Legal minds on legal matters and whatever else strikes our fancy.
In what is undoubtedly the biggest win for inmates serving time in deplorable prison conditions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the Prison Litigation Reform Act DOES authorize the release of prisoners to remedy the egregious violation of prisoners’ constitutional rights. The case is Brown, et al. v. Plata, et al., No. [...]
Many have argued that the Supreme Court’s process for choosing cases is too secretive, allows too much influence to the Court’s clerks, provides too many opportunities to business interests and too little opportunities to public interests, and should be changed. To alleviate some of these concerns, scholars have proposed changes to the Court’s certiorari [...]
Opinions and Orders of the Court Kentucky v. King, 09-1272, May 16, 2011 The Fourth Amendment generally bars warrantless searches, except under certain exigent circumstances, such as the imminent destruction of evidence. An exception to the exception applies when the police create the exigency by acting or threatening to act unconstitutionally. In [...]
We filed a merits brief on May 19, 2011: the Petitioner's Brief in Douglas v. Independent Living Ctr. of So. Cal., Inc., Cal. Pharmacists Ass’n., and Santa Rosa Memorial Hosp., Nos. 09-958, 09-1158 and 10-283. The petition raises the question of whether the Supremacy Clause creates a private cause of action to enforce a provision of [...]
Have you ever wondered about the women who ran the households of the Founding Fathers while they Declared Independence, fought the Revolutionary War, drafted and ratified the Constitution, and then governed the fledgling United States? We know quite a bit about Abigail Adams, in large part because of the vibrant letters she [...]
So, when does a patient become involuntary? This isn’t an idle question; there’s an awful lot of government-run health care facilities, and the question of voluntary vs. involuntary patients is pretty important. I just finished a brief to the 8th Circuit on this question. First, in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of [...]
I ran across a rather strange case in the Seventh Circuit involving several defendants on trial for various tax, mail and wire fraud counts. This was far from a routine tax case. To say the case was complex is kind of an understatement—there were over 1 million documents related to the trial. During the middle [...]
We filed a merits brief this week. The Petitioner's Brief in Reynolds v. United States, No. 10-6549, filed on May 12th, addresses standing under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.
Opinions and Orders of the Court Stevens v. Mississippi, 10-10390, May 10th The Court declined to stay the execution of Benny Joe Stevens, a convicted quadruple murderer. Later that day, Mississippi executed Stevens. As noted in Crime & Consequences and SCOTUS Blog, Stevens had claimed that Mississippi unlawfully changed its execution procedures, [...]
I just finished reading Randy Barnett’s book Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty. While the book has received its share of criticism (see here), including by one of the CockleBur contributors (see here), I found the book very interesting. I cannot say that I agree with all of it or [...]