Yesterday, Justice Ginsburg announced the decision in Maples v. Thomas. For the second time in the last two years, the Supreme Court said that it matters when an attorney abandons their client. It Matters. For prisoners this is good news for those pursuing postconviction relief. The Court has long held that a criminal defendant has no right to [...]
Late on Thursday the Court issued an order laying out briefing deadlines for the parties and issues in the three Obamacare cases now before the Court on oral argument. Our own Kate Collister has been tracking these matters with the Clerk's Office, and she has posted her outline of the scheduling order at the Cockle Printing website. [...]
Pacific Legal Foundation today filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to review a Los Angeles City ordinance that deprives grocery store owners of the right to choose their own workforce. On behalf of the California Grocers Association—a trade group that represents some 600 grocery store owners in [...]
Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Kurns v. Railroad Friction Products Corp., No. 10-879, on whether the Locomotive Inspection Act preempts state-law tort claims relating to locomotive repairs. I had the honor of previewing the case at SCOTUS Blog today, which you can find here. Attorney David C. Frederick of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, [...]
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear argument in two of the most important criminal cases this Term: Missouri v. Frye, No. 10-444 and Lafler v. Cooper, No. 10-209. And both cases involve ineffective assistance of counsel claims. Both cases involve instances where defense attorneys must have been huffing glue. In Frye, the attorney failed to [...]
While Sean Bradley and I have been discussing the strip search case on this blog (here and here), others are talking about it at various forums. Adam Liptak at the New York Times and Mike Sacks at the Huffington Post cover the oral arguments. Sacks wrote that: "For the first time this term, Kennedy seemed to be [...]
This morning the US Supreme Court heard arguments in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders. While it sounds like a witchcraft trial, this is actually a case that asks whether or not the 4th Amendment restricts a jailor’s ability to strip search prisoners without any particular suspicion that the prisoner might smuggle contraband into the [...]
[The Supreme Court will hear argument today in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington, No. 10-945.] At 10:00 am Eastern Time, the Supreme Court will hear a case about personal autonomy, personal dignity, and a person's most private details. In prior cases addressing these themes, we've watched Justice Kennedy transform from a Law and [...]
Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, in this ABA Journal post, makes the case that this Supreme Court term will be a momentous one for the Kennedy Court. He notes that: Once more, as it has been for each of the last six years, it will be, from a practical perspective, the Anthony Kennedy Court. In ideologically divided [...]
Just how important are ineffective assistance of counsel claims to the administration of real justice in this country? And if we conclude IAC claims are vital to rectifying injustices committed on criminal defendants by incompetent attorneys, how far is society prepared to go to correct the errors of incompetent counsel? The Supreme [...]