Publications
Greetings, Court Fans! This time last year, as we summarized King v. Burwell (2015), among other decisions, all the talk was about the Supreme Court’s “left turn.” But some observers predicted that OT15 could be the term that “the Empire Strikes Back,” with conservative victories on public-sector unions, affirmative action, and possibly even abortion. That […]
Greetings, Court fans! It’s (still) the first Monday in October, which means the Supreme Court (and the Update) are back in action. Actually, The Eight dug in a bit last week, issuing cert grants from their September 26th “long conference.” We’ll have more in a minute on the eight new cases the Court set for […]
Greetings, Court Fans! Fresh from a three-day weekend, the Court made short work yesterday of its first decision of the term, a per curiam summary reversal in Bosse v. Oklahoma (15-9173). Though the case touched upon an interesting and potentially controversial question—whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits victims’ family members from weighing in on the appropriate […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court has been relatively quiet since our last missive—we’re still waiting for the first signed opinion of the term—but we suspect your minds have been focused on other branches of government over the last few weeks anyway. But, while much of the country has been looking the other way, The Eight […]
Greetings Court Fans! The Court issued its first signed opinion of the term this week, a unanimous decision in Bravo-Fernandez v. United States (15-537) holding that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar the Government from retrying a defendant after a jury has returned irreconcilably inconsistent verdicts of conviction and acquittal, and the convictions are […]
Greetings, Court Fans! The Eight continue to churn out unanimous decisions to start the Term. This Update will cover four of them—Salman v. United States (No. 15-628), clarifying the “personal benefit” element of insider-trading law; Shaw v. United States (No. 15-5991), clarifying that the bank fraud statute applies even when a defendant seeks only to […]
Greetings, Court Fans! And Happy New Year! Yes, most of us kicked off 2017 over a week ago, but The Eight reassembled for the new (calendar) year yesterday, and rang it in with a summary reversal. We’ll cover that decision and a late-breaking stay order in a case involving racial gerrymandering in North Carolina below. […]
Greetings, Court Fans! For those of you who spent the last six months (since cert was granted in Lightfoot v. Cendant Mortgage Corp. (No. 14-1055)) just dying to know whether the sue-and-be-sued clause in Fannie Mae’s charter grants federal courts jurisdiction over all suits involving the mortgage giant, have we got a treat for you: […]
Greetings, Court Fans! Raisins, radioactive wrists, Red Roof registries, and reformatory roughhousing were all on the Court’s radar Monday (it’s a very broad radar horizon), as it issued decisions in Horne v. Dep’t of Agriculture (14-275), holding that the seizure of personal property requires just compensation under the Fifth Amendment; Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment (13-720), […]
Greetings, Court Fans! In a week that saw the Court hold that facial challenges are available under the Fourth Amendment, that disparate-impact claims are available under the Fair Housing Act, and that tax credits are available on Obamacare’s Federal Exchanges, Friday took the progressive cake, when the Court in Obergefell v. Hodges (14-556), made marriage […]
Greetings, Court Fans! A few hours ago, the gavel banged a close to October Term 2014, after the release of the final three decisions of the term—Glossip v. Gross (14-7955), holding that the use of a particular drug in a three-drug execution cocktail likely does not violate the Eighth Amendment; Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona […]
Greetings, Court Fans! The last day of school is always anticlimactic, with finals done and yearbooks already signed. That may have described the atmosphere on First Street yesterday, but make no mistake: The Court ended October Term 2014 term with three decisions that would likely have been the highlights of a sleepier term. In this […]
Greetings, Court Fans! We’re back with our final Update of OT14, covering Glossip v. Gross (15-7955), a doubly divisive death-penalty case, and providing a roundup of the Court’s orders over the last few weeks. (Did you think we’d forgotten about cert grants in the midst of the end-of-term excitement? You were right.) The deep divisions […]
Greetings, Court fans! … und willkommen zurück! Oktober Term 2015 kicks off today with argument in OBB Personenverkehr AG v. Sachs (13-1067), a case which explores the contours of the commercial-activity exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and is an early frontrunner for the title of “most fun caption to say out loud.” But, […]
Greetings, Court fans! Was it Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr or Jon Bon Jovi who remarked, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”? (They both did!) Over the last few terms, we’ve encountered a few steady themes in the Supreme Court’s docket, among them: (1) The Court loves arguing about Obamacare (so much so, […]
