Every post published in May 2006, most recent first.
There hasn’t yet been any discussion on this blog — or on many others, as far as I know — about the two newly published studies of Supreme Court clerks: Courtiers of the Marble Palace: The Rise and Influence of the Supreme Court Law Clerk, by Todd C. Peppers, and Sorcerers’ Apprentices: 100 Years
UPDATE 11:10 a.m. The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to clarify or reinforce its 2003 decision laying down guidelines on the amount of punitive damages that juries may award for corporate wrongdoing. The Justices agreed to so in a case appealed by tobacco giant Philip Morris.
UPDATED 10:45 a.m. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the First Amendment does not provide protection for comments that a public employee makes in the course of performing regular duties, even if the comments alleged public corruption or government wrongdoing.
The Court issued its opinion today in Garcetti v. Ceballos, No. 04-473, originally argued in the Ocotber sitting and then reargued after Justice Alito joined the Court.
Jack Balkin has an extended post explaining that the Court’s public-employee-speech doctrine, culminating in this morning’s decision in Ceballos, has strayed very far from the objectives the Court sought to advance in Pickering, to the point where it’s most protective of employee speech in the
Here is an article by Tony Mauro titled, “High Court Clerks: Still White, Still Male.” PrawsBlawg has this post on unanimity at the Court. On this C-SPAN page, you can access the video of Justice Roberts’ commencement speech at Georgetown University Law Center.
Yale law professor Paul Gewirtz has provided “a preliminary sketch of [Justice Stephen] Breyer’s distinctive place in American law today” in an article in The Yale Law Journal, “The Pragmatic Passion of Stephen Breyer.” The full PDF version is available at this link.
The SG today filed an invitation brief today recommending that cert. be granted in No. 05-381, Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co., which deals with what a plaintiff alleging predatory bidding must prove.
Here is Sentencing Law & Policy on the Supreme Court criminal cases from this term that have not yet been decided. Here is ACSBlog on Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart.
UPDATE 3:40 p.m. President Bush on Thursday ordered that the documents seized in the search of a sitting congressman’s office be sealed for 45 days. No one involved in the investigation, he said, would have accesss to the materials.