Trevor Burrus and I discuss highlights of last Supreme Court term (and preview a few cases from next term) on the latest installment of Cato Audio (34:09).
Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Court’
Supreme Court and constitutional law roundup
- Litigating the boundaries of religious liberty: Tunku Varadarajan interview/profile with Becket Fund’s Montse Alvarado [WSJ] And mark your calendar for Sept. 28, Cato’s inaugural day-long conference “The Future of the First Amendment” at which I’ll be on a panel on religious liberty;
- What Hamilton wrote: archive find casts further doubt on theory President isn’t “officer” subject to Emoluments Clause [Brianne Gorod, Take Care] Broad definition of emoluments in suit against Trump might trip up its own lead plaintiff, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal [Michael Stern] “There is nothing wrong with Justice Gorsuch speaking at the luncheon despite its venue.” [Steve Lubet on Trump-Hotel-as-speech-venue flap]
- Duties of celebration: Cato amicus urges SCOTUS to consolidate Arlene’s Florist with Masterpiece Cakeshop case [Ilya Shapiro and David McDonald]
- Maryland gun ban unconstitutionally broad, argue Randy Barnett and Dave Kopel in Cato amicus [Shapiro, Kopel, and Matthew Larosiere] Restore rights to a rehabilitated felon? Sure, says Maryland, but not gun rights. Constitutional check [Shapiro]
- Federalist Society’s annual Supreme Court roundup speech for last term, by Miguel Estrada, is now online. Unfinished business: 10 certiorari petitions from last term SCOTUS justices should have granted [Mark Chenoweth, WLF] And don’t forget to mark your calendar for Cato’s Constitution Day Sept. 18;
- By 2019, constitutional law discussions at America’s top law schools were being conducted entirely in emoji [@tribelaw on Twitter on “First or Second Amendment, pick one” question of whether persons assembling for political protest have right to bear arms at the same time]
The year of movable statues: what to do with Roger Taney?
My new op-ed at the Frederick News-Post on Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to support removal of the statue of Roger Taney from its place in front of the Maryland State House:
Taney did many things in an illustrious legal career but is remembered for only one: the disastrous Dred Scott decision, which served to entrench slavery….
Change in the display of public memorials is natural and inevitable….
No one has erased him from the history books — the Dred Scott case itself makes sure of that.
Plus: some thoughts from Andrew Stuttaford. From Atlas Obscura, displaced statues as a subject of historic preservation. Related: “My favorite Civil War era monuments are the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.” [@david_tanenhaus on Twitter]
After SCOTUS rulings, less forum-shopping
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods, cases filed in the Eastern District of Texas fell from 36% of all patent filings to 21% [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] “Quick trials, big verdicts favoring consumers, and a state law that allows nonresidents to easily join mass litigations made St. Louis a destination of choice for attorneys going after companies that do business nationwide. Those days may be over” following the high court’s decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb [Margaret Cronin Fisk and Jef Feeley, Bloomberg]
More: Multidistrict litigation sought in more patent cases [Amanda Bronstad, Texas Lawyer]
Vicarious criminal liability for managers: how we got there
In Dotterweich v. U.S., a 1943 case that established a persistent and troublesome doctrine in criminal law, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that a pharmaceutical company manager could appropriately be convicted over the misdeeds of an underling without having to show that he knew of the violation, participated in it, intended it, or was negligent in failing to prevent it. My new Cato post summarizes new research by Craig Lerner on Dotterweich’s trial, in which the court seemed to struggle with the idea of imposing vicarious guilt without mens rea (a guilty state of mind). I also link to the chapter I wrote on white-collar prosecution in this year’s new edition of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers.
