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Thursday’s Supreme Court Watch and Open News Thread

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Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)

Today more decisions on the merit cases argued in the October 2012 term will be announced starting at 10am Eastern.

SCOTUS Blog for liveblog starting at approximately 9:00am Eastern.  

The 14 remaining cases in PDF format: Cases Remaining for October Term 2012.

Here is the summary of the cases many of us are watching closely:

Fisher v. University of Texas 11-345 CA5 Oct 10, 2012

Whether this Court’s decisions interpreting the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, including Grutter v. Bollinger, permit the University of Texas at Austin’s use of race in undergraduate admissions decisions. (Kagan, J., recused)

Hollingsworth v. Perry 12-144 CA9 Mar 26, 2013

(1) Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman; and (2) whether petitioners have standing under Article III, §2 of the Constitution in this case.

Shelby County v. Holder 12-96 CADC Feb 27, 2013

Whether Congress’ decision in 2006 to reauthorize Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act under the pre-existing coverage formula of Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act exceeded its authority under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and thus violated the Tenth Amendment and Article IV of the United States Constitution.

United States v. Windsor 12-307 CA2 Mar 27, 2013

(1) Whether Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws as applied to persons of the same sex who are legally married under the laws of their State; (2) whether the Executive Branch’s agreement with the court below that DOMA is unconstitutional deprives this Court of jurisdiction to decide this case; and (3) whether the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the United States House of Representatives has Article III standing in this case.

Some SCOTUS news and commentary, found on the Internets:

Kedar Bhatia from SCOTUSblog on the cases

… we expect the Court to issue all of these remaining decisions between tomorrow, Thursday, June 20, 2013, and the end of June, when the Court traditionally breaks for its summer recess.

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Voting Rights Act decision expected to be an emotional moment

Among those in attendance when the original act was signed in 1965 were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. At this February’s hearing, Representative John Lewis, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and Reverend Al Sharpton attended.

Section 5 made headlines in 2012 when the Justice Department used it to block voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina, two states that were under the preclearance doctrine.

In the past two decades, Justice Department officials have used Section 5 to block more than 2,000 proposed voting changes in the preclearance states.

Back in February, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy seemed skeptical that Section 5 was relevant in today’s world, as the law was written in 1965.

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The GOP Dilemma Over the Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court is poised to turn over a key portion of the Voting Rights Act, likely kicking it back to Congress, adding another burden for the log-jammed legislature.

It’s particularly heavy baggage for Republicans. While Democrats and civil rights groups stand largely united behind the broadest interpretations of the Voting Rights Act, for Republicans it’s a trickier matter. On one hand, they are eager to reach out to minority voters. They eagerly tout their charismatic, high-profile minority officeholders like Sens. Tim Scott or South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. If Congressional Republicans seem unwilling to rebuild the Voting Rights Act should the court curtail it, they risk being seen as indifferent or even hostile to minorities. On the other hand, the party’s Tea Party wing is likely to revolt if the Republican House they elected tries to re-establish what many see as a federal overreach. Already, Cruz has offered an amendment to address the Supreme Court’s decision in an Arizona voting rights case earlier this week that struck down a proof-of-citizenship requirement.

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OpEd: Affirmative action ruling contest: race vs. class

… the court is widely expected to roll back that decision. Such an outcome would shift attention more toward a less constitutionally controversial practice: giving a boost to socio-economically disadvantaged students, regardless of race.

If that happens, it would reflect more than just a more conservative makeup of the justices. Over the last decade, clogged social mobility and rising economic inequality have shifted the conversation on campuses and in the country as a whole.

As a barrier to opportunity, class is getting more attention, while race is fading.

“The cultural zeitgeist has changed,” said Peter Sacks, author of the book “Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education.”

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The Supreme Court Could Issue A Chaotic Surprise Ruling On The Defense Of Marriage Act


A lot of gay rights activists have predicted the Supreme Court will overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, which deprives gay couples of federal benefits associated with marriage.

But the court could surprise everybody by not ruling on the controversial case at all.

While it seems bizarre the Supreme Court would take on DOMA and then not rule on it, that’s a real possibility because Obama’s Justice Department refused to defend DOMA in court.[…]

So what happens if the Supreme Court just dismisses the case because of standing issues?

“It would be a really chaotic situation. It would be terrible,” UCLA Law professor Adam Winkler told Business Insider in an interview.

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Prop. 8 at the Supreme Court: What You Need to Know

Oral arguments touched on a number of issues: whether Prop. 8 proponents have standing to bring the case, how to define marriage, if procreation is connected to marriage and what the Constitution says. [….]

There are multiple possible outcomes of the Prop. 8 case. The court could potentially issue a sweeping ruling that overturns all same-sex marriage bans in the U.S.  However, what is more likely, according to many legal analysts, is that the justices will rule in such a way as to restrict the impact of their ruling to California, allowing other bans on same-sex marriage to stand.[…]

The justices could also decide that Prop. 8 proponents lacked standing to bring the case, which would vacate the 9th Circuit’s decision and uphold Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling that Prop. 8 is unconstitutional. That could leave the issue open to further appeals, with the ban’s supporters arguing that the District Court ruling should not apply statewide.

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Quick Links:

Poll: Majority Of Americans (54 percent) Say Homosexuality Is Not A Moral Issue

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) became the third sitting Republican senator to support marriage equality

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Feel free to add your own news and views and tasseography in the comment threads.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 52 Comments

52 comments

  1. JanF

    From SCOTUSblog FAQ

    Question:  How do you get the results in the cases?  Do you have someone in the courtroom?

