Monday round-up
on Jun 2, 2014 at 8:34 am
At ISCOTUSnow (video), Steven Heyman analyzes last week’s decision in Wood v. Moss, in which the Court held that Secret Service agents who ordered that protesters be moved away from where President George W. Bush was eating are entitled to qualified immunity from the protesters’ viewpoint discrimination lawsuit. At the International Municipal Lawyers Association’s Appellate Practice Blog, Lisa Soronen looks at both the decision in Wood v. Moss and the Court’s opinion in Plumhoff v. Rickard, holding that police officers’ use of deadly force by police officers to stop a high-speed chase did not violate the Fourth Amendment. She characterizes the result in both cases as “unsurprising” because “the lower court errors in both cases were obvious.”
Briefly:
- In the National Journal, Sophie Novack and Sam Baker report that the abortion-rights movement “is trying to roll back a wave of state laws that have successfully curtailed access to abortion, and their best hope for doing so . . . is likely a ruling from the Supreme Court.” However, they note, “it’s also a move that could backfire: The advocates have no guarantee the Court will rule in their favor.”
- At Bloomberg View, Ramesh Ponnuru responds to Linda Greenhouse’s column (featured in Thursday’s round-up) on polarization and the Court, arguing that Greenhouse “accidentally proves conservatives right.”
- At the Constitutional Accountability Center’s Text and History Blog, Brianne Gorod urges the Court to overrule its decisions in Williams v. Florida, in which the Court held that the Sixth Amendment does not require juries to have twelve members, and Apodaca v. Oregon, holding that non-unanimous jury verdicts in state courts do not violate the Constitution.
- At Fortune, Roger Parloff urges the Court to grant review in the case of James Risen, a reporter who has been subpoenaed to testify at a criminal trial regarding one of his sources.
