Publications
Greetings, Court fans! The October 2010 Term officially ended yesterday, but we have plenty of decisions left to bring you. Our next two cases concern the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), which imposes a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence for unlawful possession of a firearm by a person who “has three previous convictions . . . […]
Greetings, Court fans! While we won’t be getting any new decisions, we’re still working our way through the old ones. This Update will cover: Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (08-1448), finding a California law limiting the sale of violent video games to minors unconstitutional (leading parents everywhere to groan); Chamber of Commerce of the United […]
Greetings, Court fans! I’m back to bring you recent Court orders, including six cert grants in: AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (09-893), which asks: “Whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts States from conditioning the enforcement of an arbitration agreement on the availability of particular procedures – here, class-wide arbitration – when those procedures are not […]
Greetings, Court fans! The summer deluge continues. This Update will cover four decisions: Berghius v. Thompkins (08-1470), holding that a suspect must speak-up in order to invoke his right to remain silent; Carr v. United States (08-1301), finding that the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act’s registration requirements for convicted sex offenders who travel between […]
Greetings, Court fans! I have 4 more decisions to bring you (which will bring us current through the end of last week): Krupski v. Costa Croceire S.p.A. (09-337), clarifying the test for determining when a plaintiff’s amended complaint adding a new party “relates back” to the original complaint for statute of limitations purposes; Hamilton v. […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court issued 5 decisions today, with the biggest news coming in New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB (08-1457), where an unusual 5 member majority of the Court (Justice Stevens, plus the conservatives) held that the NLRB acted without statutory authority during a two year period when it issued decisions without the […]
Greetings, Court fans! The June deluge continues, with the Court releasing four more decisions today. But this Update will bring you more on New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB (08-1457), as well as the other four decisions issued last Thursday: Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection (08-1151), where the Court […]
Greetings, Court fans! This Update with cover the four decisions from Monday, including a major arbitration ruling in Rent-a-Center, West, Inc. v. Jackson (09-497), a decision upholding a statute criminalizing the provision of material support to foreign terrorist groups even as applied to plaintiffs’ support for the groups’ lawful and humanitarian activities in Holder v. […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court just released its final batch of decisions, bringing an end to the October 2009 Term! With today’s batch and those remaining from last Thursday, I have eleven decisions left to bring you. I intend to break them up, sending several Updates. This Update – Part I – will cover the […]
Greetings, Court fans! As we continue to work our way through the Court’s final decisions of the Term, this Update will cover Christian Legal Society v. Hastings College of The Law (08-1371), finding that a law school’s failure to recognize a Christian student group that excluded gay students did not violate the First Amendment in […]
Greetings, Court fans! Hope you enjoyed a lovely holiday weekend. I’m back to bring you summaries of two more decisions: McDonald v. City of Chicago (08-1521), holding that the Second Amendment’s protection of an individual citizen’s right to bear arms is enforceable against the states and not just the federal government; and Free Enterprise Fund […]
Greetings, Court fans! This is will be the last Update of the Term, covering: Bilski v. Kappos (08-964), in which the Court declined to adopt a bright line test for determining the patentability of processes, Doe v. Read (09-559), finding that the public disclosure of referendum petitions generally does not violate the First Amendment (though […]
Greetings, Court fans! The October 2010 Term has arrived and the Justices appear to be chomping at the bit to get started. Instead of waiting for the traditional first Monday in October to release the first order list, the Court instead released a “miscellaneous order” last Thursday, with numerous cert grants. But before we get […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court released its first official order list of the Term on Monday. No new cert petitions were granted, but the Court did ask for the SG’s views in a number of pending petitions: Saleh v. Titan Corp. (09-1313), regarding the ability of former Abu Ghraib detainees to sue military contractors for […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court granted cert in seven more cases last week and another yesterday, covering topics ranging from criminal law, to patent law, to tribal sovereignty. Yesterday’s grant will provide another bit of insight into the Court’s views on executive power and on whether (and when) policy makers can be subjected to suit […]