    Answer:  No electronic devices are allowed in the courtroom, and therefore no blogging can be done from the courtroom.  Our reporter, Lyle Denniston, is in the press room.  At the same time that the Court begins to announce an opinion in the courtroom, the Court’s Public Information Office (PIO) hands out paper copies of the opinion to the reporters in the press room.  Lyle quickly reviews the opinion and then relays the outcome to the blog staff, who type the result into the live blog.  Because it can often take a few minutes for the author of an opinion to get to the bottom line while reading a summary of the decision in the courtroom, this means that we usually have the result in the case before the spectators in the courtroom.

    The opinions are usually available online, at the Court’s website, a few minutes after they are released at the Court.

  2. iriti

    I’ll be in a meeting when the decisions are released. Though honestly I’ll be a little surprised if we get any of the big ones today. I’m kinda predicting the last day of the session for most of the biggies.

    Of course I’ve been wrong before. Often.

  3. JanF

    This from the definition of Tasseography cracked me up:

    Tasseography (also known as tasseomancy or tassology) is a divination or fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments.

    The terms derive from the French word tasse (cup), which in turn derives from the cognate Arabic word tassa, and the Greek suffixes -graph (writing), -logy (study of), and -mancy (divination).

    There is no scientific evidence that the future can be determined through interpretation of these patterns.

  5. HappyinVT

    I was coming to do up a “Supreme Court Psych!” post under the assumption they issue rulings on the more “meh” cases.

    I have to think they’ll issue their ruling(s) on one or more of the high profile cases today.  It is June 20 for Pete’s sake; if nothing else they are running out of time.  It isn’t like they can do a Friday dump and hope no one will notice.

    Which begs the question: how do they decide which opinions to publish when?

  6. Its the Supreme Court Stupid

    reports that the Public Information Office only has two boxes of opinions.  From his long years of service as a SCOTUS reporter, that indicates that the Court will probably issue only 2 or 3 opinions today.

  7. JanF

    Per Kagan. The modified categorical approach does not apply to statutes that contain a single indivisible set of elements.

  8. HappyinVT

    owillis 10:07am via Web

    [tweet about sweet jesus just release all the scotus decisions you’ve written them already ffs]

  9. Its the Supreme Court Stupid

    5-3 with Sotomayor recused.  

    Since opinions are announced in reverse order of seniority, that means that a 3rd opinion, if there is one, would come from either Nino or the Chief.

  10. JanF

    American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant 12-133 CA2 Feb 27, 2013

    Whether the Federal Arbitration Act permits courts, invoking the “federal substantive law of arbitrability,” to invalidate arbitration agreements on the ground that they do not permit

    class arbitration of a federal-law claim. (Sotomayor, J., recused

    From Tom on SCOTUSBlog

    In Plain English, this means that if you have a contract with a business in which you agree to arbitrate a dispute but it says you can’t get together with other plaintiffs in a “class action,” that contract will be enforced, even if it may be too expensive for you to pursue your own claim given what you might win.

    Does that make you Happyer, Happy? 🙂

  11. HappyinVT

    JohnFugelsang 10:23am via Web

    Every time I see Jon Voigt on FOX I have to re-watch ‘Deliverance’ and root for the hillbillies.

    And I’m probably wrong for doing so.

  12. DeniseVelez

    WAPO

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

    The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the federal government may not force groups that receive funding for overseas anti-HIV/AIDS programs to adopt its views against prostitution and sex trafficking.

    The justices ruled 6 to 2 that a requirement in a multibillion-dollar anti-AIDS program that withholds funds from organizations that do not have a policy “explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking” violates an organization’s free-speech rights.

    Strange. It’s like skirting around the issue, by invoking free speech – which we as AIDS activists have been fighting about for decades – why should the religious right dictate AIDS policy?

    Its a public health issue, not a moral one.

    I need to go read the decision.

  13. JanF

    In Major Blow To Consumers, Supreme Court Protects Mega-Corporations From Liability

    With Thursday’s ruling, the court added small businesses to the list of aggrieved parties whose access to the courthouse has been foreclosed by boilerplate contracts that prohibit parties from filing their challenge as a class, or from otherwise alleviating the immense cost of filing their claims individually. This time, the litigants were small businesses taking on American Express, and their lawyer was none other than conservative powerhouse Paul Clement. Clement has argued many of the major conservative court wins of the past few years, and his argument on the side of the plaintiffs was probably the last best shot at curbing the Roberts Court’s total perversion of the Federal Arbitration Act.

    I thought this sounded familiar and it is an extension of the attacks on class action over the past few years:

    Earlier this term, the court turned back on procedural grounds a lawsuit alleging monopolistic practices by Comcast. A week after that, they turned back the claims of workers to challenge employer practices as a class. And in 2011, they issued one of the worst blows to consumer rights in years when they held that consumers challenging $30 fees could not sue together as a class.

    It sounds like the merchants who signed up with Amex were unaware of some of the terms because they didn’t read the fine print. A quick scan of the Internet discussion, pre-ruling, shows that the fees are higher, you can’t use your regular bank to process the transactions (merchants have to wait until the end of the month … with Visa/MC is is instantaneous) and the return policy leaves a lot of merchants in the lurch (Amex is very generous to their cardholders at the expense of the merchants).

    My solution: don’t accept Amex. Even the supposed “better class” you might draw in by accepting Amex will have an alternative credit card they can use to buy your products.

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