Tuesday round-up

By Nabiha Syed
on May 1, 2012 at 9:35 am

Yesterday the Court granted certiorari in just one new case, Chaidez v. United States, in which it will consider the scope of its 2010 decision in Padilla v. Kentucky, holding that criminal defendants receive ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment when their attorneys fail to advise them that a guilty plea will subject them to deportation. Lyle Denniston of this blog notes that Chaidez gives the Justices a chance to “settle a dispute among lower courts,” while at crImmigration, Cesar Garcia Hernandez also looks at the circuit split over the application of Padilla.  AFP (via Google News), UPI, Reuters, the Associated Press, Courthouse News, and JURIST also have coverage. [Disclosure:  Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, serves as counsel to the petitioner in this case.]

Commentary on the last scheduled oral argument of the 2011 Term, Arizona v. United States, the federal challenge to Arizona immigration law S.B. 1070, continues. Kenneth Jost, of the eponymous Jost on Justice, focuses on the Justices’ reactions to the argument, concluding that the “majority of Supreme Court justices seemed oblivious last week to the difficulties – and the strong likelihood that the Arizona law will inevitably put many U.S. citizens and legal aliens in holding cells for indeterminate periods with no legal justification.”

Briefly:

• In the National Law Journal, Alan Dershowitz and Ronald Rotunda argue that the Court should grant certiorari in Rubashkin v. United States, a case alleging prosecutorial and judicial misconduct arising out of an immigration raid.
• Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy reports that the Kentucky Supreme Court has issued its decision on remand from the Court’s decision last Term in Kentucky v. King:  the state court once again ruled in King’s favor, holding that the police officers’ entry into King’s apartment “was unconstitutional and not based on sufficient exigent circumstances.”
• The Bulletin, a publication of the American College of Trial Lawyers, reprints an interview with retired Justice John Paul Stevens.
• At the Daily Beast, Chris Geidner discusses Paul Clement’s position on federalism in some of his current cases.