Thursday round-up

By Kiran Bhat
on Sep 8, 2011 at 8:42 am

Writing for the Opinionator blog of the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse looks at the role of courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, after September 11 and concludes that the Court “merits a place in any 9/11 anniversary reminiscence” because it “called both other branches to account. It kept the fabric from fraying further.”  Greenhouse also links the Court’s early rulings on Guantanamo to recent decisions by federal courts striking down laws restricting the right to abortion.

Ilya Shapiro of Cato@Liberty discusses the amicus brief that Cato filed in PPL Montana, LLC v. Montana, one of this Term’s merits cases; in the brief, Cato urges the Court to assess the navigability of rivers on a “section-by-section” basis and thereby “send a strong message to state courts across the nation that judicial usurpations of property rights are just as unconstitutional as those undertaken by other branches of government.”

Briefly:

• Paul Bass of the New Haven Independent reports that Frank Ricci, the lead petitioner in Ricci v. DeStefano, recently appeared alongside lead respondent and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano during the local firefighter union’s endorsement ceremony for DeStefano’s re-election campaign.
• Writing for LegalNewsline, John O’Brien reports on a petition for certiorari filed recently by a group of pharmacies, who are asking the Court to review a decision by the Fourth Circuit that would allow West Virginia’s Attorney General to prosecute a case against the pharmacies in state, rather than federal, court.
• In her column for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Linda Campbell revisits the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas.