Publications
Greetings, Court Fans! We’re barely a week into the new Term, and already we have an opinion for you from Tuesday – although it’s just an unsigned per curiam opinion unanimously dispensing of a case without briefing or argument. Moore v. United States (07-10689) is a follow-up to last Term’s decision in Kimbrough v. […]
Greetings, Court Fans! The Court issued its first opinion of the Term today – a unanimous per curiam reversal in Dye v. Hofbauer (04-8384). (If this is any indication of how the new Chief will run the ship, we may be in for a very efficient term!) Dye claimed that the state prosecutor engaged […]
Greetings Court fans! After a long weekend, the Court issued one opinion today, an opinion that falls within the Court’s “9th Circuit error correction” jurisprudence. Before I begin, I note that given the brevity and simplicity of the opinion, Justice Breyer should be ashamed of taking over 2 months to issue this opinion. In United […]
Greetings Court fans! The Court took 3 new cases today. By my count, they still need around 3 or 4 cases to finish out this Term. Of course the big news at the Court is that the Solicitor General filed his briefs in the affirmative action cases yesterday. I haven’t read them yet, but thought […]
Greetings Court fans! Two criminal cases came down yesterday, along with one item of interest from the order list. I’ll begin with the cases. The big case yesterday was Crawford v. Washington (02-9410), a case briefed, argued, and won by a former colleague of mine — congratulations Jeff!! In this case, by a vote […]
Greetings, Court Fans! We have three decisions to report this week, as well as a few cert grants. On Tuesday, the Court issued a 5-3 decision (sans Justice Breyer) in Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. (06-43), one of the most important securities law cases to come out of the Court in a decade. […]
Greetings, Court Fans! Barring another unexpected quick per curiam ruling, this will be another quiet week for the Court on the opinions front. There are a number of interesting arguments this week, however, plus some cert grants and a doozy of a summary disposition, so read on for the details. The Court came […]
Greetings Court fans! Two more opinions today — and whopper opinions at that. One opinion (with all dissents) is 38 pages and the other is 83 pages (with an appendix!). Before I get to my “summaries” (I hope to sleep tonight, too!), it’s worth noting that after today, there are only two opinions outstanding from […]
Greetings, Court Fans, and welcome back to another Term of Supreme Court Updates! Once again, it seems like we just left you for the summer, but the First Monday in October is almost upon us. As in past Terms, when the Court issues an order or opinion, we will send an e-mail summarizing the […]
Greetings Court fans! Two opinions today, but first, as promised, more information on two cases that were granted on Monday: Hillside Dairy v. Lyons (01-950) and Ponderosa Dairy v. Lyons (01-1018): These cases, as suggested by the title, relate to milk. The questions presented are (1) Does Section 144 of the 1996 Farm Bill create […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court issued one per curiam opinion this week in Smith v. Texas, No. 04-5323, 543 U.S. __ (2004), a capital murder case in which petitioner challenged the validity of the instructions provided to the jury during the death penalty phase of his case. The Texas trial court instructed the jury to […]
Greetings Court fans! In its first Conference of the New Year, held earlier today, the Court granted cert in 9 cases, thereby making significant progress in filling its calendar for the Term. Ordinarily, the Court does not release its order list until the Monday after Conference, but to expedite briefing schedules, if only by a […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court is off to a quick start this year, issuing its tenth opinion today (as compared to three as of this date last year). In Lincoln Property Co. v. Roche (04-712), Justice Ginsburg, writing for a unanimous Court, resolved the issue of whether an entity not named or joined as […]
Greetings Court fans! Not much to report today: One case “resolution” and an order list. In Borden Ranch Partnership v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (01-1243), the Court issued a one-line per curiam affirming the Ninth Circuit’s decision by an equally divided Court. (Kennedy did not participate in this case; he must be feeling pretty […]
Greetings Court fans! One more cert grant from yesterday. (Oddly, the grant was tucked away on a miscellaneous order instead of placed on the regular orders list.) This case will be argued/decided next Term: Castro v. United States (02-6683): The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) imposes severe restrictions on the filing […]
Greetings Court fans! Three decisions today. Well, really, two decisions and one “resolution”: the Court issued decisions in United States v. Bean and Howsam v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., and “digged” (dismissed as improvidently granted) Abdur’Rahman v. Bell. With these decisions, the Court has only four decisions left from its October sitting. In Howsam (01-800), […]
Greetings, Court fans! We have a guest author this week: former Wiggin and Dana attorney and current Fordham Law professor Christian Turner. As the only person at the firm who figured out how to print cases double-sided to save paper, we knew he was the person for the job given the two EPA decisions that […]
Hi everyone! One new decision today, but first, for those of you handicapping the odds for retirements from the Court his year, note that the Chief did not participate in argument yesterday. (I couldn’t find out whether he participated today.) Stevens announced from the bench that the Chief was absent because he was still recuperating […]
Hi everyone, and welcome back from a long weekend! Today, the Supreme Court added a string of new cases to its docket, including three cases that promise to add some excitement to the Court’s Term: the University of Michigan affirmative action cases, and a case reviewing Texas’ anti-sodomy statute. With these grants, the Court has […]
Greetings, Court fans! Just a short update for the week of Thanksgiving, as the Court issued an order list yesterday that consisted of two new cert grants. The Court really does seem intent on increasing its docket this term, though we’ll obviously have to see if the additional cases yield actual decisions on the […]
Good evening, and welcome to another edition of Supreme Court updates. An especially warm welcome to the new “subscribers” to Supreme Court updates. For the newcomers, these updates are intended to provide a fast and friendly guide to orders and opinions issued by the Supreme Court, and therefore allow you to keep up with the […]
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Supreme Court updates! No opinions today, but three new “grants” for the docket (a big day for the Solicitor General’s office), and some business from last week. First, and most significantly, in United States v. American Library Assn. (02-361), the Court noted probable jurisdiction to review the […]
Greetings, Court fans! The Court appears to be enjoying a serious honeymoon period. The percentage of unanimous opinions so far has been astonishing, and even those with a dissent or concurrence lack the strident language we’ve seen in Terms past. This may be good for the Court and the country in a time of transition, […]
Greetings, Court Fans! We’re back with the two decisions from Wednesday, which deal with the accrual of a cause of action for false arrest and the conversion of bankruptcy proceedings from Chapter 7 to Chapter 13 under the Bankruptcy Code. We’ll cover false arrest first. In Wallace v. Kato (05-1240), the Court ruled that a […]
Greetings, Court Fans! This week will be a big week at the Court. For starters, on Wednesday the Court will hear arguments in the biggest cases of the Term, Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. United States (06-1196). The cases concern whether the Constitution guarantees alien detainees at Guantanamo the right to […]
Greetings, Court Fans, and welcome back for another Term of the Supreme Court Update! As hard as it is to believe, fall is upon us, and the Court is set to open the second Term of the Roberts era next week. As in past Terms, when the Court issues an order or opinion, we […]
Greetings, Court Fans! As promised, here is a follow-up to Tuesday’s update on the Court’s latest order list with the questions presented in Rompilla v. Beard, 04-5462. In that case, a Pennsylvania defendant received a death sentence after the prosecution argued that he was a violent recidivist who had killed someone only three months after […]
Greetings Court fans! This email should finish out all the opinions handed down in the last 2 weeks. The Court will sit tomorrow to hand down an order list (and possibly opinions), but that should be it for this coming week. Before turning to the opinions, the Court entered one order of interest Friday afternoon: […]
Greetings, Court fans! Today’s order list contains two items of note. First, in five cases led by Jackson v. Perry, 03-1931, the Court issued summary orders vacating a ruling by a three-judge panel of the Eastern District of Texas that upheld Texas’ new congressional redistricting plan. Texas gained two U.S. House seats after the […]
Greetings, Court fans! Before going on recess, the Court left us with one decision (an original jurisdiction case relevant to almost no one’s practice, but full of historical intrigue) and two cert grants. We don’t expect additional opinions until the week of the 14th, but we’ll keep you updated if anything surprising happens. The decision […]