Publications

Greetings Court fans!   While we were all out eating turkey, the Court was busy, granting cert in 6 cases and issuing 2 opinions. Here’s the rundown: Both opinions are unanimous reversals of the 9th Circuit. The first, United States v. Banks (02-473) is a Fourth Amendment case. The police had a warrant to search […]

Greetings Court fans! We’re in the homestretch of the Term, and so unsurprisingly, the Court issued five opinions on Monday. They still have 32 opinions outstanding, though, so they have some work to do before the end of June. For those of you keeping score, after Monday, the Chief is in the lead with 7 […]

Greetings, Court Fans!   We’re back with a short Update based on the Court’s order list from Monday. There were no new grants from the Court’s “long conference” of all the cases that piled up over the summer. Instead, the Court denied review in some 1800 cases and issued various orders in other pending cases. […]

Greetings Court fans!   Nothing of interest on the order list today, but three separate dissents from denials of cert. The first two dissents are in Torres v. Mullin (03-5781). In July 1993, Oklahoma arrested Torres, a Mexican national, and charged him with murder. In direct violation of Torres’ rights under the Vienna Convention on […]

Greeting Court fans!   As promised, the four remaining opinions from earlier this week. I’ll do my best to be brief. First, let’s fly through Olympic Airways v. Husain (02-1348). In this case, the Court construed Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention to affirm a judgment finding Olympic Airways liable for Dr. Hanson’s death on […]

Greetings Court fans!   Only two opinions this week. I would have sent this email out last night, but I couldn’t stay awake through the ERISA opinion. To avoid falling asleep again tonight, I’ll begin with the ERISA case, Raymond B. Yates, M.D., P.C. Profit Sharing Plan v. Hendon (02-458). The facts of this case […]

Greetings, Court fans! After the long winter recess, the Court has reopened for business, with nine cert grants on Friday and one summary disposition today. Given the numbers, and the likelihood that we’ll see some opinions tomorrow, we’ll keep our synopses short. The most newsworthy of the grants is Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, […]

Greetings, Court fans!   So, it is indeed true. Justice O’Connor has formally announced her retirement. According to the AP news reports, the following is from her letter to the President: “This is to inform you of my decision to retire from my position as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United […]

Greetings, Court fans!   I’m back to bring you the remaining two decisions and order list.   In its second First Amendment decision of the week, Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum (07-665), the Court considered the distinction between government support/restriction of private speech (subject to scrutiny under the free speech provision of the First […]

Greetings, Court fans, and welcome back from the long recess! The Court returned yesterday, and so far we have three opinions and a few cert grants. Today, the Court issued its decision in Johnson v. California (03-636), in which a 5-3 majority (no Chief) held that the California prison system’s race-based initial cell assignment policy […]

Greetings Court fans!   Just when we were getting bogged down in this mid-March snowstorm, Justice Scalia comes to the rescue with a lively opinion denying Sierra Club’s motion for recusal. This is clearly an issue that has bugged Scalia; I hope he feels better getting this off his chest. As you probably know, Sierra […]

Greetings, Court fans!   We have much to report, including two retaliation decisions, a Voting Rights Act case, and two criminal decisions. We’ll get right to it.   It was no mistake that the Court’s retaliation decisions were released on the same day. In CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries (06-1431), the Court, led by Justice […]

Greetings, Court Fans!   Today, the Court released its opinion in one of the more controversial cases of the Term, Gonzalez v. Oregon (04-623), the Oregon assisted suicide case. In a 6-3 decision, the Court, led by Justice Kennedy, found that the Attorney General lacks authority under the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”) to prohibit doctors […]

Greetings Court fans! The Court has less than one month left in its Term, and yet today it issued only one opinion. Very odd. They must have some serious disagreements brewing on their remaining cases. The opinion today is in Yarborough v. Alvarado (02-1684), a habeas case out of the Ninth Circuit. With that limited […]

Greetings Court fans!   Only one grant on Friday’s order list: Benitez v. Wallis (03-7434). In this case, the Court will consider the legality of Benitez’s continued detention by the INS in light of the Court’s recent decision in Zadvydas v. Davis (2001). Benitez is a Mariel boatlift Cuban, and he argues that the presumptive […]

