Every post published in October 2014, most recent first.
Few procedures at the Supreme Court are more mysterious than the decision to reargue a case. Rearguments are rare among the approximately seventy cases that are argued each Term. Even rarer is any discussion or explanation of the process by the Court or its members, present or past.
Happy Halloween! Next week the Court resumes oral arguments, starting with Zivotofsky v. Kerry, in which the Court will consider the constitutionality of a federal statute that directs the Secretary of State, upon request, to record the birthplace of a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem as “Israel.” The impending argument has drawn a flurry of commentary.
The legal issue the Justices will confront on Tuesday when they hear oral argument in Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean is easy enough to describe: When a federal statute bars whistleblowers from making disclosures that are “specifically prohibited by law,” does that bar also apply to
On Monday at 9:30 a.m. we expect the Court to issue orders from the October 31 Conference; we do not expect the Justices to issue any decisions on the merits. Our list of “Petitions to watch for that Conference is here.
Briefly: In the ABA Journal, Mark Walsh previews next week’s oral argument in Yates v. United States, in which the Court will consider the case of a commercial fisherman convicted of violating the anti-shredding provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for the destruction of several undersized fish.
The Supreme Court has long ignored Justice Felix Frankfurter’s warning to stay out of the political thicket. It regularly hears challenges to redistricting cases (not to mention lots of other types of election cases), raising issues from the one-person, one-vote rule to vote dilution under the Voting Rights Act, to racial and partisan gerrymandering claims.
A recitation of the facts in Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loans suggests a scenario typical of the most fact-bound petition imaginable, bound for prompt denial because of its technicality. A borrower receives a mortgage loan.
Briefly: At Greenwire, Jeremy P. Jacobs profiles Peter Keisler, “a go-to guy for industry on Clean Air Act cases at the Supreme Court.” At Hamilton and Griffin on Rights, Joan Biskupic explains why she wrote her newest book, on Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the increased prominence of Hispanics in U.S. politics.
The connections among liberty, government power, speech, campaign finance, technology,and privacy. “People ask, Why did you pick constitutional law?I mean, come on.Who, with a real opportunity to dig into a subject of law would not wantthat to be constitutional law?It has everything.It has
Bradley W. Joondeph is the Inez Mabie Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Santa Clara University School of Law. How broad is the states’ power to impose personal income taxes on their own residents?