The Week Ahead
The Court is in recess for the summer. The opening conference for next term will take place September 29. Oral arguments will resume October 6. On Friday, the Court is scheduled to release another round of summer orders.
August 2008 Archive
Every post published in August 2008, most recent first.
Showing 1 - 1043 Results
Petition Preview: Enya, the Death Penalty, and Video Victim Impact Evidence
Nearly two decades ago, in Payne v. Tennessee (1991), the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment did not bar the introduction of “victim impact evidence” at the penalty phase of capital trials.
New DTA, habeas troubles
The Justice Department, frustrated in its ability to get free of one level of court review of Guantanamo Bay detainee cases, and unable at the other level to keep to is own schedule for turning out reports to justify detention, has taken two significant steps to try to cope.
New developments on detainees
Two significant new developments in the continuing courthouse battles over the Guantanamo Bay detainees are discussed in the post that can be found here.
UPDATE: Bismullah effect spreading?
UPDATE Even as the Justice Department makes plans to try to get higher courts to overturn a broad judicial mandate to produce what it knows about Guantanamo Bay detainees (discussed in the post just below, updated Friday), it is now facing the prospect that the obligation may also extend to detainees’ cases in U.S. District Court.
U.S. opposes review of wetlands case
The Justice Department on Friday urged the Supreme Court to leave intact a federal appeals court ruling on the scope of the government’s authority to protect wetlands from pollution — in this case, discharges from home septic tanks.
U.S. to try again to curb DTA review
UPDATE Friday afternoon In a move sure to draw government opposition, lawyers for seven Guantanamo Bay detainees asked the D.C. Circuit Court on Friday to order the Justice Department and Pentagon to produce within ten days the complete files, including any secret data, that it has about those individuals.
An easier standard for detention
NOTE: In a hearing Wednesday on procedural issues in detainee cases in his Court, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon expressed concern about the need to have most of the hearings in those cases behind closed doors, because of the use of classified evidence.
Analysis: The meaning of Munaf
Analysis When the Supreme Court on June 12 found a new constitutional right for Guantanamo Bay detainees, another decision on the same day had little chance of being widely noticed even though it, too, involved detainees’ rights.
Circuit Court holds firm on DTA review
UPDATE 3:30 p.m. There have been other developments in detainees’ cases; they are discussed in the continuation of the post below. ——————- The D.C. Circuit Court, turning aside a Justice Department plea to cut back sharply on its review of military decisions to detain individuals at Guantanamo Bay, has put its tough review regime back into effect.