Greetings, Court fans!   Sorry for the delay, but there’s excellent news to report: Ken’s son, Evan Cooper Heath arrived on Monday, November 13th. Ken and his newly expanded family are doing great. (For those of you who think that Court-watching in the fall is just not that exciting, we’re doing our best to keep […]

Greetings, Court Fans!   It’s now crunch time: three weeks left in the Term, and twenty-five cases remain. The Court started whittling away at the outstanding cases by issuing two interesting criminal opinions today.   First, in Hill v. McDonough (05-8794), the Court unanimously held that a death-row inmate seeking to challenge the method of […]

Greetings, Court Fans!   We’ll polish off the four remaining opinions from last week before turning to the deluge expected this week (we have four more already!).   Hudson v. Michigan (04-1360) delivered a serious blow to criminal defendants and brought us perhaps the most divisive decision of the Term (thus far). The 5-4 decision, […]

Greetings, Court Fans!   So, the relatively boring unanimity of this Term finally has given way as the Court releases opinions in “harder” cases. Last week brought us Hudson, and Monday brought us the first official “mess” of the Roberts era in Rapanos v. United States (04-1034) and Carabell v. United States Army Corps of […]

  Greetings, Court fans!   We’ve got a lot of news to report. The Court issued two opinions Monday and one other since our last Update, as well as a summary order and a number of cert grants.   In Carey v. Musladin (05-785), the Court addressed the standard for granting a habeas petition under […]

Greetings, Court Fans!   There shouldn’t be any opinions this week (at least not in argued cases), but the Court did issue a significant order list yesterday. The Court noted probable jurisdiction (the functional equivalent of a cert grant) in four related appeals regarding the constitutionality of Texas’ 2003 congressional redistricting plan, which has been […]

Greetings Court fans!   Three grants off the order list, and unlike some of their recent grants, these cases actually look somewhat interesting:   1. Smith v. Jackson (03-1160): In this case, the Court will resolve a circuit split on whether “disparate impact” claims are cognizable under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.   2. […]

Greetings, Court fans! Before heading off for a month-long recess, the Court hit us with four opinions and an order list. Two of the opinions were per curiam, however, so the Update shouldn’t be too daunting. In Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Banks, 03-892, 543 U.S. __ (2005), a unanimous Court (minus the Chief, who […]

Two opinions so far this week, with possibly more to come tomorrow!   Today, the Court issued its latest ruling in an original jurisdiction case, Kansas v. Colorado, No. 105 orig., which involves a longstanding dispute between the two states over the use of the Arkansas River (AKA “the Nile of America”). Kansas won a […]

Greetings, Court Fans!   We’re back to finish up the Term! Because this is a lengthy Update (three opinions and nine cert grants), we should do a few things at the outset. First, we want to thank all of you for following the Court with us this Term — we very much appreciate your responses, […]

Greetings, Court Fans! The Court hit us with three more opinions today, in what has been a very big week for employment lawyers. Yesterday, the Court authorized retaliation actions for Title IX whistleblowers, and today it held that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) authorizes disparate-impact claims . In Smith v. City of Jackson, […]

  Greetings, Court fans! The Court is working overtime to get those final opinions out – causing us to do the same. Here are the rest of the decisions from Monday in what was a mixed week for criminals. In Samson v. California (04-9728), the Court ruled 6-3 that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit […]

Greetings, Court fans!   Here’s the second (and final) installment from Monday’s torrent of opinions. We’ll get right to it.   In Deck v. Missouri (04-5293), the Court held (7-2) that the Constitution forbids the use of visible shackles during a capital trial’s penalty phase unless the use is justified by “an essential state interest” […]

Greetings, Court fans, and welcome to another season of Supreme Court Updates! A lot has happened since we last cluttered your inbox, most notably and sadly the untimely passing of Chief Justice Rehnquist and John Roberts’ re-nomination to the Court, this time to succeed Rehnquist as Chief rather than replace Justice O’Connor, who may or […]

Greetings, Court Fans! We’re barely a week into the new Term, and already we have our first ruling in an argued case – though the per curiam ruling in Board of Education of the City School District of New York v. Tom F. (06-637) itself offers very little of note. The one-sentence opinion states that […]