Category Archives: Judicial

Supreme Court and Politics

By tmess2 | Published October 29, 2016

no_more_hate (2)In setting up the federal judiciary, the Framers wanted to separate the judiciary from politics to a certain degree.  By giving judges and justices an unlimited term, judges would be free from having to decide cases on what is currently popular.  Not that the courts would be absolutely immune from politics, but the influence of politics on the courts would be that elections to the “political” branches would be in the choice of new judges and justices to fill vacancies.  The courts would be “conservative” in the sense of reflecting the values of the time at which judges or justices were appointed with a gradual change reflecting changes in those values over time through the appointment of new judges and justices.  (On the Supreme Court, nine of seventeen Chief Justices served more than a decade, and thirteen of seventeen served more than six years.  Of the Associate Justices sixty-eight of one hundred have served more than ten years, and another thirteen have served more than six years.)

The fact that federal judges do not have to stand for election does not mean that judges are not political or aware of politics.  To ask that judges not view close legal issues through a certain political philosophy and that judges not be aware of the potential impact of decisions on elections is asking too much.  However, the Supreme Court wants the public to perceive that they are above politics and would prefer that the Supreme Court rank somewhat low on the list of important issues in any election.  This desire to “lay low” has been reflected in pushing off the arguments on the most controversial cases until after the election (or even later for cases that might currently reflect a 4-4 split).  Even in terms of which cases are being granted for review later this year, the Supreme Court was avoiding cases that were likely to generate headlines.  That changed yesterday when the Supreme Court issued its order reflecting which cases it had just accepted for full review.  While none of the cases on the list are surprises in terms of the Supreme Court granting review, two of the cases are highly controversial — one dealing with transgender rights and the other with sex offenders and the First Amendment — and most expected the Supreme Court to push a decision on reviewing those two cases until after the election, particularly with the election controlling who gets to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Continue Reading...

Also posted in Civil Rights, Elections, LGBT, Politics | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Supreme Court and Politics

The Supreme Fillibuster

By tmess2 | Published October 21, 2016

US SenateWhen Justice Antonin Scalia died, Senate Republicans announced that they would not hold hearings because of their belief — not supported by any precedent — that a lame duck president should not get to fill a vacancy during his last year in office.   Earlier this week, in a classic gaffe (i.e. he mistakenly told the truth), Senator John McCain announced that Senate Republicans intend to block any nominee that President Hillary Clinton might put forward.  While Senator McCain has attempted to walk back this statement, he revealed what many of us have known to be true all along — the Republicans do not have any problem with any specific nominee that President Obama has or that President Clinton might put forward; there problem is with losing the majority on the Supreme Court.

If the Republicans can keep their current Senate majority, the process of blocking all nominees is simple — although with potential political consequences.  They simply vote down any nominee.  Their problem is if, as current polls suggest, the Democrats regain the Senate majority for the next two years.  If that happens, we are potentially looking at the next conflict over the filibuster.

Continue Reading...

Also posted in Elections, Hillary Clinton, Senate | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The Supreme Fillibuster

Supreme Court Preview Part Four — Cases in the Pipeline

By tmess2 | Published September 24, 2016

On Monday, the Supreme Court will meet in what is commonly called “The Long Conference” — reflecting the fact that its been three months since the Justices last met to consider petitions for review (officially petitions for a writ of certiorari) creating a long list of cases to consider.  Maybe Monday afternoon, maybe later in the week, the Supreme Court will announce which cases it will hear arguments on.  The following Monday (October 3), the new term officially begins and the Supreme Court will issue an order list which will, at the very least, contain a long list of the cases that it has decided not to review on the merits.

Predicting which cases the Supreme Court will actually take is almost impossible.  The Supreme Court receives almost 10,000 petitions per year but only grants full review on about 70-80 cases.  Of course, a lot of the petitions are clearly long shots — many written by the petitioners themselves — that simply assert error in the lower courts without giving any reason why the case matters to anybody other than the petitioner.  But even after eliminating the chaff, there are way more cases that raise significant issues than the Supreme Court will take.

Continue Reading...

Tagged , , | Comments Off on Supreme Court Preview Part Four — Cases in the Pipeline

Supreme Court Preview Part Three — December (?) Arguments

By tmess2 | Published September 22, 2016

As noted in Part One of this series, the Supreme Court has not yet announced its December argument schedule.  However, they have eleven cases that they have accepted for review and six argument dates in December.  While it is possible that the Supreme Court might postpone some of these cases to January, there are enough available argument slots in December to hear all of the cases currently on the argument docket.

Looking at the cases accepted, there are the three cases from last January that have been postponed to December (discussed more below).  In addition from the cases accepted in June, there are two re-districting cases, an intellectual property case, a bankruptcy case, a capital punishment case, an anti-trust case involving credit cards, an immigration case, and a federal criminal case.   The contentiousness of these eleven cases might result in some of these cases being pushed even further back in the hope that a ninth justice might arrive this term.

Continue Reading...

Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Supreme Court Preview Part Three — December (?) Arguments

Supreme Court Preview Part Two: October and November Arguments

By tmess2 | Published September 20, 2016

Officially, the annual term of the Supreme Court begins on the first Monday in October.  This year, due to Rosh Hashanah falling on that date, arguments for the year will begin on October 4.  Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court released the argument calendar for October (eight cases over three days) and November (ten arguments over six days).  As noted in Part One, the Supreme Court seems to be postponing the cases most likely to be decided 4-4 for as long as possible in the hopes of getting a ninth Justice soon.  That does not mean, however, that there are no cases of potential significance in these two months.

Tagged | Comments Off on Supreme Court Preview Part Two: October and November Arguments

Supreme Court Preview (Part One): Eight is Not Enough

By tmess2 | Published September 17, 2016

Time for the annual Supreme Court preview.  When we last left the eight, they had punted several significant cases on a 4-4 tie or with very narrow decisions that avoided the main issue in the case.  They had also only granted review on twenty-nine cases for the fall.   The delay in filling the vacancy was clearly causing problems.

Summer at the Supreme Court tends to be quiet.  Most of the summer work is internal.  Parties file the briefs for the fall cases and petitions for review on new cases and responses to those petitions.  The justices and law clerks spend most of their time reading these materials with the clerks writing memorandums summarizing the petitions for the justices and discussing the cases to be heard in the fall with their own justice.  The big actions during the summer are decisions on stay applications and the release of the argument schedule for the fall.

Continue Reading...

Also posted in Merrick Garland | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Supreme Court Preview (Part One): Eight is Not Enough

Photo ID and the Courts

By tmess2 | Published August 7, 2016

Vote!In recent years, the Supreme Court has had its version of an “election rule.”  The essence of this rule is that the Supreme Court does not like last second changes to the election process.  Regardless of whether the change comes from state election authorities changing the state’s procedure or a court decision resolving a challenge to those procedures, the Supreme Court prefers to “freeze” the status quo far enough in advance of the election so that voters know the rules and can take steps to comply with those rules.  Perhaps in response to this implied vague deadline (a little less implied in the case of Texas where the Supreme Court indicated that they would consider intervening in there was not a court decision by the end of July), the last several weeks of have seen court decisions in multiple cases involving multiple states seeking to impose a requirement that voters present photographic ID to vote in-person.

Also posted in Civil Rights | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Photo ID and the Courts

Supreme Court — End of Term

By tmess2 | Published June 30, 2016

The Supreme Court recessed for the summer after their last conference (the wrap-up conference) on Monday afternoon.  After the order from that conference was issued on Tuesday morning, the Supreme Court has filled twenty-nine of the thirty argument slots for the fall.  (A little below average as they normally have some carry-over for the January argument session. )

Monday featured three significant opinions — the Texas abortion case, Governor McDonnell’s corruption case, and an interesting case involving gun control and domestic violence.  These cases saw some interesting combinations of Justices as very different judicial philosophies combine to reach the same result.

Continue Reading...

Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Supreme Court — End of Term

Affirmative Action Survives — Barely

By tmess2 | Published June 25, 2016

On Thursday, in a rather surprising turn of events, the Supreme Court upheld the admission policy of the University of Texas at Austin against a complaint that it unconstitutionally favored African-Americans.  This decision is surprising both because of the outcome, but also because of who wrote the opinion.

The basics of admission at UT is that the first cut of admissions comes from the “top 10%” program.  If you go to high school in Texas and finish in the top 10% of your school and want to go to UT, you are automatically accepted (actually due to the cap on the number of admissions under this program, it is now closer to a top 7% program).  This part of the admissions process fills about 75% of the slots.  If you are home schooled, or out-of-state, or finish outside the top ten percent (whether that is 4th out of a graduation class of 30 or 150th out of a graduating class of 160), you have to compete based on a combination of your academic index (your GPA plus SAT score) and your “personal achievement index” (a score based on the admission essay, extracurricular activities, demonstrated leadership, and other factors with race being one of the other factors).    Because race can impact the personal achievement factor, a white student who did not qualify under the top 10% program challenged her failure to make it under this second admissions process, claiming that it violated the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment.

Continue Reading...

Also posted in Civil Rights | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Affirmative Action Survives — Barely

We Need Nine — Immigration Edition

By tmess2 | Published June 23, 2016

It has been four months since the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia.  Over that four months, we have gotten some proof about how important a full Supreme Court is to a functioning court.  Today, we got more reminders.

In March, we learned that, in two cases heard before Justice Scalia’s death, the remaining eight justices were deadlocked 4-4, meaning that the decision of the lower court stood.  One of these two cases involved a First Amendment challenge to mandatory union dues for public employees.  The petitioners (the parties that lost in the lower court) in both cases have asked for rehearing, and the Supreme Court has not yet decided whether to grant rehearing.  Today, we learned that two more cases had ended in a 4-4 tie.  One of the two was a December case involving the jurisdiction of tribal court.  The other (and the first deadlocked case argued after Justice Scalia’s death) was United States v. Texas — the immigration policy case.  (Additionally, today saw a decision in the Affirmative Action case which I will discuss later this weekend.)

Continue Reading...

Tagged , | Comments Off on We Need Nine — Immigration Edition