Author: Rachel Sachs

Briefly:

• The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and Associated Press have further coverage of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s oral argument earlier this week on the question whether the Court’s recent decision in Miller v. Alabama, holding that the Eighth Amendment prohibits mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile homicide offenders, applies retroactively. Cormac featured other coverage in his round-up yesterday.
• This blog continues its symposium on the Voting Rights Act with posts by Hans von Spakovsky, Adam Cox and Thomas Miles, and Guy-Uriel Charles.
• This blog’s symposium on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin features a response by Roger Clegg to an earlier post by Inimai Chettiar.

On Wednesday, a federal judge on the United States District Court for the District of Arizona declined to block temporarily the enforcement of the “show me your papers” provision of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, the only challenged provision of the law that the Supreme Court did not strike down on preemption grounds in its decision this past Term in Arizona v. United States. Coverage comes from Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), NPR, the Associated Press, JURIST, Thomson Reuters, and Politico.

Briefly: The Advocate and JURIST have further coverage of the petition for certiorari filed in Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management, a challenge to the provision of the Defense of Marriage Act that prevents married same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits. Cormac also covered the petition in yesterday’s round-up. This blog has an...

Coverage of the upcoming Term continues to focus on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, in which the Court will consider the University of Texas’s use of race in its undergraduate admissions process. Additional coverage of the amicus briefs filed earlier this week in support of the university comes from Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin at the Legal History Blog. The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times discusses the federal government’s amicus brief in support of the university, praising what it describes as the government’s “welcome and forceful endorsement of affirmative action” and arguing that “an important precedent shouldn’t fall simply because of a personnel change on the Court.” Additional commentary comes from Mark Ladov at The National Law Journal, Stan Simpson at the Hartford Courant, and Michael King at the Austin Chronicle.

Today’s coverage of the Court focuses on the myriad amicus briefs filed earlier this week in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, in which the Court will examine the University of Texas’s use of race in its undergraduate admissions decisions. JURIST, CBS News, and Politico have coverage of the federal government’s brief in support of the university, which Kiran also featured in yesterday’s round-up. Harvard Magazine has coverage of the brief in support of the university filed by the eight Ivy League schools and six other schools, as well as the brief in support of the university filed by the deans of Harvard and Yale Law Schools. The Associated Press (via the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post) reports on the amicus briefs in support of the university filed, respectively, by the leaders of the University of California system and by fourteen states, while Reuters reports on the involvement of Asian-American groups in the case.

Briefly:

• This blog continues its symposium on the Supreme Court and the 2012 Election with a post by Chris Gober, who considers the potential political ramifications of some of the Court’s most polarizing cases from this past Term.
• Over at Cato@Liberty, Ilya Shapiro discusses the supplemental amicus brief that the Cato Institute recently filed in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, in which the Court will consider whether the Alien Tort Statute applies to conduct that occurs in another country; the brief argues that “the Founders’ understanding of jurisdiction rested on the nexus between territory and sovereignty and that the law of nations as of 1789 recognized a territorial nexus between the state asserting jurisdiction and the claim asserted.”
• Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Bill Mears of CNN, and Alexander Burns of Politico have additional follow-up coverage of Joan Biskupic’s interview with Justice Ginsburg, which Cormac featured in yesterday’s round-up.

Briefly:

• At this blog, former Solicitor General Charles Fried analyzes what he describes as the "four surprises" of the Court’s decision in the health care cases.
• Chris Geidner of Buzzfeed reports on the brief filed before the Court by the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in the challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act.
• The Blog of Legal Times previews a panel discussion this Friday at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting, in which Justice Ginsburg and Solicitor General Don Verrilli will join others in discussing the relationships between operatic arias and the law.
• Writing at Reason, Damon W. Root creates a list of the ten most libertarian Supreme Court decisions. At the Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin has additional commentary on Root's list.
• At ACSblog, Nicole Flatow reports on an ACS video webinar with Valerie Newman on her experience representing the respondent at oral argument this past Term in Lafler v. Cooper, in which the Court expanded the right to effective assistance of counsel into the plea-bargaining stage.

With coverage of the Court's health care decisions continuing to wane, reporting largely focused on the Congressional Budget Office's report on the effects of the Affordable Care Act, which Conor featured in yesterday's round-up. Additional coverage comes from NPR, The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), The Christian Science Monitor, the Consumer Law & Policy Blog, and The Wall Street Journal Law Blog. In other health care news, Lyle reports on a petition for rehearing filed recently by Liberty University in its challenge to the Act.

Coverage of the Court continues to focus on the health care decision, with commentators primarily discussing the substance of the Medicaid ruling. Writing at both Dorf on Law and Verdict, Neil Buchanan argues that if the Court's reasoning behind its Medicaid ruling were extended to other areas of law, "this new and expanded concept of coercion-versus-consent could revolutionize the American legal system." Additional commentary on the Medicaid decision comes from Renee Parsons at the Huffington Post. Nicolaus Mills, writing in The Philadelphia Inquirer, focuses more broadly on Chief Justice Roberts' role in the case.

Once again, the health care cases continue to receive considerable media attention. In an issue brief for the Heritage Foundation, Nina Owcharenko argues that the Court’s decision “to strike down the Medicaid mandate on the states as unconstitutionally coercive . . . likely puts the law on a faster pace to collapse.” On the other hand, in an op-ed for the Baltimore Sun, James Burdick contends that the Court’s decision has “cleared the way” for universal health care.