of the respondents in this case.]

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