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Author: Kalvis Golde

By on Mar 2, 2020 at 5:38 pm
A new bill introduced in the House of Representatives on Friday aims to increase transparency within the federal judiciary, and the Supreme Court in particular. The 21st Century Courts Act, House Resolution 6017, introduced by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., and Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., is a pared-down version of the 2018 ROOM Act. That bill called for a judicial code of conduct covering the Supreme Court but written by the Judicial Conference of the United States, as well as live-streaming of judicial proceedings, but failed to earn enough support to receive a full vote in the House. The bill’s biggest change for the Supreme Court would be its requirement that the court make same-day audio of oral arguments available within a year, and live audio available within two. (It proposes a faster timeline for appeals courts, some of which already offer live audio.) Currently the court publishes a transcript of each argument on its website on the day of the argument, and an audio version by the following Friday. Occasionally, such as for the travel ban case in 2018, the court has granted requests for same-day audio.

By on Mar 1, 2020 at 12:00 pm

On Monday, the court released orders from the February 28 conference, granting four cases for a total of three hours of oral argument for the 2020 term. The justices heard oral argument in Nasrallah v. Barr and Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam. On Tuesday, the justices...

By on Feb 26, 2020 at 9:00 am

We live-blogged as the court released opinions from the 2019 term on Wednesday, February 26, in Intel Corp Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma, Holguin-Hernandez v. United States and Shular v. United States. SCOTUSblog is sponsored by Casetext, the most intelligent way to search the law. ...

By on Feb 25, 2020 at 9:00 am

We live-blogged on Tuesday, February 25, as the court released opinions in McKinney v. Arizona, Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Hernandez v. Mesa and Monasky v. Taglieri. SCOTUSblog is sponsored by Casetext, the most intelligent way to search the law. ...

By on Feb 23, 2020 at 12:00 pm

On Monday, the court released orders from the February 21 conference, granting one case — Fulton v. Philadelphia — for oral argument next term and calling for the views of the solicitor general in a pair of consolidated petitions. The justices also heard oral argument...

By on Feb 16, 2020 at 12:00 pm

On Monday, the Supreme Court was closed for Presidents' Day. On Friday, the justices met for their February 21 conference and released the argument calendar for the April 2020 sitting....

By on Feb 14, 2020 at 1:00 pm
The Supreme Court is the court of last resort for death row inmates around the country. The vast majority of death row inmates are convicted and sentenced under state death penalty laws, and so most of the capital appeals that the court reviews concern state statutes. The federal death penalty is given in a small number of cases and carried out in even fewer. As a result, the history of the court’s interaction with federal capital appeals is brief, although the Department of Justice has recently announced its intention to resume federal executions, prompting challenges that are currently pending. (For a detailed primer on the role of the Supreme Court in capital cases, see here.) In 1972, the court ruled in Furman v. Georgia that all death penalty laws, both federal and state, were unconstitutional because of the penalty’s arbitrary and discriminatory administration. States were quick to pass new death penalty laws to address the concerns; the court upheld some of those statutes four years later in Gregg v. Georgia. Congress did not reinstate the federal death penalty until 1988, however, and then only for some drug-related crimes. A full-fledged reinstatement arrived with the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994, which dramatically expanded the list of federal crimes eligible for the death penalty and outlined procedures for administering it.

By on Feb 11, 2020 at 6:50 pm
Justice Clarence Thomas, known for his reticence during oral arguments at the Supreme Court, has maintained a steady public profile during the court’s 2020 winter recess. A new documentary about his life, based largely on interviews with Thomas and his wife Ginni, hit theaters in early February. The week before, Thomas spoke at a Federalist Society event in Florida, where he questioned a measure to bar judges from joining ideological groups like the society or its counterpart on the left, the American Constitution Society. On Tuesday, the justice made his most recent appearance, dedicating the state’s Nathan Deal Judicial Center in his home state of Georgia. The state legislature named the building for Deal, Georgia’s governor from 2011 to 2019, in part for Deal’s work on criminal justice reform. An introductory video at the dedication ceremony highlighted the role of prison labor in building furniture and other items for the new building. Thomas began his remarks with a note of thanks for the gavel, fashioned by state prison inmates, he had been given the night before: “I can’t tell you how touched I was by that.”