It has been clear for some time now that activists have moved from impugning the character of conservative Supreme Court nominees to delegitimating them as sitting justices. Curt Levey has an interesting article idescribing these tactics and the possible motives of the attackers: Ganging Up on Justices Thomas, Scalia, and Alito. Here is how the […]
Archive | Supreme Court
A Variety of 5-4 Opinions
Bullcoming v. New Mexico was not the only 5-4 decision handed down by the Court today — and it did not present the only 5-4 lineup. Here are the others. In Stern v. Marshall, the latest installment of the Ana Nicole Smith inheritance saga, the Court split along traditional ideological lines, with the conservatives prevailing. […]
Formalists Prevail in Bullcoming v. New Mexico
Among the six merits opinions released by the Supreme Court this morning was Bullcoming v. New Mexico, a Confrontation Clause challenge to the admissability of a forensic report without calling the author of the report to testify. This was a significant case for Court watchers because the case raised issues that have divided the Court […]
An Environmental Grant
Most eyes have focused on the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Wal-Mart v. Dukes and AEP v. Connecticut. Yet the Court has also continued to grant additional cases for next term. Among Monday’s grants was PPL Montana PLC v. Montana, the first (and thus far only) environmental case on the docket for OT 2011. It’s […]
Thoughts on AEP v. Connecticut
As I noted below, today in American Electric Power v. Connecticut the Supreme Court held unanimously that the Clean Air Act displaces federal common law public nuisance claims against emitters of greenhouse gas emissions. It was easy for the justices to agree on this point. Indeed, this outcome was clearly compelled by applicable precedent given […]
Court Unanimously Rejects Class Action Against Wal-Mart
In another big decision this morning, the Supreme Court held unanimously against class action plaintiffs seeking to sue Wal-Mart for gender discrimination in Wal-Mart v. Dukes. While the Court split 5-4 over the scope of the decision, the Court was unanimous that the class should not have been certified. This outcome is not-so surprising given […]
Supreme Court Unanimous that Clean Air Act Displaces Climate Suits
Today the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously in American Electric Power v. Connecticut that the Clean Air Act displaces suits alleging global warming constitutes a public nuisance under federal common law. As I’ve discussed before (see posts here, here and here), this conclusion was hard to avoid once the Supreme Court held (erroneously in my […]
Republican presidential candidates pledge to appoint judges to overturn the unconstitutional anti-abortion law they will sign
By David Kopel on June 18, 2011 4:42 pm in Abortion, Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Federalism, Fourteenth Amendment, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Judicial Nominations, Originalism, Supreme Court
At CNN, Politico, National Review Online’s “The Corner” blog, and at the Susan B. Anthony List website, you can read the developing controversy over some Republican presidential candidates’ refusal to sign the SBA Lists’ “2012 Pro-Life Citizen’s Pledge.” Signers thus far are Bachmann, Gingrich, Pawlenty, Paul, and Santorum. The items on the pledge are: FIRST, […]
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 […]
“Fidelity to principles of federalism is not for the States alone to vindicate”
Today the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion in Bond v. United States, holding that an individual indicted for violating a federal law has standing to raise federalism-based challenges to the relevant statute. The outcome of this case was not much in doubt, as the federal government had conceded that the judgment of […]
Rise of the Dictionaries
In today’s NYT, Adam Liptak reports on a new study by CUNY’s Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier and Arizona superior court judge Samuel Thumma, published in the Marquette Law Review, documenting the increasing use of dictionaries by Supreme Court justices in their opinions. In May alone, the justices cited dictionaries in eight cases to determine what legislators […]
No Opinion in Flores-Villar
Today the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Flores-Villar v.United States, 4-4. (Justice Kagan did not participate.) The case raised the question whether the Court’s decision in Nguyen v. INS allowed for gender-differentiated citizenship rules that are not grounded in biolgocial differences between men and […]
Elwood Wins
This morning the Supreme Court issued a near-unanimous opinion in Nevada Commission on Ethics v. Carrigan, reversing the Nevada Supreme Court. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion for the Court. Justice Kennedy concurred, and Justice Alito wrote a separate opinion concurring-in-part and concurring in the judgment. The Court held that Nevada’s Ethics in Government Law was […]
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 […]
Justice Scalia’s Sykes Dissent
Justice Scalia’s dissent in Sykes v. United States chastises his colleagues for continuing a futile effort to bring clarity to what constitutes a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act. It begins: As the Court’s opinion acknowledges, this case is another in a series.” More specifically, it is an attempt to clarify, for the […]