Supreme Court could revisit forced advocacy dues for public workers
A 1977 Supreme Court decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, upheld the constitutionality of forcing public employees to fund (through union dues) advocacy they might not like. More recently the Court has questioned the reasoning of Abood in Knox v. SEIU (2012) and Harris v. Quinn (2014), although the trend stalled in last year’s 4-4 split in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. Now the Court could revisit the issue by agreeing to review a Seventh Circuit case from Illinois, Janus v. AFSCME [Ilya Shapiro and Frank Garrison, Cato]
Supreme Court roundup
- A strong 9-4 showing: “Even in a ‘Slow’ Year, Cato Continues Its Winning Ways at the Supreme Court” [Ilya Shapiro]
- Court follows up Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections with another race-and-redistricting case, Cooper v. Harris [SCOTUSBlog symposium]
- “What Do We Mean By a “Pro-Business” Court — And Should We Care?” [James Copland, Case Western Law Review]
- Kennedy’s opinion for Court cites Cato amicus brief in Packingham v. North Carolina, ruling unconstitutionally overbroad law preventing nearly all social media access by released sex offenders [earlier]. Speech limits aren’t the only unconstitutional restrictions such offenders face. High court should take Karsjens case next [Ilya Shapiro and David McDonald]
- CALPERS v. ANZ Securities Inc.: pendency of class action does not suspend three-year time limit for filing individual securities actions [Kevin LaCroix/D & O Diary, Federalist Society podcast with Mark Chenoweth]
- Why I’m not joining the fury over Justice Gorsuch’s dissent in Pavan v. Smith, the case over Arkansas’s handling of birth certificates post-Obergefell [my Twitter sequence, more from Erica Goldberg]
Land use and environment roundup
- “Trump promises ‘massive permit reform’ in infrastructure bill” [Melanie Zanona, The Hill]
- Murr v. Wisconsin: landowner subjected to forced multi-parcel grouping loses regulatory takings case 5-3, Kennedy writing [opinion, Cato brief, Roger Pilon (Penn Central takings case was a train wreck, and SCOTUS should stop trying to build on it) and more, Ilya Somin (multi-factorial test proffered by Kennedy “a recipe for confusion, uncertainty, and constant litigation”), Gideon Kanner, Robert H. Thomas/Inverse Condemnation]
- Congressional Delegation: ‘Our Home State Of Utah Has Repeatedly Fallen Victim To Overreaching Use Of The Antiquities Act’ [Aileen Yeung, Western Wire]
- “Towards a Private Flood Insurance Market” [Ike Brannon, Cato]
- Attorneys general of 21 states hail EPA move to rescind overreaching WOTUS (Waters of the United States) power grab [West Virginia Record, earlier]
- More research on how urban building restrictions drive up housing prices, harm younger and poorer residents and newcomers, misallocate labor geographically, widen inequality [Tyler Cowen on work by Andrii Parkhomenko, Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti, Lyman Stone]
Supreme Court will hear cakeshop case
By agreeing to hear the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Supreme Court has set up a potentially major decision on “whether applying Colorado’s public accommodations law to compel the petitioner to create expression that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage violates the free speech or free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. My link-rich Cato post also goes on to discuss the sleeper case of Pavan v. Smith, which offers a glimpse of how a post-Scalia conservative wing may address issues following in the wake of Obergefell.
P.S. More from Erica Goldberg on the hubbub over Gorsuch’s dissent in Pavan.
Supreme Court will look at partisan gerrymandering
The U.S. Supreme Court has now agreed to hear a much-watched Wisconsin case, Gill v. Whitford, inviting it to reconsider its position that the Constitution does not create a judicial remedy for partisan gerrymandering. I wrote a post for Cato on the case and its implications, cautioning that the euphoria in some circles about an impending change in the high court’s jurisprudence is at best premature. The Justices by a 5-4 margin stayed the lower court order from Wisconsin, which hints, at least, that Justice Anthony Kennedy might not be persuaded by the advocates hoping to get him to open wide the door he left ajar in his 2004 concurrence in Vieth v. Jubelirer. [cross-posted and abridged from Free State Notes, which has more on the Maryland implications]