Medellin v. Dretke: This morning, the Supreme Court DIG'ed (dismissed as improvidently granted) Medellin v. Dretke, a closely watched case about international law and the death penalty. A DIG basically just takes the case off the Court's docket without issuing an opinion. The Court's decision to DIG this case isn't a big surprise; I attended the oral argument, and that certainly sounded like the direction the Justices were heading in at the time. Lyle Denniston's March 28th post following the oral argument offers some details.

  UPDATE: It turns out that there was a lot more drama involved than I thought. The DIG was accompanied by 40 pages of writing in the case. A 5-Justice majority issued a short per curiam opinion; Justice Ginsburg concurred, joined by Scalia; O'Connor dissented, joined by Stevens, Souter and Breyer; Souter filed a solo dissent; and Breyer filed a dissent joined by Stevens. What to make of all of this? Julian Ku offers his thoughts over at Opinio Juris.