Every post published in May 2005, most recent first.
Rick Hasen of the Election Law Blog has this post about the cases he is watching for eventual review by the Supreme Court. Orin Kerr, on Volokh Conspiracy and Michael J. Kelly, Associate Professor of Law at Creighton University posting on ACSblog, have engaged in a lively debate on Supreme Court citations to foreign law.
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Congress’ power to require officials of state and local prisons and jails to find ways to allow inmates to practice their religious beliefs.
The Court issued opinions today in the following three argued cases (details from Lyle below): No. 03-9877, Cutter v. Wilkinson, unanimously reversed. Justice Ginsburg wrote the opinion, with a concurrence by Justice Thomas. No. 03-1488, Tory v. Cochran, reversed 7-2.
The somewhat confused procedural history of Kansas’ death penalty law has followed it to the Supreme Court, so the Justices’ agreement on Tuesday to hear an appeal by the state may not lead to a significant pronouncement on a key constitutional question.
In Cutter v. Wilkinson, No. 03-9877, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that section 3 of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (affectionately known as RLUIPA) facially violated the Establishment Clause.
The Supreme Court issued a quick, unanimous and concise defeat to the Government today in Arthur Andersen v. United States, No. 04-368, overturning the accounting company’s conviction for obstruction of justice.
In my earlier post on this past Thursday’s conference, I inadvertently omitted the SG’s cert. petition in No. 04-1332, Will v. Hallock, an FTCA case.
On Monday, I posted this altogether too-long explanation of the Court’s sudden and unanimous (and long overdue) about-face in Lingle, in which it unceremoniously interred the “substantially advances” takings test that Justice Powell had infelicitously coined 25 years ago in Agins.
While Greg correctly describes the LMA decision, he does not quite defend it against the problems I identified. For example, his distinction of Barnette and Wooley fails to address my criticism that Justice Scalia improperly narrows the First Amendment interests at stake down to the personal autonomy concerns and ignores the structural purposes of the First Amendment.
Marty Lederman has this post on Raich up on the Greedy Clerks Board. Sentencing Law & Policy has a new round-up of Booker developments. The Volokh Conspiracy discusses Justice Thomas, Justice Scalia and citing to foreign law here.