Today, on the last day of this year's term, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its
opinion in
Ricci v.
DeStefano, the latest in the Court's line of decisions on
Title VII and the role of race in employment decisions. The famous case centers on white firefighters' claims of
race discrimination following the town of New Haven's decision to scuttle a
promotion exam after white test takers performed disproportionately better than black firefighters.
[more inside]
posted by Law Talkin' Guy
on Jun 29, 2009 -
89 comments
The current FCC case [
PDF] before the U.S. Supreme Court presents a fascinating dilemma for the judges:
how do you respectfully discuss the legality of profane words in the nation's highest court? And for reporters: how do you report on the specifics of the case? It seems decisions vary across publications:
NYT,
Washington Post (reg req),
LA Times,
Wall Street Journal,
Slate,
The Atlantic,
Bloomberg,
AP,
McClatchy. As for the judges themselves,
they opted to allow only substitute terms.
PDF transcript with word count at bottom.
Background.
posted by Tehanu
on Nov 6, 2008 -
26 comments
When Judges Make Foreign Policy. "In a globalized, post-9/11 age, decisions made by the Supreme Court are increasingly shaping America's international relations. When the next justice is appointed, our place in the world may well hang in the balance."
posted by homunculus
on Sep 29, 2008 -
11 comments
DrugPolicyCases.com - Yakov Spektor, a New York-based attorney, combed through two decades of US Supreme Court opinions "to discern certain trends in the Court's treatment of various issues" related to the War on Drugs. The collection of opinions are organized by
case,
author and
topic.
posted by daksya
on Nov 26, 2007 -
8 comments
Catherine Roraback was the only woman in her class at Yale Law School. She was a founder of the Connecticut ACLU, and a president of the
National Lawyers Guild. During her long career she defended labor organizers, immigrants, civil rights organizers, Black Panthers, and maybe most famously, Estelle Griswold before the United States Supreme Court in the case that legalized the distribution of birth control.
She died this week at age 87. [more inside]
posted by serazin
on Oct 24, 2007 -
19 comments
A very big day for the Supreme Court. In
Morse v. Fredrick, the Court ruled that a school could suspend a child for holding up a "Bong HiTs for Jesus" banner. (Previous post
here). In
Hein v. Freedom from Religion, the Court held that taxpayers lacked standing to challenged Faith Based Initiatives (
previous discussions). In
Wilke v. Robbins, the Court held that land owners do not have Bivens claims if the federal government harasses landowners for easements. In
FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, the Court held that the portion of the campaign finance law which had blackout periods before elections on issue advocacy advertising was an unconstitutional restriction of speech (
other). This Thursday, the Justices will deliver their last opinions of the term, including
a death penalty case and the
school assignment cases. (Opinions are .pdfs)
posted by dios
on Jun 25, 2007 -
224 comments
From the
guy who brought you the Whitewater scandal and the
impeachment of President Clinton for lying about oval antics in the Oral Office, a legal push to make the Supreme Court
just say no to "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." Ken Starr's
petition to the Court [PDF] makes clear that Starr believes this is no laughing matter, but a chance for the Court to make a landmark ruling that will give school adminstrators the power to limit student speech: "This case presents the Court with a much-needed opportunity to resolve a sharp conflict among federal courts
(and to eliminate confusion on the part of school boards,
administrators, teachers, and students) over whether the First
Amendment permits regulation of student speech when such
speech is advocating or making light of illegal substances."
posted by digaman
on Aug 28, 2006 -
131 comments
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court held in a
5-3 decision (.pdf) that police may not search a home if any inhabitant of the home is present and objects to the search, even if another inhabitant consents. The Court drew what it acknowledged is a “fine line” – if a co-inhabitant is at the door and objects, the police can’t enter; but if the co-inhabitant is somewhere else – even in a nearby police car – and has no opportunity to object, then police don’t need his or her consent. Chief Justice Roberts issued his first written dissent, blasting the majority’s “random” and “arbitrary” rule and suggesting that the ability of police to respond to domestic violence threats could be compromised. The
zingers in the footnotes may reveal “strains behind the surface placidity and collegiality of the young Roberts court.”
posted by brain_drain
on Mar 23, 2006 -
88 comments
The Fourth Amendment provides, in part, that "...no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause." The Supreme Court has issued its (yet another) 8-0
opinion, authored by Justice Scalia in the case of
United States v. Grubbs, overturning the Ninth Circuit
decision. Justice Souter filed a
concurring opinion.
Grubbs deals with the question of anticipatory warrants, and it is the first time that the Court has addressed the practice. It appears that under this ruling, preemptive warrants can issue without existing probable cause, but merely on the supposition that probable cause will exist in the future.