Greetings, Court fans! In a week filled with election news and partisan grumbling, it is refreshing to conjure the image of Justices Scalia and Kagan skeet shooting together, a rumor reported in several news outlets in late October. We have no idea if the rumor is true, but find it fascinating nevertheless. We have a […]
Greetings, Court fans! We’re back with the first two decisions (one per curium, one unanimous) of the October 2010 Term. Wilson v. Corcoran (10-91) addresses the requirements for issuing a federal writ of habeas corpus, and Abbot v. United States (09-479) considers the application of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), which imposes a mandatory minimum sentence […]
Greetings, Court fans! Hope you enjoyed the holiday weekend. The Court returned today with three additions to its docket and two opinions regarding the denial of cert. The Court granted cert and consolidated AZ Free Enterprise v. Bennett (10-238) and McComish v. Bennett (10-239), both of which address the constitutionality of Arizona’s public financing laws, […]
Greetings, Court fans! We’re back with one opinion from last week, Los Angeles County v. Humphries (09-350), holding that plaintiffs suing municipal entities must show that their injuries were caused by a municipal “policy or custom” in order to obtain prospective relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We also have two new cert grants, and […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court has been relatively quiet heading into the end of the calendar year. We bring you a per curiam decision with no opinion, a handful of cert grants, a dissent from denial of cert, and two solicitor general invites. We’ll start with the decision, which came in Costco Wholesale Corp. v. […]
Greetings, Court fans! We’re back to bring you three decisions, a flurry of cert grants, and one dissent from the denial of cert. The Court released additional decisions yesterday, which we will bring you shortly. Justice Kagan penned her first opinion for the Court in Ransom v. FIA Card Services, N.A. (09-907), a rather bland, […]
Greetings, Court fans! Today’s Update will cover four cases: the biggie, Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP (09-291), holds that Title VII prohibits an employer from retaliating against an employee who reports discrimination by taking an adverse action against a person closely related to the complaining employee (here, firing the employee’s fiancé); Ortiz v. Jordan […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court added four more cases to its 2009 docket today, including Skilling v. United States (08-1394), where the Court will review the conviction of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling. That case presents two issues for review: “1. Whether, to convict petitioner of conspiring to commit wire fraud by depriving his […]
Court fans, I left out one important tidbit for the class action practitioners out there. Justice Kennedy, joined by the Chief and Justice Sotomayor, issued an opinion relating to the denial of cert in DTD Enterprises, Inc. v. Wells (08-1407), which raised the propriety of requiring a defendant in a class action lawsuit to […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court granted cert in three new cases this week, including Kiyamba v. Obama (08-1234), where the Court will consider whether the remaining Uighur Guantanamo Bay detainees, whom the government has deemed innocent of any wrongdoing, must be ordered released in the United States if no third-party country will take them (the […]
Greetings, Court fans! After a week-long hiatus, the Court issued another order list Monday, adding three more cases to its 2009 docket. For labor lawyers, New Process Steel, L.P. v NLRB (08-1457), will be the case to watch. The issue: “Does the National Labor Relations Board have authority to decide cases with only […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court issued a per curiam opinion this week, Bobby v. Van Hook (09-144), where it addressed the “ineffective assistance of counsel at the sentencing phase” defense. Van Hook was convicted for murder in Ohio state court, after he lured a homosexual man home from a bar, robbed, killed, and mutilated […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court issued another per curiam decision this week, as well as an order list. The decision came in Wong v. Belmontes (08-1263), a death penalty case, making its second trip to the Court. Belmontes killed McConnell by striking her on the head 15 to 20 times with a steel bar. […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court left us with a handful of interesting tidbits last week: a per curiam decision in Porter v. McCollum (08-10537), where the Court overturned a death sentence based on counsel’s failure to adduce sufficient mitigating evidence at the sentencing phase of Porter’s trial; statements “concurring in” and “respecting” the denial […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Term has begun in earnest, with the first four signed opinions released yesterday. They are an odd bunch, with two of the four failing to answer the questions presented. I’ll begin with those that did. The newcomer, Justice Sotomayor, authored the Court’s nearly unanimous opinion in Mohawk Industries, Inc. […]