Wednesday round-up

For The Wall Street Journal, Kristina Peterson and others report that “[a]ttorneys for [Christine Blasey Ford,] the woman who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault[,] said she wants a full investigation of the allegations before she testifies on Capitol Hill, throwing into doubt a planned Monday hearing that would have pitted her word against that of the Supreme Court nominee.” For The Washington Post, Seung Min Kim and others report that “Democrats, like Ford, argued that the scheduled Monday session should be delayed until the FBI further investigates her allegation.” Peter Baker and others report for The New York Times that “Republicans signaled Tuesday night that they would not negotiate an alternative date and would go ahead with the hearing without her or declare it unnecessary if she refuses to appear, then possibly move to a vote.” At The National Law Journal (subscription or registration required), Tony Mauro reports that “Kavanaugh’s former women law clerks who were willing to discuss the fast-moving controversy surrounding his Supreme Court nomination still support him.” Commentary comes from Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire.News’ Boom! Lawyered podcast and from David French at National Review.

Briefly:

• For The Washington Post, Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Robert Barnes report that “[a]dvocacy groups pouring money into independent campaigns to impact this fall’s midterm races must disclose many of their political donors beginning this week after the Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to intervene in a long-running case.”
• For this blog, Rory Little looks ahead at some of the criminal law cases on the court’s docket for next term.
• At The Daily Signal, Elizabeth Slattery previews several cases in the October 2018 argument session.
• At the Denver Law Review Online, law student Kirk McGill and Ben McGill look at the practical impact and legal implications of the court’s ruling last term in Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission, in which the justices held that SEC administrative law judges are “officers of the United States” under the appointments clause, who have to be appointed by the president, a court or a department head; they predict “interesting times ahead for the Administrative State.”
• At The Atlantic, Garrett Epps discusses two capital cases on the court’s docket next term: Madison v. Alabama, an Eighth Amendment challenge to the execution a death-row inmate who has dementia and cannot remember his crime, and Bucklew v. Precythe, in which an inmate argues that because he suffers from a rare medical condition, execution by lethal injection will cause him intolerable pain.

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