Some legal scholars had
anticipated that at least the
more conservative members of the Court would rule against anticipatory warrants. After all, under
Blackstone's analysis of the common law rule that contributed to the Fourth Amendment, as noted by Professor Orin Kerr in the
NYU Journal of Law and Liberty symposium on the subject, warrants "issue" when they are signed by the judge, and not when the precedent condition occurs. Professor Chris Slobogin
disagrees. Kerr has posted a preliminary
analysis of the decision on his new
blawg. The case has
previously been
discussed by the smart people over at the
Volokh Conspiracy.
posted by Pontius Pilate
on Mar 22, 2006 -
45 comments
David Garrow reviewed
Justice Blackmun's papers,
released to the public in 2005, and
concludes that towards the end of his career, Blackmun's clerks all but signed his opinions. In an
interview, discussing senility and Supreme Court Justices, Garrow argues that there has been "a dramatic increase over the last 35 or 45 years in the amount of the justices’ work that is performed by their law clerks," and recommends a "reduction to two or, even better yet, one clerk" from the four clerks available per Justice now. Garrow also comments on the now-deceased Chief Justice Rehnquist, who suffered from an
addiction to painkillers in the 1980s. Garrow's view is
controversial, though, and Legal Affairs published
several responses in the same issue. Other law professors have weighed in, including
Dan Markel,
Mark Tushnet, and some of the folks at the
Volokh Conspiracy. So how
large is the
impact of law clerks?
posted by monju_bosatsu
on Feb 15, 2006 -
63 comments
The
Oyez Project has placed online mp3s for
all of the arguments from the 2004 term of the United States Supreme Court. The 2004 terms spans all cases argued between October 4, 2004, and April 27, 2005, including
United States v. Booker and United States v. FanFan,
Roper v. Simmons ,
Raich v. Gonzales,
Kelo v. City of New London,
McCreary County v. ACLU, and
Van Orden v. Perry.
[slightly more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu
on Feb 7, 2006 -
25 comments
Grokster shuts down after their Supreme Court defeat [
pdf] this summer, Grokster has chosen to settle its case with MGM et al., admit to wrongdoing, and stop distributing its software.
Their website now displays the message: "There are legal services for downloading music and movies.
This service is not one of them.".
Another victoy for Hollywood in the intellectual property war.
Who's next?
posted by falconred
on Nov 7, 2005 -
32 comments
Only in 1967 did Loving v. Virginia overturn vigorously-enforced laws against interracial marriage in these 15 states--Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Only in 1964 did the
Civil Rights Act overturn laws against equal access to voting, public accommodation, and public education. Only in 1963 did the
Equal Pay Act mandate that men and women be paid the same wage for the same work at the same job.
History isn't a superhighway, leading us in straight lines toward utopia. We
fall back and we
move forward, but over the past fifty years, the United States has become considerably more inclusive and equality of access to opportunity has widened. Take a look at
this article from the
Atlantic Monthly in 1956--1956!--if you don't believe me.
posted by Sidhedevil
on Nov 4, 2004 -
190 comments
How I Lost the Big One Lawrence Lessig on losing Eldred v. Ashcroft: "We had in our Constitution a commitment to free culture. In the case that I fathered, the Supreme Court effectively renounced that commitment. A better lawyer would have made them see differently."
posted by ericost
on Mar 3, 2004 -
40 comments
A follow up on the debate concerning the Constitutionality of the pledge of allegiance. Apparently the Supreme Court is going to hear it.
posted by sourbrew
on Oct 14, 2003 -
26 comments
Are Corporations Legally Persons? Orthodoxy has it the Supreme Court decided in 1886, in a case called Santa Clara County v. the Southern Pacific Railroad, that corporations were indeed legal persons. I express that view myself, in a recent book. So do many others. So do many law schools. We are all wrong.
Mr. Hartmann undertook instead a conscientious search. He finally found the contemporary casebook, published in 1886, blew the dust away, and read Santa Clara County in the original, so to speak. Nowhere in the formal, written decision of the Court did he find corporate personhood mentioned. Not a word. The Supreme Court did NOT establish corporate personhood in Santa Clara County.
Pardon me while I go to the bookstore. This looks to be a book well worth reading. Imagine the US government controlled by the best interests of real people instead of corporations.
posted by nofundy
on Dec 27, 2002 -
25 comments
Three Supreme Court Justices publicy oppose executing teenage criminals. In a rare move, Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Stevens made a public statement in a delay request to state their opposition to executing someone who committed murder before the age of 18. With the Court already banning the execution of the mentally retarded this year, is this another sign of a soon-to-be next step in the abolishment of the death penalty? Or does the average American still believe that regardless of what time, when you do the crime you walk the line?
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Aug 30, 2002 -
49 comments
Scalia gives divinity school students a peek at what his activism is really about. I can't say it any better than he does so I'll quote: "The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible."
Of course we knew Scalia detested democracy on 12/12/2000 with his decision that infamous day but now he admits favoritism to theocracy.
posted by nofundy
on Jul 10, 2002 -
42 comments