Greetings, Court fans! If you blinked, you might have missed it, but the Court handed down its first signed opinion of the Term this week in OBB Personenverkehr AG v. Sachs (13-1067), unanimously holding that an Austrian railroad was immune from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”). Carol Sachs, a resident of Berkeley, […]
Greetings, Court Fans! While most of the Courtward attention this week was focused on oral arguments in Evenwel v. Abbott (14-940) and Fisher v. UT Austin (14-981), concerning “one person one vote” and affirmative action in college admissions, respectively, the Nine also found time to release another unanimous decision. This time it was Shapiro v. […]
Greetings, Court Fans! We’re back with the first contested decision of the term (as well as a very-much uncontested one). First, in DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia (14-462), the Court addressed for the third time in five years the latest fad in Federal Arbitration Act jurisprudence: whether to enforce a waiver of class arbitration in a […]
Greetings, Court Fans! … and Happy New Year! Judging by the votes in its first two decisions of (calendar year) 2016—an 8-1 decision striking down Florida’s capital sentencing regime and 9-0 decision addressing filing fees under the Prison Litigation Reform Act—you’d think The Nine had resolved to set aside their differences and work towards unanimity […]
Greetings, Court fans! Wiggin and Dana just opened a a shiny new office Washington, D.C., but it seems our arrival has been eclipsed by that of another force of nature in the nation’s capital. Perhaps anxious to skip town before it’s buried, the Justices have been especially busy in the last week, churning out three […]
Greetings, Court Fans! We’re back with summaries of the four signed decisions the Court handed down this week, which included a couple of biggies and a couple of quickies. The decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana (14-280) was a biggie, and not just because it retroactively applied the Court’s 2012 holding that mandatory sentences of life […]
Greetings, Court Fans! Who could have imagined a month ago that our summary of Justice Scalia’s dissent in Montgomery v. Alabama (14-280) would be our last opportunity to analyze an opinion from the Justice who, alongside Jackson and Holmes, will forever be remembered as one of the Court’s great writers? (Perhaps more than would have […]
Greetings, Court Fans! So many announcements since our last Update. The President announced D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland as his pick to take the late Justice Scalia’s seat on the Court; Senate Republicans promptly announced that they didn’t care; and, most importantly, Updater Kim Rinehart announced the birth of Baby Boy Rinehart #4. Congrats, […]
Greetings, Court Fans! More fun with an even number of Justices! The Court issued two orders today reflecting in different ways on the difficulties of deciding cases with a vacant seat. This morning, the Court released its much anticipated decision in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Ass’n (14-915), the case in which the Court appeared primed […]
Greetings, Court Fans! Here’s a line-up you don’t see in every (read: any) syllabus: “BREYER, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and GINSBURG and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. KENNEDY, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ALITO, J., […]
Greetings, Court Fans! The Eight found a whole lot to agree on in their last batch of decisions, unanimously holding state voting districts drawn to equalize the total population in each district (and not the number of eligible voters) do not violate the Constitution, that a sex offender need not notify his previous state of […]
Greetings, Court Fans! With roughly two months left in the term, the Supremes have kicked opinion production into high gear, issuing five decisions this past week. While many of us at Update were doing When Doves Cry, the Eight were busy taking on voter redistricting (Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission), the Full Faith and […]
Greetings Court Fans! After the deluge of cases last week, the Court took a breather and issued only one decision this week. However, eagle-eyed Update aficionados may remember that we still owe you one decision from last week. With that in mind, this week we take on two cases about politics, spanning from Iran and […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court returned to action yesterday with two quick-and-unanimous decisions on statutory construction, Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loans (13-684), addressing the time and manner for exercising the Truth in Lending Act’s right to rescind a home loan, and Whitfield v. United States (13-9026), on the scope of the federal bank-robbery statute’s “forced […]
Greetings, Court fans! We’re back with breaking news on the certiorari front, along with a summary of one of Wednesday’s decisions, Jennings v. Stephens (13-7211), on the application of certain longstanding principles of appellate procedure to habeas appeals. Cert first: The Court just this afternoon granted certiorari in all four pending same-sex marriage decisions—Obergefell v. […]