Now that the real business of October Term 2010 is over, I just wanted to say a few words in praise of the cert pool. No, not that cert pool. The certpool.com, a website run by Austin appellate lawyer Don Cruse that tracks the progress of petitions by federal courts of appeals and by state […]
Author Archive | John Elwood
2,524 days
That is about how long it has been since DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel had a confirmed head. Jack Goldsmith resigned effective July 30, 2004. But the Senate has just confirmed Virginia Seitz by voice vote to be Assistant Attorney General for the Office, after a relatively “speedy” confirmation process lasting just under six months.* It may […]
Ward Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric
Back in April, Eugene blogged this book, written by my friend, fellow Justice Kennedy alumnus, and fellow Rolling Stones fan Ward Farnsworth, who is a law professor at Boston University. I have since been able to read the book, and add my enthusiastic endorsement. The book is divided into eighteen chapters, each of which analyzes […]
US v. Juvenile Male: It’s Baaaaack!
The government’s February 2010 cert. petition in United States v. Juvenile Male, 09-940, presents the question, “Whether application of the registration and notification provisions of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) to a juvenile who was adjudicated delinquent under the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act before SORNA’s enactment violates the Ex Post Facto Clause […]
“Extraordinarily Rare”
As Charlie Savage notes twice in the article Jonathan discusses below, the President and the Attorney General have the authority, in the hierarchical Executive Branch, to overrule the advice of OLC. But as the article also notes, it is “extraordinarily rare” for that to happen. When Senator Whitehouse asked me after a hearing in 2008 […]
A Good Term for the Federal Circuit on Patent Law
Going into this Term, the Federal Circuit had a fairly unenviable record—virtually every one of its judgments under review had been reversed or vacated since January 2008. The sole exception, last Term’s Bilski v. Kappos, was nominally an affirmance, but because basically no one on the Court agreed with the Federal Circuit’s rationale, “it did […]
Virginia Health Care Challenge petition for cert before judgment relisted
The Supreme Court has relisted the Commonwealth of Virginia’s petition for certiorari before judgment in Virginia, ex rel. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, Attorney General of Virginia v. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, 10-1014. The Court will take the matter up again at its April 22 Conference, and we may be hearing back […]
The Supreme Court’s relisted cases
I discuss the cases (apparently) relisted by the Supreme Court here. I’m in the process of adding a couple of state-court cases I mistakenly left off, including one interesting-looking case Greenwire’s Lawrence Hurley told me about involving a warrantless search of private residential property that a state court upheld as an “administrative” search. In particular, […]
Interesting Religion Cases at the Supreme Court’s Conference Friday
Cert was denied in Cooke v. Tubra, 10-559, but the Court has relisted in the other case I bored you about last week, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v EEOC, 10-553, suggesting the Court is taking a careful look at it. Hosanna-Tabor involves whether the judicially recognized “ministerial exception” to the Americans with Disabilities […]
Interesting Religion Cases at the Supreme Court’s Conference Tomorrow
By John Elwood on February 24, 2011 11:56 am in Religion, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Supreme Court
I see that two religion cases I’ve been watching are both on for the Supreme Court’s case conference tomorrow. Cooke v. Tubra, 10-559, which I’ve previously written about here, presents the question whether the First Amendment bars a pastor’s defamation claim against the church that employed him when the claim is based entirely on statements […]
Larry Tribe Caught Up in Post-Employment Restrictions in AEP Case
Lawrence Hurley at Greenwire (now up on the NY Times website) is reporting that the Justice Department asked that Professor Larry Tribe’s name be stricken from the brief he filed in American Electric Power v. Connecticut, 10-174, now pending before the Supreme Court, citing post-employment restrictions for former employees. In December, Tribe left DOJ after […]
The Supreme Court Today: Strong Words On Habeas
As an alumnus of the Ninth Circuit, Justice Kennedy has at times been particularly critical of that court when he thinks it has applied the law unreasonably. That was very much on display in Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in today’s decision in Harrington v. Richter, in which the Court held that the Ninth Circuit had […]
Supreme Court Relist Watch
I posted this week’s Relist Watch over on SCOTUSBlog, which has the virtue of (more or less) built-in hyperlinks to all the relevant documents. Three new relists this week, plus additional relists in three cases I’ve been watching. Let me know if you spotted a relist that I haven’t.
A Tradition Of Unanimity For Supreme Court Debut Opinions?
Over at the Blog of the Legal Times, Tony Mauro writes of Justice Kagan’s debut opinion today in Ransom v. FIA Card Services, N.A., She was joined by all her colleagues except for dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia, thus depriving her of the unanimity that the Court tries to achieve for a justice’s opinion-writing debut. This […]
Supreme Court Relist Watch
I am aware of four new relists today in paid cases. Those include: -the three Maxwell-Jolly cases, viz., Maxwell-Jolly v. Independent Living Center of Southern California, 09-958, Maxwell-Jolly v. California Pharmacists Assn., 09-1158, and Maxwell-Jolly v. Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, 10-283. All are from the Ninth Circuit, and all involve questions arising under 42 U.S.C. […]